About that song, it might be of interest to mention that Peggy also recorded it during her Black Coffee album sessions on Decca, but it was not included in the album. It's a faster, more overtly upbeat version than the one with Shearing on Capitol. Here's the Capitol version:
Anyone else frustrated by the relatively narrow scope of The Singles Collection? The producer put a disclaimer in the book saying that doing a full box of all Peggy's singles would make it very large and too expensive, but I think there was a market for it. The collection is heavy on the early years and the Capitol sides (the latter an obvious preference since it was an EMI release). Of course, any long Peggy release is better than none. I just felt the box stopped short of its potential. Also, Peggy lovers were teased with the statement "there were alternate takes of many, but none are included here", the exception being the unissued doo-wop version of "Uninvited Dream", a mistake that I welcomed. One of my main reasons for buying this set was for that master, as well as the booklet, discography, artwork and photos.
I just posted over in the "Artists that need a Bear Family box" thread and I listed Peggy as one that should certainly get that treatment. Tons of albums, singles, alternate tracks, so on and so forth.
Even if BF can't unearth studio chatter or alternate takes of Peggy Lee, just having all her masters in one place is desperately needed. It would probably take 5 boxes, since the lady has over one thousand masters, but I'm sure they'd sell. The Iron Mountain confusion of the Capitol holdings would make it difficult to find the session reels that have alternates, but it would be possible given the proper amount of time and effort. No alternates from the Decca years have survived, but just having all of Peggy's Decca masters in chronological order would be an awesome thing.
Currently listening to this. I love Peggy so much. I need to finish my collection. There are a lot of holes in the mid to late 1960s albums that I don't have, plus the Decca stuff.
Speaking of which, does anyone have all the late '60s albums? I've heard some are essential and others are of interest to completists only. But then again, I imagine a lot of you reading this are completists! In any event, my collection also has nothing between 1966-1972 and I'd welcome suggestions on which ones to get.
Steve did a real fine job with that compilation. You need the Decca stuff. Run, don't walk, to your favorite record store tomorrow. First thing after eggs and bacon!
@Ridin'High has all of them and would be able to fill you in on the essential items. I recommend Pass Me By and Guitars a la Lee. Don't know many beyond those two, and the others I've heard I dislike, through no fault of Peggy's but for the changing landscape of pop and adult contemporary. Peggy was into keeping up with new styles and fresh musical ideas; while I have tremendous respect for an artist that keeps an open mind, my interest falls short after 1965, with a few exceptions, of course, and shifts instead to almost exclusively country artists. Peggy's funk album from the 70s is an interesting curiosity, although it's really a compilation of leftovers IIRC.
I do have Guitars ala Lee and Norma...from North Dakota, and I love both. Most of what comes in between them has a mixed-at-best reputation, from what I've heard.
Post-Guitars Ala Lee, on Capitol, yes? If we leave out Norma Deloris, we would be talking about 7 original albums: Somethin' Groovy Two Shows Nightly A Natural Woman Is That All There Is? Bridge Over Troubled Water Make It with You Where Did They Go? I'd find it difficult to make generalizations about this bunch. Lots of variety there, both stylistically and production-wise. Personal preferences? I like all of them (the rock-ish Bridge possibly the most, the '70s pop-ish Where the least). And I do consider all of them worth listening -- but of course I would say so, being as I am a big fan of the singer ... I must also say that I like most of the musical styles that were in vogue in the late 1960s, and that definitely makes a difference. Part of the mixed reputation that these albums have acquired is definitely due to biases against the music of the period. (You know: each of us like what we like, dislike what we dislike, and that's that. Many of the early complaints about these albums came from fans of jazz and the Great American Songbook, who weren't happy at the sight of albums of mostly contemporary material, with no more than two or three songs of older vintage. Those early complaints stuck, making the album's reputation permanently suffer.) I guess that the main point to be made about them is that they reflect not only Peggy's ease with then-current musical approaches but also Capitol's changing policies at that time. New corporate leadership had taken over, and vintage artists at the label were requested to work with new producers, in an attempt at making their work more overtly contemporary. In Peggy's case, in-house producer Dave Cavanaugh had been her old reliable guy for many years, as well as a man that she considered a dear friend. Somethin' Groovy (1967) was the last original album that he was able to do with her. Starting with Two Shows Nightly, she was paired with relatively young, mostly independent producers-arrangers who were hit makers or in vogue during this period. Not sure what else to say ... Maybe we should talk about each album individually, and include some YouTube audio clips, representative of each album's sound? Let's try that.
Musically, this album is characterized by the combination of strings with harmonica. You get a healthy mix of ballads and uptempo numbers -- just about even in quantity. My favorite track is the rarely heard ballad "(There's) No Fool Like an Old Fool." But let's sample a better-known ballad: Among the other ballads, there is also a solid version of "Release Me," a countrypolitan tune that I have never been able to like. In fact, I used to dislike that tune so much that I cringed when I first saw it in the track listing of Somethin' Groovy. And, the first time I heard her sing it, I wasn't a happy camper. But, after three or four additional playings, I started to love her version, and these days I don't even mind any other versions of "Release Me" all that much. So, she sort of redeemed the song for me. (I've even heard others call "Release Me" this album's best track, and they could well be right.)
