Roaming through musical history.
Peggy Lee forever in The Paleis.
Even though she had a “small” voice, Peggy Lee knew how to use it in magnificant ways. She had a smokey, sensual sound with which she was able to give large concert halls the intimacy of a nightclub.
Jazz, blues, hymns, comedy or popular material – Peggy Lee mastered almost all genres and is the only singer to have had top-10 hits in the forties, fifties and sixties.
In a career that spanned seven decades, she made dozens of albums, acted in five films, had four husbands, made many television appearances and gave countless concerts worldwide – in that respect, she was one of the few who could measure up to Frank Sinatra.
Her life was certainly not always bright: she was abused by her stepmother, ran away from home at an early age and was tormented by medical problems in her later years, so she sometimes lay on a bed behind the curtain until just before she had to go on stage, but the magic remained intact until the end. “If you feel nothing when Peggy Lee sings,” Leonard Feather said, “it means that you have already died.”
In this episode, Peggy sings about broken love. In “I don’t want to play in your yard”, she gives the man she is leaving concerned advice “Don’t smoke in bed” and agrees to a new love in “Alright, okay, you win”.
