Singer Stacy Sullivan discusses her tribute to Peggy Lee in the New York Daily News.

March 15, 2013

Stacy Sullivan’s show ‘It’s a Good Day: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee’ opens the Café Carlyle’s new series, ‘Second Act’

Sullivan’s show combines biography and song to tap into the fragile but tough survivor that was the legendary Miss Peggy Lee.

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Stacy Sullivan’s tribute to the legendary Miss Peggy Lee, “It’s a Good Day: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee,” combines a biographical journey through Lee’s remarkable life and six-decade career — one that left an indelible mark on American music — with Lee songs from Sullivan’s new album of the same name.

Says Sullivan, “Twenty years ago, I did a show with one of Peggy’s co-writers, Paul Horner. I loved her songs. About five years ago, Sydney Myer came up to me after a show and said, “You have to do a Peggy Lee show.” I didn’t ask questions…I got to work. I was only familiar with the “later” Peggy Lee. When I started digging up the old footage of her from the 40’s and 50’s, I was hooked for life.”

Sullivan’s show opened the new Carlyle “Second Act series,” as the legendary venue for cabaret calls its late Friday and Saturday night shows. Cabaret fans that missed her recent show will get a second chance to catch her show when it returns on May 2, 3 and 4.

The News had a chance to catch up with her at the Carlyle show and ask her about her life, her art and the great Miss Peggy Lee:

News: Can you talk about growing up and coming from a large and musical family?

Sullivan: I was born in Boggy Depot, Oklahoma, but my family moved to the “big city,” Norman, Oklahoma, when I was five years old. As the seventh child in an extremely musical family, I sang before I could talk. We did family concerts all through my childhood in Oklahoma and performing was such a positive experience for me that I don’t think I ever seriously considered another profession. My sister, Heather is also a professional musician and composer. I remember watching my mom sing in church as a kid. She took everyone to another place when she sang. She is definitely my greatest inspiration as a singer.

News: Can you share some of the key moments your recall about the “family concerts” that you sang together as kids?

Sullivan: I remember getting to go out to dinner after the shows! Eating out in restaurants wasn’t something we did a lot of as a family of ten. Usually, the churches took “love offerings” for our fee. Depending on how well we sang and how generous the audience, we ate everything from steak to pizza!

Read the full article at nydailynews.com

in News /by PeggyLeeAdmn

The New York Times reviews Give Me Fever: The Many Voices of Peggy Lee

March 15, 2013

The New York Times reviews Give Me Fever: The Many Voices of Peggy Lee , presented as part of the Lyrics & Lyricists series at the 92nd Street Y.

Because a vocal signature is as distinct as a fingerprint, there is a crucial difference between shows that pay tribute to a singer and those that salute a songwriter. Unless the performer is a skilled impersonator, what you hear are distant echoes of a voice that only call attention to the absence of the musician being remembered. In the case of a songwriter the material speaks for itself.

That said, “Give Me Fever: The Many Voices of Peggy Lee,” at the Lyrics & Lyricists series at the 92nd Street Y on Saturday evening, hosted by the singer and pianist Billy Stritch, made do with four able surrogates (five, if you count Mr. Stritch’s suave contributions) who stamped Lee’s catalog with their own personalities.

Marilyn Maye, La Tanya Hall, Barbara Fasano and Gabrielle Stravelli all play in the sophisticated pop-jazz ballpark Lee helped build. But none possesses the mesmerizing, faintly ominous Lee mystique, which might be described as a refined hybrid: two parts Billie Holiday to one part Mae West. Simply by raising an eyebrow and flashing the shadow of a half-smile, Lee projected an insinuating erotic intensity while swinging songs in a husky near-murmur, every nuance calculated to the last breath.

The Lee acolytes were accompanied by an excellent quartet that, besides Mr. Stritch, included John Hart on guitar, Tom Hubbard on bass and Ray Marchica on drums. The script, written by Mr. Stritch with Mark Waldrop, repeatedly called attention to Lee’s often overlooked gifts as a lyricist.

The talents on hand were considerable. Ms. Hall, who sang “Black Coffee,” the 1948 torch song that weirdly substitutes caffeine for alcohol, was the most elegant and sinuous of the four and Ms. Stravelli (“Day In, Day Out”) the jazziest. Ms. Fasano sang warm, tonally rounded versions of “But Beautiful” and “The Shining Sea.” Ms. Maye, that ageless eternal optimist, turned the rueful “When the World Was Young (Ah, the Apple Trees)” into a satisfied summation and transformed “Is That All There Is?,” a confession of lifelong ennui and disappointment, into a hearty sigh of contentment.

Read the full article at NYTimes.com

in News /by PeggyLeeAdmn

‘Gangster Squad’ Soundtrack Includes St. Vincent, Peggy Lee, Hoagy Carmichael & More

March 15, 2013

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After a release date delay and some reshoots, “Gangster Squad” is back on the case next month and in addition to the old-timey hats, clothes, cars and guns, there’s going to be some old-timey music too.

