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Okay, I say
this is not Off-Topic. When we've talked about GG's fascination with Pop --
almost exclusively with female pop singers -- Peggy Lee has come up, I think
because GG kicked her in the shins when comparing her with la
Streisand.
Aw, Peggy Lee passed away
yesterday, she was 81.
At first glance, she was strictly 40s
big band singer and small intimate nightclub singer, dismissable if you thought
those genres were dismissable.
But actually she was screwy and
adventurous as all get-out in her choice of material. Clearly, she was
determined not to let time pass her by. She never wanted to go mano-a-mano with
Janis Joplin or Grace Slick, but she also didn't see why The Future of Music
only belonged to babes with more recent birth certificates and noisier public
lives.
Just as she was being universally
forgotten, she recorded Leiber and Stoller's "Is That All There Is?"
-- I guess you'd have to categorize it as A Novelty Song, like "Ahab the
Arab," but she sang it so hauntingly and honestly, it was impossible to
ignore.
But my favorite is her strange, strange
album that was produced by a very young Randy Newman, including several of his
early and quirkiest songs. See if you can scare it up. There seem to be moments
of uncomfortable tension and misunderstanding between them, but there are also
sublime musical and poetic moments. Newman is traditionally sung only by Newman
or by a twitchy Sundance kinda guy like Tom Waites. Peggy Lee wanted to know
what a Newman song sounds like when it's gently and lovingly caressed. A very
eery and beautiful album. Sometimes you think maybe she doesn't want to be
there. Other times she sounds like Randy's doting grandma singing his lullabyes,
and you can see a tear fall from Randy the pianist's eye.
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