Is That All There Is? I Don't Think So.

I've become a great fan of Peggy Lee.  She is one of those artists I never listened to or paid much attention to growing up.  Like many of the artists I have discovered her prime time could be said to have occurred before my time.  As a boy and even later I remember seeing her occasionally on television programs.  For some reason I can only remember her singing Send In The Clowns, a song that has never been one of my favorites, no matter who performs it.  It is interesting to note that I have not been able to find a recording of this song by Peggy Lee, although I am sure I saw her perform it on television. 

But with my new found love of the B4 music I started searching out and listening to Peggy Lee's catalog of music.  I'm sure many of you have come across a favorite song by an artist.  A song that just clicks and makes you appreciate that artist's talents.  With me it was Peggy Lee's version of Georgia.  Though this song is definitely pegged to Ray Charles and not Peggy Lee, her straight forward clear rendition of this song won me over. Of course the song tied most closely to Peggy Lee is Fever, which for some reason, again has never been one of my favorite songs.  I am always a bit crestfallen when a radio station plays Peggy Lee's  Fever for the umpteenth time, knowing at the same time what a wide range of beautiful Peggy Lee numbers are available.

Peggy Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom May 26, 1920 in Jamestown, North Dakota and died in Los Angeles, California January 21, 2002 from heart failure further aggravated by prior strokes.  Her biography states that she had a difficult childhood after her mother died at an early age.  She worked with a group in Chicago until she was picked up by Benny Goodman in 1941 and became his band's principal singer.  She was so successful that she left Benny Goodman's band in 1942 and went solo.  She co-wrote several songs with her husband Dave Barbour.  In fact Peggy Lee was a talented songwriter and wrote or co-wrote over 200 songs and performed over 600 songs.

She also had a small movie career appearing in the 1952 movie "The Jazz Singer" and the 1955 movie "Pete Kelly's Blues" for which she received an Academy Award nomination.  She wrote several of the songs for and also did voice over  in the Walt Disney 1955 animated feature "The Lady And The Tramp."  In 1987,  having only been paid $3500 dollars for her work in this movie, she successfully sued Disney after they released it for sale to the public. Her later acting roles were confined to television appearances

Peggy Lee had a distinctive sultry, one might say in some cases, quiet voice that brought a unique flavor to everything she performed.  It is stated that she practiced this quality when she performed in the nightclub scene.  She couldn't belt out songs to overcome a nightclub's loud background noise so she restrained her voice which actually drew the audience in and riveted them to her performance. She was a very meticulous performer who worked at staging sets, lighting, makeup, costumes and even personal movements and gestures..

This only scratches the surface of Peggy Lee's long and illustrious career.  She was a one-of-a-kind talent and has left  us a wonderful legacy in her many recordings.

He's A Tramp


Black Coffee


From This Moment On




Some of my favorite Peggy Lee songs are:

I'm Looking Out The Window and Senza Fine



Didn't Want To Have To Do It  Some Cats Know and Walking Happy


Too Close For Comfort

The Folks Who Live On The Hill

Who's Sorry Now??.....Not Me!

Today I'm going to review another one of my favorite artists who doesn't get much playtime anymore,  although she is still around and still performing.  That artist is Connie Francis.  Growing up I had heard many of Francis' standards like Whose Sorry Now? and Together.  I also vaguely remember her appearing in films during the 60's, usually beach movies for the teenage crowd.  When I rediscovered the "B4" music (see an earlier post for an explanation) my search naturally led me to Connie Francis as one of those artists.

Connie Francis was born Italian-American Concetta Rosemarie Franconero on December 12, 1938 in Newark, NJ.  Francis started her music career at three, playing an accordion bought for her by her contractor father, George. Her father's dream was not for his daughter to become a star, but for Francis to become independent of men as an adult with her own accordion school of music. At age ten, she was accepted on Startime, a New York City television show that featured talented child singers and performers. The show had no one else who played an accordion. Its host, legendary TV talent scout Arthur Godfrey, had difficulty pronouncing her name and suggested something "easy and Irish," which turned into Francis. After three weeks on Startime, the show's producer and Francis' would-be manager advised her to dump the accordion and concentrate on singing. Francis performed weekly on Startime for four years.

By 1957 Francis had had little professional success and was considering leaving the singing profession when by chance she was asked to record a 1923 song called Who's Sorry Now? After a false start, she sang it in one take. When Dick Clark played Who's Sorry Now? on American Bandstand, he told the show's eight million viewers that Connie Francis was "a new girl singer that is heading straight for the number one spot.

Who's Sorry Now? was the first of Francis' long string of worldwide hits. By 1967, she had sold 35 million worldwide, with 35 U.S. Top 40 hits and several number ones (Everybody's Somebody's Fool, My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own, Don't Break the Heart That Loves You, and Stupid Cupid) to her credit.  She still challenges Madonna as the biggest-selling female recording artist of all time which makes me very happy, since I've never bothered to acquire any music performed by this tasteless artist. 

Released in 1963, In the Summer of His Years, written as a tribute to the assassinated John F. Kennedy, remains one of the earliest known charity records, with proceeds donated to dependents of the policemen shot during the incident.  I just recently heard In the Summer of His Years and it is a very stirring song and one I have added to my library of music.

Francis had an affinity for languages and was one of the first pop singers to record her songs in other languages; 1961's title song from the movie Where the Boys Are was recorded in six languages. She starred in four (nondescript) films, sang voice-overs in movies for actresses who could not sing, and was a guest star on innumerable TV shows. Music critics who didn't take kindly to Francis' pop music years were eventually won over by her versatility. Her Italian and Jewish albums transformed Francis from a teenage idol to a mature performer at leading nightspots around the world. She has also had a long history being a composer's first choice to interpret songs that went on to become major hits for other artists, including Somewhere My Love, Strangers in the Night, Angel in the Morning, and When Will the Apples Fall.

Francis' personal life has been filled with much tragedy also. She has had several failed marriages and in fact had decided to retire to domestic life in 1969 with her third husband.   Encouraged by her husband to return to the entertainment world in 1974, she was subsequently raped in the hotel where she was staying after only her third performance.  This incident ultimately led to a divorce from her then husband.  In 1975 she underwent nasal surgery that temporarily robbed her of her singing voice.  She was on the comeback trail in 1981 when her brother, George, was brutally murdered. It took seven years to determine that through all of those events, she was also a manic depressive. She finally made her return to the stage and recording in 1989, and Connie Francis has continued to sing to sold-out audiences into the new millennium. She has recorded more than 70 LPs.

Okay, on to what this blog is about, the music.  In my my never ending search for new "B4" music I have discovered countless Connie Francis songs that I never knew existed and that have also become some of my favorites.  She is one of those artists I can just sit and listen to without losing interest after a while and switching to other artists for variety.   I am a romantic at heart and one of my favorite Francis' songs is That's My Desire.  It would be great to slow dance to this number with your significant other.  A sexy song by Francis is Love Eyes and I think this song holds up very well by contemporary standards. She is the only artist so far that I have found that has performed Melancholy Serenade.  You may remember the instrumental version of this song by the Jackie Gleason orchestra for the TV show The Honeymooners.  I love both the slower and faster versions of Lock Up Your Heart.  

 Other greats that I often return to are You Are My Special Angel, Be Anything, I'll Close My Eyes, It's The Talk Of The Town and No One.  A couple of songs that I really enjoy and that might be considered more pop oriented are Roundabout and It's A Different World.  I could go on and on.  Francis' catalog of music is wide and deep and I find new discoveries all the time. 




Here are some other of my favorite artists performing That's My Desire: