Peggy Lee Harold Arlen - Love Held Lightly (14 tracks) +Album Reviews

... But Beautiful

Liz G. | Hyattsville, MD | 09/16/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This may not be Peggy Lee's best, and yes, she's a little older here, and yes, her voice has changed from her younger days (although it's still a lot stronger than on later albums), ... but if you're a fan, you should still have this album. First, of course, there are some truly lovely songs on here. "I Had A Love Once" is deeply moving. "Happy With the Blues" has that same swingy, bluesy feeling PL has always done so well (and she cowrote the song). Second, PL still knows how to wrench all the feeling out of a song without becoming maudlin. The collection overall is a throwback to the older PL sound.

I think if you're a newcomer to Peggy Lee, you should start with either one of the collections ("Miss Peggy Lee" or "The Singles Collection") or a classic album like "Black Coffee" (the Black Coffee double CD is great too) or "Things Are Swingin'." But if you already love Peggy, but were afraid to hear this album after having heard, say, "Moments Like This," don't be scared. It's not her prime, but it's beautiful."

A great Peggy cd!!

G. Carter | Temple Hills, maryland United States | 01/22/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's a shame this cd is out of print!!
this was one of her later recordings and the arrangements and Peggy's voice made this one of her best! rare Harold Arlen songs given a gentle reading by Peggy, this one all her fans should have!!"

The sweet bird of age

Donald Elfman | Guilford, CT | 12/22/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I worked for a well-known record company and this album was offered to us to release. The management and "deciders" found Peggy's voice shaky and not up to either her standards or that of this label.

They were wrong!!! This is a very special recording - BECAUSE of where Peggy was in her life. Besides the fact that the songs were rare ones by Harold Arlen, Peggy sang with an emotional resonance that came with her experience and her age. Give a listen to "My Shining Hour." It's just Peggy's voice and a guitar and they do the song slower than it's ever been recorded. It's so poignant that the song fully takes its place as one of the great poems of parting.

Elsewhere the swing arrangements of Keith Ingham and the playing of the likes of saxophonist Ken Peplowski, bassist Jay Leonhart and guitarist John Chiodini (it's he who does the magic on "My Shining Hour") make this a rare and beautiful gem.

Remember the late, bittersweet singing of Billie Holiday? This matches that and adds to it a lovely, quietly humorous way with the lyrics of such masters as Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Truman Capote (!), and Peggy herself. It's a gorgeous closer to the career of one of our very finest vocalists."

For Lee completists and custodians of the Great American Son

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 02/05/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As someone who's fairly well-versed in the Great American Songbook, I confess this playlist puts me to shame. Even though, with the exception of "My Shining Hour," I didn't recognize any of the titles of the remaining 13 songs, I assumed I'd recognize several melodies upon hearing them.

Not so--but lest I bury my head in shame, the liner notes report that eight of the songs have never been recorded before (even 20 years after Peggy's recording of them, I suspect the statement still pretty much holds true). It'll take more listens to determine whether any of the 13 deserves a place in the same Arlen pantheon as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "The Man That Got Away," "Come Rain or Come Shine," "Blues in the Night," or "Last Night When We Were Young." But certainly none is a bad song, and each carries some of the familiar Arlen trademarks--his affinity with the blues and the blues scale as well as with minor modalities and languorous moods--along with some swinging sounds evocative of his extended stay at Harlem's Cotton Club in the 1920s (George Masso's spirited trombone solo on "Love's a Necessary Thing" is one of the album's highlights).

This is not a recording to be recommended to anyone unfamiliar with Peggy Lee, the artist supreme throughout the '40s, '50s, and '60s. In the '70s it was her material, producers, and audiences that failed her as much as her voice. In the '80s, it's probably fair to say that she doesn't fail the material, even on this, her next-to-last recording. The voice is simply sounding "tired," its once urgent, vibrant and personal breathiness replaced by a flaccid, wearying (and admittedly somewhat wearing), "disembodied" sound. For much of this material--meditative, elegiac, resigned and dispirited--the fit between the artist and her material is "right," even if not as impressive and memorable as when the Diva was at full strength.

Practitioners of Eastern philosophies never weary of proclaiming that everything comes back to the "breath." Simply comparing Peggy's voice as it sounded in the 1980s with any of her recordings from the '50s and '60s should be sufficient to demonstrate the point. Is it possible to "whisper" melody? I've heard it done by only one vocalist--a feat requiring enormous breath reserves, focus, discipline and control. But on "Love Held Lightly" the breath isn't there: it's been replaced by a mere tone."

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