[Dixielandjazz] Peggy Lee book reviewed - by Christopher Loudon

[Charles Suhor]

This reviewer is himself a fine wordsmith. If I can get halfway down the stack of books on my to-read shelf, I'll buy the Peggy Lee bio. So many books and personal projects. Maybe time will be kind enough to let me get through a batch of them before kick the bucket, shake this mortal coil, meet my Maker or the grim reaper, shed my earth suit, etc., etc.

Charlie Suhor

On Nov 16, 2014, at 4:02 PM, Robert Ringwald wrote:

> The Life of a Uniquely Seductive Singer
> by Christopher Loudon
> Maclean’s (Canada), November 15, 2014
> James Gavin’s oeuvre may be lean, just four books across 23 years; but, to borrow
> a sentiment from Spencer Tracy, “what’s there is cherce.” Gavin numbers among that
> rare breed of biographer capable of tremendous style and substance, meticulous about
> detail and accuracy yet blessed with exceptional storytelling elan. He has a penchant
> for challenging subjects, previously illuminating the shadowy path of Chet Baker
> and melting the icy mystique of Lena Horne. Never, though, has he tackled as cagey
> an icon as Peggy Lee, arguably the finest female pop-jazz stylist of all time, yet
> a woman of massive insecurities cocooned in layers of self-deception and aggrandized
> half-truths. It took Gavin five years to untangle Lee’s dense web, and what emerges
> is a masterwork of balanced reporting, unflinchingly honest yet eminently respectful.
> Lee’s story begins in the barrens of North Dakota, her early years shaped by a sweet
> but alcoholic father and a cold stepmother who would subsequently emerge as the bete
> noire of the singer’s self-spun mythology. Lee’s escape was music. Performing on
> regional radio stations led her to L.A., then Chicago, where she caught the attention
> of Benny Goodman. Her tenure with Goodman’s orchestra was brief, interrupted by marriage
> to guitarist Dave Barbour and retirement from showbiz. Though Barbour would prove
> to be her grand amour (three later marriages were short-lived and inconsequential),
> their relationship was derailed by his alcoholism and her rekindled desire for stardom
> in the 1950s and early ’60s, as a darling of chic supper clubs and variety series.
> She could be as intense a tragedian as Billie Holiday (whom she was, early on, accused
> of parroting) and as sunny as Doris Day, but Lee’s specialty was a unique seductiveness,
> at once lusty and kittenish, that enabled her to thrive long after her contemporaries,
> even Sinatra. And she was, in various ways, a pioneer: among the first female singer-songwriters;
> an early apostle of new-age thinking; and, albeit somewhat reluctantly, a feminist
> before the term or movement existed.
> She could also be a tyrant, burning through a litany of assistants and household
> staff. By the 1970s, though barely 50, she’d taken to bed, victim of endless illnesses
> more imagined than real, rising only for concerts and recording sessions. She grew
> steadily angrier, needier and, fuelled by Valium and Seconal, befogged. But her musicality
> never faltered. As late as 1996, wheelchair-bound and breathless, her less-is-more
> coyness could ignite thunderous ovations. To the end she remained a paradox, summed
> by playwright and collaborator William Luce as “the little girl you wanted to protect
> and the tough-as-nails lady who could destroy you with a few words.”
> -30
> 
> -Bob Ringwald
> Bob Ringwald Solo Piano, duo, Trio, Quartet
> Fulton Street Jazz Band
> 916/ 806-9551
> Amateur (ham) Radio K 6 Y B V
> 
> "Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. 
> Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, 
> but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza." -Dave Barry 
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