Peggy Lee - 'Something Wonderful: Peggy Lee Sings The Great American Songbook'

Omnivore Recordings and Peggy Lee Associates are proud to announce the April 9, 2021 release of Something Wonderful: Peggy Lee Sings The Great American Songbook. Compiled to accompany the 2020 PBS documentary Fever: The Music of Peggy Lee, this two-CD, 40-song set features dozens of previously unissued performances from Lee’s 1951-1952 radio program. Besides her renditions of American standard classics, songwriters Hoagy Carmichael, Matt Dennis, Frank Loesser and Johnny Mercer make rare duet appearances with Lee. 

“Music is my life’s breath,” proclaims the epitaph of Norma Deloris Egstrom, better known to the entertainment world by her professional name of Peggy Lee. Last year marked the centennial anniversary of the birth of this legendary artist, who made considerable contributions to the world of jazz and popular music. 

Over her seven-decade career, Peggy Lee, as both a singer and a songwriter, helped redefine what it meant to be a female singer, and her quietly captivating voice continues to resonate with audiences of all ages. Born in an era in which women struggled for equality — a conversation that continues today — and carrying the burden of a traumatic childhood, she was a true pioneer and survivor to her core. What she accomplished as a woman, and as an artist, is nothing short of extraordinary.  

Lee’s vast and varied catalog of songs flourished from remarkable longevity in the music business:  she recorded more than 1,100 masters and over 50 original albums. Her total number of radio broadcast performances exceeds 800, and her television appearances surpass the 200-mark. 

Best known for such songs as “Fever,” “It’s A Good Day,” Why Don’t You Do Right,” “I’m a Woman” and “Is That All There Is?,” she amassed over 100 chart entries beginning with "I Got It Bad" (1941) and culminating with the posthumous hit "Similau" (2017). Among the myriad music honors bestowed upon Lee are 13 Grammy® Award nominations, a 1969 Grammy win, and a 1995 Lifetime Achievement Award. 

In addition to the fantastic performances, the set features new liner notes from The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese, plus restoration and mastering from multiple Grammy®-winning engineer Michael Graves. 

Lee stayed active as a concert performer until 1995, when she gave her final performances at Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. In one of the many obituaries that celebrated her extraordinary musicianship, renowned jazz critic Nat Hentoff wrote a fitting epitaph: “Her main quality was a marvelous sense of subtlety. She never overpowered you. You could hear her voice after it stopped.”   

And 100 years after she was born, we’re still hearing it…