Customer Reviews

Trav'Lin Light

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Though not as early as her Benny Goodman sessions these were mainly from radio transcriptions, previosly avaialble through import labels. This is the first time they have been available domesticly though capital. Highly enjoyable and mamture Peggy Lee recordings accompanied by a good jazz combo led by her then husband David Darbour. Good music good jazz influenced singing, and aside from Anita O'Day, Miss Peggy Lee was the blackest white singer there ever was. Strongly recommeded.

I have to agree with the other reviews that the quality of this cd is exceptional and the singing of Miss Lee is stunning to say the least, and for that I give it 5 stars, but my big complaint is the number of songs on this cd.
Come on....35.26 minutes !!!!especially when in the very informative booklet that is included, they talk about 72 titles in this series of radio transcripts (which, by the way is available completely as advertised on the back page!!!!).
I always feel a little "cheated" when I buy a cd and there's anything less then at least 50 minutes of music ...but I guess that's my problem, so I guess I'll just have to go put the "repeat" button on and start all over again.
PS. It's a wonderful cd and I guess I just want more....

it really is a shame that all the material from these transcriptions is not readily and affordably available as this is an utterly superlative set of tunes . Lee's voice is truly amazing on these songs , maybe as a result of not having to push to be heard over the larger ensembles she was used to working with . the warmth and sweetness of her singing here is just ineffable .

" goody goody " in particular just drives me nuts ! the way she

says " you ol' rascal you " at the end is just sublime .

It is difficult to believe that material this wonderful remained unreleased for so long. This cd presents Peggy's voice in full flight backed only by Dave Barbour (her husband at the time) on guitar. With elaborate arrangements gone, the listener gets to experience Peggy Lee on an intimate level. She is a master at interpreting these songs and here you can detect the full subtlety of her art. "I Let A Song Go Out of My Heart" showcases her impeccable phrasing and delivery. In Miss Lee's hands, the song takes a deligtfully subtle turn with a deceptively light veneer that never quite masks the heartbreaking regret-filled lyric. Peggy Lee brings this deft and masterful approach to each song on this cd. She conveys the emotion in these songs with a sophistication and restraint. This makes them all the more powerful for me. Barbour's guitar accompaniement is perfect, conveying broad jazzy tones, and sometimes swinging (e.g. Goody Goody)without ever getting in the way. He proves himself a first rate guitarist here. Despite spending years in the Capital vault, this is first rate material. These songs prove that Miss Lee was an exceptionally fine jazz singer, deserving of comparison with the finest (Holliday, Sarah Vaughn, et al.) This is an absolute gem.

Like Sam Cooke's "Night Beat," this disc is a revelation for those used to hearing a particular singer in a big-combo setting. Here it's just Lee with a quartet. I never realized what a tremendous singer she was until I found this disc. Husband Dave Barbour throws in tons of tasty guitar licks.

PEGGY is really at ease in this kind of quietly sensual atmosphere.This is an ideal record to play as a prelude for lovers who want to get in the mood.Something wonderful can happen before it ends.Being a fan,i especially enjoyed the 3 MERCER tunes:TRAV'LIN LIGHT,GOODY GOODY and WHEN A WOMAN LOVES A MAN,but everything here is done tastefully.Get it now!AMAZON is waiting for your order.Maybe it can save your love life,one never knows.

This may be the best collection of Peggy Lee performances I've come across yet, and I've heard several hundred Lee perforamces, from the early 1940s extending into the 1990s, including the Decca album, "Black Coffee," most frequently singled out as her best jazz outing. But the present session finds Peggy at the precious instant just before she was transformed from fresh and wholesome, big band canary for Benny Goodman, still revealing some of the wide-eyed excitement of Norma Delores Eggstrom just after realizing her girl-hood dreams of becoming a bona fide "star" and the time of her chic celebrity, when she was "the" American diva and musical icon with the carefully coifed and smartly designed wardrobe along with a confident and relatively permanent persona renowned as much for its scarce and high price tags (to those of us who tried to catch her live) as for her extraordinary musicianship. In short, there's just as much of Norma on this collection as Peggy.

