AMG Review of Lost '40s & '50s Capitol Masters

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Despite extensive CD reissues of the recordings of Peggy Lee, there have remained many tracks of hers that never got into the digital era. Indeed, given that she came up at a time when the 78-rpm single was the major recorded format, there are even Lee recordings that were never transferred to LP. This 109-minute, 39-track, two-CD set goes a long way toward unearthing Lee's obscurities, at least from the early part of her solo career. Running chronologically, it begins with her first session for Capitol Records in January 1944, when she was functioning essentially as a band singer with a studio group called the Capitol Jazzmen, and follows her for eight years until the February 1952 session that was her last for Capitol before she spent a five-year sojourn with Decca Records. None of the tracks have been released previously on compact disc; most come from singles, although 14 have never been released before. As such, this constitutes a kind of alternate history of Peggy Lee's early solo years, but actually it is not all that different. True, the performances themselves are unfamiliar, but the musical approaches are not: usually accompanied by her husband, guitarist Dave Barbour, and either a small jazz band or a string-filled orchestra, she either waxes romantic on ballads or playful on uptempo numbers. The singer who had hit with the Latin rhythms and mock-Mexican accent on the novelty "Mañana" tries for the same effect on such songs as "Ay Ay Chug a Chug" and "It Never Happen' to Me." There are songs from contemporary Broadway shows such as Cole Porter's Out of This World ("Climb Up the Mountain") and Jule Styne's Two on the Aisle ("So Far, So Good"). Lee is joined by such complementary partners as the Benny Goodman Sextet ("Keep Me in Mind") and Mel Tormé ("Telling Me Yes, Telling Me No"). There are obscure songs by famous songwriters (George and Ira Gershwin's "Aren't You Kind of Glad We Did?," Irving Berlin's "The Freedom Train") and even some semi-standards ("Music, Maestro, Please," "A Hundred Years from Today," both previously unreleased). Throughout, Lee sings well; that these tracks were lost was no fault of hers. Of course, the album will be of greatest interest to her fans, who probably will understand that there has been some wear and tear on the early tracks, which contain some sonic imperfections.