If you are not into harmonica playing, Somethin' Groovy might not be for you. Toots Thielemans is all over the album. "Makin' Whoopee" is one of the LP's uptempo numbers, and a showcase for his instrument. I enjoy it. Peggy and Toots reprised the number for one of her TV specials: This TV version is mainly humorous. The album's version is mainly sexy. Both versions are playful. Among the other uptempos, I particularly enjoy "It Might as Well Be Spring."
I've tried to get into Norma Deloris, but the song selection is just too uneven. Although A Song For You is a standout.
Do we know if this worried Peggy at all? She kept an open mind when it came to the changing musical landscape and was more than willing to "climb ev'ry mountain" (so to speak), but she was also very professional, well-rehearsed and had very specific ideas about how she wanted the arrangements to sound when she turned up for recording sessions and concert rehearsals. I have no doubt Peggy returned to Capitol and stayed there for as long as she did because she trusted folks like Cavanaugh and felt a sense of loyalty to them. I wonder if getting teamed up with young "in vogue" producers that could be (and probably were) flashes in the pan caused her alarm. I enjoyed your comments about this period, Ridin'High. I'm guilty of having a bias for Peggy's output from this era; I don't enjoy where Pop and A/C was headed. But, there are always exceptions. Throughout the late 60s and early to mid 70s, I seem to stick with country music because it wasn't as "affected" until the late 70s when it changed, too... Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. I welcome open and overly detailed discussion about these Peggy albums because in truth I haven't given them much chance. Of the 7 listed above, I've only heard Two Shows Nightly and Is That All There Is? I enjoy the former and initially the latter but it wore out its welcome after repeated listening. The arrangements and material are just too disparate for Is That All There Is to flow properly. It feels more like a compilation album to me. My hope is that my curiosity is piqued enough to give the others a chance. Except Peggy and Toots. I enjoy harmonica, but for some reason that clip of "Makin' Whoopee" drives me crazy. It's probably because I've never liked the song. I will reserve further judgment until I hear the full Somethin' Groovy album, though.
One more thing worth mentioning about Somethin' Groovy, before moving on to the other albums. There is only one CD in which it is available. This one: which is a pity, because its sound quality is just so and so. With proper remastering, I believe that this album would gain a fair number of new fans; it does have its fair share of breathtaking vocal and musical touches. As for the other piece in this twofer, Extra Special is a 1967 Capitol LP, but it is not an original album. It is instead a worthwhile compilation, combining then-recent singles with previously unissued songs. Curiously, the LP includes at least one song from each year of the 1960s, up to 1966. So, it's kind of a "yearbook," if you will, too. At the time of its release, Extra Special was the only LP in which you could find numbers such as Peggy Lee's catchy take on the "Doodlin' Song" and her version of the lyric that she set to Duke Ellington's music for the movie Anatomy of a Murder, "I'm Gonna Go Fishin' ". Among the three previously unissued songs were "The Shining Sea" and this tasteful, ruminating version of "Oh You Crazy Moon":
Peggy's recording of "Oh, You Crazy Moon" is haunting and breathtaking. I don't have a copy of Extra Special and now I'm left trying to remember how I came to have this track in my music library. The iPod shuffles it quite a bit. I guess my iPod has impeccable taste. Was it on a Starbucks compilation? I've got a few of those.
Let's figure it out! The likeliest suspect would be the following Capitol 2-CD compilation: Yes? No? (If not, there are other options to be mentioned.) By the way, Peggy actually has two versions of this song. In addition to the one being discussed, which was recorded in 1965, there's a more gossamer version from 1949:
Yes! That's the one! Some inconsistent mastering on that compilation and some strange programming choices. The label chose a mono mix for Keely Smith's "East of the Sun". Pity -- I really enjoy the presence of the arrangement in stereo and the strings really sparkle on the LP. But, there were plenty of phasing problems with those early stereo LPs, so that may be the reason they went mono. I don't believe that Patti La Belle, Etta James, Diana Krall & Norah Jones belong in the company of timeless greats such as Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald. But, YMMV. I hadn't realized "Oh! You Crazy Moon" was recorded as late as 1965. I would've guessed '62 or '63. I have the Travlin' Light compilation -- I forgot about the earlier transcription version.
