Search - Peggy Lee :: Best of Miss Peggy Lee

"The Best" as determined by the Capitol balance sheets.

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 08/11/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Better this were titled "Peggy Lee's Biggest Sellers for Capitol." It represents none of her activity for Decca, when she established herself as a class jazz act in the '50s, it omits some of her best things for Capitol, pre- and post-Decca (including "The Shining Sea"), and it passes over her career 1971-1991. If I had to go with just one, it would be the British import, "The Best of Peggy Lee." And if her creative accomplishments mean as much to you as her "hits," the "Best of the Decca Years" is more satisfying.



Recently, a biography of Norma Delores Egstrom ("Fever" by Peter Richmond) called her the greatest female pop/jazz singer of the 20th century. It's a debatable but defensible statement, but you wouldn't want to make the case based on this "flimsy" collection of hits remembered by thousands of listeners to AM, FM, television and 45 rpm collections during the '40s, '50s, and '60s. It's even questionable whether a single one of the songs on this anthology has earned (or deserves) admittance to that august collection referred to as "The Great American Songbook," of which Peggy (along with Sinatra, Ella, Billie and Bing) is one of the most definitive interpreters (no one "wastes" fewer notes than Peggy, who is more economical yet arguably as effective as Lady Day).



Let this be a preface, a mere taste of much more (and better) things to come."