This is how Billie Holiday would have sounded if her life had not been weighed down with all the baggage--the heroin, the discrimination, the exploitive men. Even the photos of Peggy in the booklet accompanying the album can't conceal the innocent Midwestern natural beauty, and the musical accompaniment is all that she requires--or that any listener could ask for. Not the orchestral arrangements that can sounded dated from one decade to the next, but just a rhythm section with her first love, Dave Barbour, on guitar. As for the repertoire, no concessions to the hit parade. It's all grade A, Great American Songbook material, with definitive interpretations by Peggy on each.

As usual, Peggy brings each tune in at closer to 2 than 3 or even 2 and one-half minutes. Unlike so many of the CD offerings these days, on which tracks are "stretched" with gratuitous solos just to fill the 80 minutes, each tune is reduced to its melodic, harmonic, lyric essence (who would want to "pad" a Shakespearean sonnet for the sake of filling time?). Fifteen songs in a Lee program don't come to much more than 30 minutes, but I can't in my wildest imagination picture anyone asking for a refund. Any listener who listens will be served like a king or queen. The closest album to this one, in fact, is Nat's Cole's admired "After Midnight" session from 1956. Though recorded in 1946-47, the fidelity is as up close and personal as the later recordings from the "hi fi" 1950s.

Most of the songs will be familiar--Van Heusen's "Oh! You Crazy Moon"--but some are pleasant discoveries--the same composer's "As Long as I'm Dreaming" as well as "Save Your Sorrow for Tomorrow" and "'Tain't So,, Honey, 'Tain't So." Anyone who wishes to make the case for Peggy Lee as one of a mere handful of greatest all-time interpreters of American popular song had better have this one in their collection.

As expression of human's soul,music has often being made and inspired by heartbreak,depression,dissapointment or simply sadness but - hey - how about actual love or even better,a couple in love? Peggy Lee and her husband Dave Barbour were a couple like that,once,long time ago - she was his favourite singer and he was the guitarist who backed her on many of those cute earliest solo recordings,in fact Barbour might left the deepest impression on Lee (who got married several more times after divorcing him) since he was there with her through thick and thin,before she finally hit big time and was incidentally responsible for her career as solo artist.

Lee and Barbour knew each other from the time when she was girl-singer in Benny Goodman band - strict bandleader,Goodman had a rule that nobody should fraternize with his canaries but the couple fell in love,got married and Barbour himself fired (and Peggy Lee quit the band the very same moment).Initially she was perfectly happy as guitarist's wife but eventually returned to music - with Barbour strongly encouragement to do so and he appears to have been proud on her own songwriting skills when Lee suddenly started cooking up hit after hit for than-new "Capitol records".

The recent documentary (on DVD now) about Peggy Lee's life and career shows that at this early point in 1940s she was probably the happiest in life: home made movies are testimony of her new-found harmony and how much she enjoyed everything - she had family,loving husband and daughter,little career going on thanks to songs she wrote herself,cutest house with garden and everything far distanced from early hungry days and memories of growing up in North Dakota where her mentally ill stepmother abused her with beatings.

From this particular moment in her life,comes some of the best music Lee ever recorded but - strangely enough - it was not released until recently,since these were radio-only transcriptions meant to be played few times and not released on any of her official albums or singles.

On these radio dates,Lee was backed by gently swinging Barbour combo,the sound of those recordings sounding quite similar to Nat King Cole Trio,intimate jazzy setting that sounds perfectly magical right now and perfect for her little voice and whispery appeal. Songs are all very familiar standards now ("Somebody loves me","I let song out of my heart","Goody Goody","When a woman loves a man") and gentle swinging that Barbour and his boys played behind clearly inspired Lee is some of the best music she has ever done and lady really has rich discography.

Later she would move on - divorced Barbour (who had drink problem),married him again than divorced again - her music cleverly going in different directions so she became unstoppable for decades and continued long into rock'n'roll age when other singers of her age lost recording contracts,but this particular CD brings some of her best moments and its a real treasure,what a joy to hear a couple in love making music together.