The soundtrack details for the film have been revealed, and no surprise, it’s a lot of pop, swing and standards from the era. And so we get tunes from big names and legends like Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael and Peggy Lee, and contributions from lesser-known names like Pee Wee King. But perhaps most intriguing of all is that the very modern St. Vincent has delivered her take on the standard “Early Autumn,” that has previously been performed by folks like Woody Herman (who co-wrote it), Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme and more.

The soundtrack will land on January 8th with the movie in theaters on January 11th. Full tracklist below.

“Gangster Squad” Soundtrack Tracklisting

1. The Hills Of California – Johnny Mercer & The Pied Pipers
2. Mr. Five By Five – Imelda May
3. Early Autumn – The Gangster Squad Movie Band
4. Chicken Shack Boogie – Delandis and The Gangster Squad Movie Band
5. Bull Fiddle Boogie – Pee Wee King
6. A Little Bird Told Me – Kitty Daisy & Lewis
7. Big Jay’s Hop / Blow Blow Blow – Big Jay McNeely
8. Chica Chica Boom Chic – Sharmila Guha & The Gangster Squad Movie Band
9. Ole Buttermilk Sky – Hoagy Carmichael
10. Bless You (For The Good That’s In You) – Peggy Lee
11. Early Autumn – St. Vincent
12. Bless You (For The Good That’s In You) – Delta Rae

Read the full article at IndieWire.com

in News /by PeggyLeeAdmn

National Public Radio celebrates the centennial of composer Jimmy Van Heusen. (Peggy Lee recorded 24 of his songs.)

March 15, 2013

The Composer Who Tested Fighter Planes And Partied With Sinatra

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You’ve never heard of Jimmy Van Heusen? Well, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers has. You certainly know many of his songs, says Brook Babcock, Van Heusen’s grandnephew and president of his publishing company.

“There’s 330,000 songwriters listed with ASCAP. Van Heusen, as far as his catalog, is probably within the Top 20. That’s a pretty good number,” Babcock says. “Yes, he’s not as known as Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin, but when you put that name out there — Jimmy Van Heusen — to be in that Top 20 is, to me, pretty significant.”

The songwriter behind “Swinging on a Star,” “Love and Marriage,” “Come Fly with Me” and “My Kind of Town” won four Academy Awards and one Emmy for his work; he would have been 100 today. Jimmy Van Heusen was born Edward Chester Babcock and grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., where he was a terrible student but a born entertainer.
Van Heusen at work in the 1960s. Enlarge image

“I don’t think there’s a school in Syracuse that I didn’t attend,” he told an interviewer on Armed Forces Radio in the 1960s. “And I was usually unceremoniously expelled.”

Among his crimes: a suggestive performance at a high-school assembly.

“I chose, for my song, ‘My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes,’ ” he said. “It was written by Yip Harburg, and I just copied it off the air. But it went, ‘Since making whoopee became all the rage / It’s gotten round to the old birdcage / And my canary’s got circles under his eyes.’ … It was the biggest laugh! You never heard 2,000 kids laugh so hard!”

Babcock took his pen name from the dress-shirt brand Phillips-Van Heusen. He made his way to New York, where Harold Arlen gave him a shot to write for the Cotton Club revue. Cab Calloway was the first to record a Van Heusen song.

A few years later, Van Heusen wrote a big hit for Benny Goodman, “Darn That Dream.” Bing Crosby heard it and brought Van Heusen to California, where the composer began a successful collaboration with lyricist Johnny Burke.

In Hollywood, Van Heusen became known as a man about town. Even though he wasn’t conventionally handsome, he always had a beautiful woman on his arm. And, Brook Babcock says, he threw great parties.

Read the full article at NPR.org

in News /by PeggyLeeAdmn

Peggy Lee’s Fever ranks at #10 on a list of 50 Great Jazz Vocals

March 15, 2013

The Mix: 50 Great Jazz Vocals

50 Great Jazz Vocals is a crowdsourced list of the 50 most popular jazz vocal recordings of all time, as determined by the listeners of NPR Music, Jazz24.org and KPLU in Seattle. We asked jazz lovers all over the world to vote for their favorites. When the results were in, the thousands of votes were tabulated, and this list is the result. You can take a look at the list below or, better yet, dive into the webstream, kick back and listen to all 50 Great Jazz Vocals. According to our listeners, it doesn’t get any better than this.

50 Great Jazz Vocals: The List

1. Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit”
2. Johnny Hartman & John Coltrane, “Lush Life”
3. Billie Holiday, “God Bless the Child”
4. Ella Fitzgerald, “How High the Moon”
5. Ella Fitzgerald, “Mack the Knife”
6. Etta James, “At Last”
7. Louis Armstrong, “What a Wonderful World”
8. Chet Baker, “My Funny Valentine”
9. Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto, “Girl From Ipanema”
10. Peggy Lee, “Fever”

See the full list at NPR.org

in News /by PeggyLeeAdmn