My take, based on what Peggy said in print: she was initially worried, but got over it after she saw that her new producers were putting effort into the process, and conducting themselves as professionals. Most artists in a similar position would be concerned, wouldn't you agree? The producer with whom she had been working for many years was being removed. The people who were being tasked with the production of her records weren't even part of the EMI corporation. And she was likely to lose the degree of control that she had hitherto had over the process -- the control that her friendship with Cavanaugh had afforded her. On the other hand, and as you already pointed out, this was a woman who wanted to keep up with the changing musical landscape. She was also receptive to the sound of quite a few then-current acts. This is what Peggy had to say, after her earliest experience (for a single produced by Koppelman and Don Rubin): I was used to hearing demonstration records, talking over material, rehearsing the rhythm section, selecting my arranger, deciding on a style of interpretation. Under the new system, they just sent me lead sheets and I waited for them to call me up. I had nothing to do with the instrumental aspects of the records. When I found out Shorty Rogers was going to arrange and conduct the first session, I felt a lot more secure ... It wasn't a mechanical process at all. They'd put a lot of creative effort into it, preparing backgrounds so that I could just step in and bring my own interpretation of the lyric to whatever they had set up for me. Also: These are two very successful producers. No, they’re not teenaged millionaires; I guess they’re just plain old 28-year-old millionaires, but obviously they know what they’re doing, even if I didn’t know what they were doing – at least, not at first. During the experimental stages I felt like Zasu Pitts ........ Still, hearing all the great lyrics and music produced by the Beatles, Burt Bacharach, Donovan, Simon and Garfunkel, I knew that we were long past the day when you could combine everything in the same bag and put it down as rock ‘n’ roll. The only suitable term that takes it all in today is ‘contemporary.' Oh, the situation was better than what you are envisioning, I think. All the post-Cavanaugh producers with which she ended up working were proficient at the music styles for which they had become known. Fortunately for them, their respective bodies of work ranked many cuts above the typical flash in the pan. Also, guys like Phil Wright, Snuff Garrett and Artie Butler have had long-lasting and distinguished careers. (Relative youth: when they worked with Peggy, three of them were in their mid- to late 20s, four others in their early to mid-30s, one in his early 40s.) Of all of them, the least widely known names nowadays might be Koppelman and Rubin, the producers of Two Shows Nightly. Back in the 1960s, they had been involved in the big success of numbers such as "If I Were a Carpenter" (Bobby Darin), "Daydream" and "Do You Believe in Magic?" (The Lovin' Spoonful). In the year in which they produced for Lee, their company boasted 18 gold records, and had already worked on the production of numbers for The Turtles, Tim Hardin, Tommy James & The Shondells, Rick Nelson, Petula Clark, etc., etc. In the ensuing decades, both men would go on to high executive positions. Koppelman, especially, became a well-known mover and shaker in the music industry.
Continuing with the post-1966 Capitol albums, Two Shows Nightly is from 1968: Before its eventual release on CD, this LP had a bit of a mythical status. That's because, shortly after the vinyl had gone to the presses, Peggy Lee requested its withdrawal, and Capitol acquiesced. Some copies still managed to get out, of course, both in the United States and abroad ... In time, charity organizations became the main recipients of the copies that US Capitol had pressed, and there's some indication that certain chain stores were also selling copies in the 1970s, years after the album's aborted release. In parts of Europe, Asia, and possibly Canada, the album did make it to record stores, though the countries in question might have counted with very small quantities of copies. As a result of the album's history, copies are being auctioned at high prices (in the hundreds) even to this day. As for the reasons for the album's withdrawal, well, there is always more than one version about everything out there. This is the version that I know best: Peggy requested the withdrawal because she felt that, in some of the album's performances, the musicians were not being heard as clearly as she would have wanted. In the online Peggy Lee discography, there is also a worthwhile quote from Brooks Arthur, one of the album's engineers: After making a sensible caveat ("I wasn’t privy to the conversations that were going on behind closed doors, between Koppelman-Rubin and Peggy Lee and her label"), Arthur told the interviewer that "what did surface was, she said that she wasn’t happy with some of the sweetening. The producers wanted us to sweeten some of the crowd sounds with applause. Not fake applause, but applause from another spot that could seem like it was part of this spot. She had great ears and detected that and didn’t like that. Also, we tried to fix one or two phrases, vocally. And, as I recall, she protested doing that. She was a purist. They were ready to master this thing and ship it, get it out, probably in September of ‘68. And it was never launched, because she pulled it back." In 2009, Collector's Choice officially released the album on CD. Had she been alive at the time of its release, Peggy might have not objected at all: its sound quality is very good throughout. The release is a so-called deluxe edition, with 12 bonus tracks. Only a handful of them bear a direct connection to the album, but all of them were recorded in the 1960s. In fact, the bonus program picks up most of the rarest 1960s tracks of hers that had not been on CD yet. As you can see, it's a very eclectic program. Naturally, a fair portion consists of contemporary material: we get to hear songs from the worlds of Tim Hardin, John Sebastian, Jimmy Webb, Buffy St. Marie, and even Rod Stewart ("Reason to Believe," though years before it was recorded by Rod and by the Carpenters). From Sebastian alone, there are three numbers, of which two are offered twice, once as a concert version and once in the 45 rpm single version. The third Sebastian composition, "Money," was actually a previously unissued track. To supply just one sample from Two Shows Nightly (Deluxe Edition), here is one of the John "Lovin' Spoonful" Sebastian numbers. This track was first released in the 45 rpm single that Peggy did with Koppelman & Rubin (the single that led her to make the remarks quoted in the previous post):
