Peggy Lee

Featuring songs from the Great American Songbook--by Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, and Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern--with some Afro-Cuban, blues, and the debut recording of her own romantic ballad, "There'll Be Another Spring," the CD offers variety, at the same time that it maintains its mellow approach and overall lightness.

Shearing is the consummate accompanist on the songs the two do together. Her voice is always out front, with his chords, runs, key changes, and playfulness on piano remaining in the background to enhance her voice and songs. The bluesy "I Lost My Sugar in Salt Lake City" and "Blue Prelude," a blues song given an upbeat treatment here, are among the most exciting and interesting on the CD. "There'll Be Another Spring," a beautiful, romantic ballad written by Lee, is recorded for the first time on this album, taking advantage of her restrained passion and dramatic, whispery voice.

Shearing, whose quintet was famous for his early adoption of Afro-Cuban rhythms and the fine blending of piano and vibes, solos with Armando Peraza's "Mambo in Miami," in which Peraza himself supplies the unusual percussion and syncopated beat. In his second solo, "Isn't It Romantic," he matches his arrangement with the lyrics, creating one of the most romantic songs on the album.

Two bonus tracks, including "Don't Ever Leave Me," a dramatic and passionate plea by Lee, and "Nobody's Heart," both recorded earlier and not part of the live performance, are added to this CD. Fine music by two fine musicians make this an album for romance-if one can ignore the fact that the intros to all the songs were added after the fact when the album was edited. n Mary Whipple

The second album may be an end-of-contract release as it first appeared in 1972, the year in which Peggy left Capitol for the second and last time. Don't let that put you off - while it is not one of Peggy's strongest albums, it is well worth hearing nevertheless. This mellow, romantic album begins with Love song, which was also recorded by Olivia Newton-John. Other contemporary songs include A song for you and Superstar, both written by Leon Russell and recorded by the Carpenters. Older songs are represented by The more I see you and I'll be seeing you. A previously unreleased track, It changes, is added to the album for this release.

This twofer is worth buying for the first album alone, but I suspect that many Peggy Lee fans will (like me) enjoy both albums here.

The first album, Natural woman, contains covers of All of a sudden my heart sings (Kathryn Grayson - from the movie Anchors aweigh), Don't smoke in bed (Billie Holiday), Can I change my mind (Tyrone Davis), Dock of the bay (Otis Redding), You make me feel like a natural woman (Aretha Franklin), Everyday people (Sly and the family Stone), Please send me someone to love (Percy Mayfield), Spinning wheel (Blood sweat and tears) and I think it's gonna rain today (Randy Newman). May of these are classic songs but Peggy's often-different interpretations bring a freshness to them.

Peggy also contributed a song of her own, Lean on me, which you must not confuse with the famous Bill Withers song of the same title. The only other song here, Living is dying without you, is also excellent though I'm not sure who first recorded it.

The second album, Is that all there is, yielded an unexpected American hit for Peggy. It deserved to be a big hit, of course, but Peggy had long since ceased to be a major force on the singles charts so this one came as a huge surprise. Maybe the song connected with the young people of the day in a way that Peggy's other singles didn't.

Possibly the success of the single created pressure for a quick album release - if so, this would explain the inclusion of songs that Peggy had recorded previously, such as I'm a woman, Something stupid and Don't smoke in bed, though at least some of them are re-recordings. Nevertheless, this is also a fine album. It includes covers of Love story (Randy Newman), Me and my shadow (Whispering Jack Smith), My old flame (Guy Lombardo), Brother love's travelling salvation show (Neil Diamond), Something (George Harrison) and Johnny (a gender-adapted version of the Randy Newman song, Linda).

While these are not the strongest albums ever recorded by Peggy Lee, they are both of an extremely high quality. Collecting all of Peggy's albums can be an expensive business assuming you can actually find them all, but this twofer is well worth the price.

The rest of the collection includes all the essentials including Fever, the novelty song Manana and The folks who live on the hill. I find Peggy’s version of Big spender much more appealing than Shirley Bassey’s more aggressive version of the song.

This collection demonstrates Peggy’s versatility –upbeat swinging songs, slow, sexy songs, Disney songs, Latin-flavored songs and so much more. Of course, it is not possible to do full justice to Peggy’s vast legacy in a single CD, but for anybody new to Peggy’s music, this is the best one to buy – it’s easily the strongest compilation I’ve come across. Actually, I already had a lot of Peggy’s music when I bought this, but it’s nice to be able to have so many great songs together, especially as I didn’t have the two Disney tracks.

So, whether you are new to her music or (like me) a committed fan, this is sure to provide you with plenty of entertainment.