Peggy Lee Question

Hello All,

Looking for any information any of you have on a cd called "rare gems and hidden treasures", capitol records with a 2000 release date. Aside from any sound quality deficiencies, anything musically that makes this worth owning? IF you can put in your two cents about its sound quality that would be appreciated also.

 

Sorry, can't help with your question but on a related matter I'd like to find out which recording is the best for sound quality of her doing "Why Don't You Do Right"? And did she record any other besides the Goodman version?

 

Why Don't You Do Right?

Yes, she also recorded "Why Don't You Do Right" for Capitol in 1947.

 

From Amazon.com

"Surface noise can be heard on some of the tracks, but there are also some lovely remasterings. Even if you've already acquired a mountain of Peggy Lee recordings, a real fan won't want to be without the new discoveries here."

"The choice of songs is very eclectic. I love the ballads, but the few songs with back-up singers really date the music and spoil their entry into the "timeless" category. Peggy Lee sings free and easy, with a warm tone that really pleases in the ballads."

From hollywoodandvine.com

Rare Gems And Hidden Treasures features all of the many sides of Miss Peggy Lee. The recording opens with "Every Night," the first single Lee recorded when she returned to Capitol in 1957 after five years on Decca Records. From there she swings into "Please Don’t Rush Me," a track which had been previously unreleased until its inclusion in another 1999 reissue through Capitol Jazz. Nine other previously unreleased tracks are contained within. Other highlights include two songs by Lee and her husband, guitarist Dave Barbour, "(I’m Not Gonna) Let It Bother Me" and the humorous "Blum Blum, I Wonder Who I Am." The Lee-Barbour songwriting team wrote some of Lee’s biggest hits. "Eight, Nine And Ten" jumps with Benny Goodman on clarinet, her former boss with whom she made her first records. Also featured are the wistful waltz, "While We’re Young," previously considered a "lost" track because of an unsatisfactory tape transfer done 50 years ago, and the ersatz island voodoo of "Similau." "All The Cats Join In" was written for the 1944 Disney animated feature Make Mine Music.

From here

Poor Peggy Lee! The age of the compact disc has not been very kind to her body of work. When CDs first came out in the early 1980s, she was one of the last great singers to be featured on the new medium. And when she finally was, it seemed that the same Greatest Hits package was released again and again with very few variations. From the 1940s up until the early 1970s, with one break for Decca Records, Lee recorded a mountain of seminal material for Capitol Records, but you'd think Fever was the only thing worth remembering based on her CDs. This is especially odd when you consider how many people really love Peggy Lee. We've never met anyone who doesn't like her. It's instead always admiration of varying degrees.

Very slowly, the situation is changing. This collection, Rare Gems and Hidden Treasures, is a step in the right direction but when you consider all the material under Capitol's control, is this really the best we can do? The programming sounds as if it were done by a chimp in proximity of a dartboard with the names of all her songs on it. The sequencing is all over the map. The tunes range form the most beautiful of standards (While We're Young) to the most inane of novelty numbers (Blum, Blum, I Wonder Who I Am). Before we start pulling out these "gems and treasures" like the hokey psuedo-gospel of Light of Love or the overt camp of the Babalu-inspired Simalau, why don't we try releasing some of the great Peggy Lee music that hasn't been put on CD yet? And why on earth is there no information on the individual sessions, let alone the recording dates?

Even with its flaws, Rare Gems has lots to recommend. The previously mentioned While We're Young is a classic. Ain't Doin Bad Doin' Nothin' and Eight, Nine and Ten both gently swing like mad and Baby Come Home is a sweet nostalgic heartwarmer in the P.S. I Love You vein, apparently written by Peggy and her guitarist-hubby Dave Barbour. Farewell to Arms has a beautiful melody but it's not the anti-war song you might think. Peggy sings about the arms that used to hold her. This made us wince a bit.

Even with its flaws, this is a fun disc. What really should happen is that Capitol should release her entire ouput on CD. It's the least they could so for one of their most important artists.


Apparently, Paul McCartney also wrote the foreward to this CD, according to Abbeyrd's Beatles page

 

Thank you Mandrake, very informative post.