Customer Reviews

Miss Peggy Lee: A Career Chronicle

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JAZZTIMES
The Year In Review
January/February 2006

Miss Peggy Lee: A Career Chronicle
By Robert Strom (McFarland)

In 1989, Peggy Lee made a noble, if misguided, attempt at autobiography with the frank but frustratingly uneven - and occasionally fictionalized - Miss Peggy Lee. Since then, not a single, decent Lee biography has been forthcoming (though at least a couple of promising volumes are rumored to be in the works.) Until a genuinely worthy portrait does surface, this labor of love from Lee aficionado Robert Strom should help keep the diehard fans entertained.

Based on painstakingly extensive scrapbooks (numbering some 2,400 pages) assembled by Lee's most ardent booster, the late Ronald Towe, Strom's Chronicle provides nearly a day-to-day account of her career, augmented with references to various personal milestones (marriages, divorces, the birth of daughter Nikki, etc.) and a first-rate CD discography. If you ever wondered what, say, Variety thought of the singer's March 1960 appearance at Basin Street East or what she sang on The Danny Kaye Show on December 21, 1966, this is the book for you.

Much like Joel Whitburn's invaluable Billboard reference works, it's the sort of tome you'll dip into for a specific fragment of information and find yourself, an hour or two later, still engrossed in the minutia of her colorful professional life.

Christopher Loudon

Big Band Jump Newsletter
Newsletter 98
By Don Kennedy

Miss Peggy Lee: A Career Chronicle
By Robert Strom

Remember when you were in school and you kept a diary? The entries might have been something like: "Got up, school, ham sandwich for lunch, played baseball after school, hit another homer and had one RBI." Think also that you had photographs of these moments, made even more meaningful with the passage of time. Unfortunately most of us lost those diaries, and fewer still kept them for more than a few months. We mention this because that's what Robert Strom's new book is, a diary of key events in the life of Peggy Lee along with photographs. What an absorbing book it is!

For years Strom headed up the Peggy Lee fan club and had access to not only personal comments from Peggy Lee, but a wealth of photos, clippings quotes, sheet music, record reviews and the contents of a thirty year scrapbook kept by one of Peggy Lee's loyal fans (the late Ronald Towe). Combined with his obvious devotion to Miss Lee and the information gathered through the years, and you can see why this book has taken on a warmth and a personal approach seldom reflected in similar works.

The first twenty years of Peggy Lee's life, from 1920 to 1940, are handled year by year with generous narrative telling us of her early life in Jamestown, North Dakota. Peggy Lee, then Norma Egstrom, was just four when her mother died. We read of her father's remarriage to a woman who was the quintessential evil stepmother and her early singing jobs in North Dakota. One interesting note: At age eight Norma told a playmate she wanted to be a singer; at age ten she wrote her first song, "If I Could Swing With A Band." A series of club jobs, a disappointing first trip to Hollywood, a stint at the Ambassador West in Chicago where she was heard by Benny Goodman, and she wound up "Swinging With A Band."

No need to go into detail here: the Peggy Lee chronicle monitors her departure from Goodman to retire and have a family, her contract with Capitol Records after a "one-time" recording session, her radio appearances and her move to Decca in a dispute over her proposed recording of "Lover." Television, posh club appearances including Casino shows, excerpts of reviews and interviews; all are included in this tribute to a lady who could not only sing, but could act and compose.

Even if you don't read a word, the generous use of photographs, some rare, some seldom seen, provides entertainment. An appendix is devoted to a selective listing of Peggy Lee's CDs, another to the songs written by her noted by year.

McFarland Publishers - www.mcfarlandpub.com 311 pages, 98 photos & illustrations. $49.95 or less at any large bookstore.

Don Kennedy - Host of Big Band Jump

I knew Peggy Lee and as a musician and a fan of hers, this is the ultimate book about her amazing career and genius.

Robert Strom's Miss Peggy Lee: A Career Chronicle is more than a chronicle: It is a treasury. The amount of love, energy, and time that has gone into this project is evident from cover to cover. The rare photos, and there are many, provide a rare glimpse into this performer's career and life. The presentation is superb: I predict this book will become a touchstone for any future biographers. The Peggy Lee estate owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Strom for the honor and recognition he has bestowed on Ms Lee.