Читать книгу Peggy Lee - Tish Oney - Страница 5

The International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel reverberated with tumultuous applause when Peggy Lee was introduced on May 9, 1994. That evening the Society of Singers awarded Lee an “Ella” Lifetime Achievement Award at their gala tribute event in Beverly Hills. When a microphone was brought to her table, Lee briefly addressed the audience from her wheelchair before launching into a tear-jerking rendition of her original song “Here’s To You,” a musical toast dedicated to those in attendance. The singer bid all within earshot her sincerest best wishes in several languages, ending with her favorite blessing, “angels on your pillows.” The peerless timing, poignant phrasing, and gentle musical delivery that marked thousands of her performances quietly transformed into one of the last musical moments this remarkable artist would share with her adoring public.

During the course of her long and successful career, Lee grew into a globally beloved singer, composer, lyricist, voiceover artist, actress, and entertainer. The spectacularly diverse six-decade catalog of music she created represents one of the greatest artistic contributions by anyone to American music. Lee’s remarkable work in big band swing, pop, jazz, blues, the “cool” school, radio, television, film, and theatrical music permanently changed the landscape of American popular music as well as the role and society’s expectations of the female pop singer. Hailing from rural North Dakota, Norma Delores Egstrom would carve her own path as a force to be reckoned with in twentieth-century American popular music.

Lee’s unmistakable contributions and genius among her peers in the recording and performing industries have heretofore been inadequately documented. Intending to correct this shortfall, I set out to write not a biography, but a book about Lee’s music. While biographers relate surveys of an artist’s life, times, and their best-known works of art, few dive deeply into the entire oeuvre of an artist as prolific as Peggy Lee. The lack of documentation of Lee’s total creative work begs a volume dedicated to her music alone.

Lee’s musical contributions included several hit songs, a wide, varied palette of albums, success in several genres, fourteen films, an autobiographical Broadway show, scores of radio and television performances including those she herself hosted, and thousands of outstanding live performances. She also contributed her own signature style of understated singing, impeccable phrasing, meticulous attention to pitch and rhythm, stagecraft, poise, and a level of preparation uneclipsed by her peers. Somehow, in previous books about Lee, these innovations and accomplishments received only cursory glances. While vastly different biographical accounts of Lee’s life, marriages, successes, and personal failures have already been published, the facts pertaining to the artist’s incredible musical productivity and accomplishments have remained largely understated. Interviews with collaborative musicians, composers, and colleagues of Lee have reflected on the artist’s musical contributions, shedding new light on her motivation and unconquerable drive toward musical excellence.

Some questions arise when pulling the broad view of Lee’s life into a purely musical focus. How did her voice and musicianship evolve over the course of her six-decade career? What did she leave in regard to musical posterity for fans and others who would follow in her footsteps? How did Lee interpret the Great American Songbook, jazz, blues, ever-changing popular music, easy listening, and theatrical music? What was Lee’s significance as a lyricist of more than 270 songs? How did Lee continue to roll with the changing musical landscape as she aged? How did she somehow ensure ongoing posthumous success with a catalog of recordings still treasured by young audiences, television writers, and film music supervisors, now eighteen years since her death? Lee’s centennial birthday is an appropriate occasion at which to address these questions and grant the artist due credit for her phenomenal contributions to American music. This book focuses exclusively on Lee’s musical footprint and artistic legacy, beginning with an exploration of the true genius of the girl from rural North Dakota who would give us A Century of Song.