Peggy Lee's Records From Her Post-Capitol Years (1974-1995)

Yep, that's the album -- and that's the story, regarding "Till There Was You."

Macca did only one song for Peggalee, though (the title track). The story goes that, while Peggy was in the UK on a concert tour, she invited Paul and Linda over to her hotel suite. Instead of bringing a bottle of wine, Paul thought that he'd show up with a song for Peggy. She was thrilled, of course.

Along with Dave Grusin, Peggy actually co-produced and recorded the first of her two versions of the song "Let's Love." They did that because they weren't sure if Paul would be able to find time to travel to the States to produce the song. But Paul did make it, and the version that he produced was, of course, the one included on the album. As for the earlier version (less pop-oriented, more lyrical), it was left unissued until it finally made its debut on Rhino Handmade's CD reissue of the album:



John Lennon also made an appreciative reference to Peggy's music once, but, alas, the man was gone too young -- long before the mere possibility of giving her a song could have been even remotely considered ...

 

Even aside from the McCartney tune, this is a great album by Peggy. I remember being ecstatic that Rhino Handmade released it with bonus tracks -- I'm sure it was partly because of me, as I went on a fanatical letter writing campaign to all of the labels for more Peggy on CD once I discovered her. You're welcome -- LOL!

 

Oh, yes. In 1989, Rolling Stone did a photo shoot featuring young singers with their older inspirations. kd and Peggy appear together there. kd had been a fan of Peggy since she was 19 or 20, and had been thrilled to see her for the first time many years earlier, when Peggy played in Edmonton, Canada. A portion of the torch songs which have been sung by kd, such as "Don't Smoke in Bed" and "Black Coffee," are from the Peggy Lee songbook.

The Madonna connection happened a bit later, when she was getting ready to record her club version of "Fever" for the Erotica album. Madonna even went to see Peggy in concert, and is said to have asked her, backstage, if Peggy would mind. Being a lady of a certain age at that point in time, Peggy hadn't been to keen on the Madonna of the "Like a Virgin" period (that is to say, the Madonna of the "I'm-swiffering-the-mtv-stage-with-my-pudenda" years). But, after that encounter, la Lee could not help but remark about how polite la Ciccone had been during that backstage visit. (There is also a witness' story out there about Madonna supposedly being mean to Peggy later on, at a celebrity party to promote a then-upcoming kd album, but I feel that the witness is overstating the case.)

Those were indeed some of her earliest CDs in the United States, all of them from around 1990. I remember buying the Pair CD too; it's called Seductive -- and it was! The CD of Peggy Sings the Blues came around that time as well (maybe a bit earlier), followed by the CD of There'll Be Another Spring.

Cool. We have come a long way since then, in terms of CD availability, haven't we? And not only for Peggy, but for so many other artists as well.

Didn't know Bette Midler had done that one. Interesting; I can imagine how she would sound while covering that song.

More recently, Bette of course went on to record a Peggy Lee songbook. That was at Sony's request. Her CD came with a DVD that includes bonus home footage of Peggy from the 1940s and 1950s.