''Miss Peggy Lee Sings the Blues'' is a 1988

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by jazz singer

Peggy Lee Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalis ...

. This was Lee's first album for nine years, and the first of two albums that she recorded for the Musicmasters label.

Reception

Scott Yanow Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author.Allmusic Biography/ref> Biography Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Since 1974, he was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles an ...

reviewed the album for AllMusic and wrote that "By 1988, 68-year-old Peggy Lee did not have much of a voice left. Although she was still determined, physical problems had weakened her, and despite Gene Lees' absurd raving in the liner notes ("Her work has never flagged, the quality of it has never faltered"), this set finds her way past her prime." Yanow described the material as "pretty strong" and praised the quintet that supported Lee on the album, and concluded his review by writing that "This is one of the better releases from Peggy Lee's later years, but it still pales next to her 1950s recordings."

Track listing

# "

See See Rider "See See Rider", also known as "C.C. Rider", "See See Rider Blues" or "Easy Rider", is a popular American 12-bar blues song that became a standard in several genres. Gertrude "Ma" Rainey was the first to record it on October 16, 1924, at Param ...

" ( Ma Rainey, Traditional) – 5:06 # "

Basin Street Blues "Basin Street Blues" is a song often performed by Dixieland jazz bands, written by Spencer Williams in 1928 and recorded that year by Louis Armstrong. The verse with the lyric "Won't you come along with me / To the Mississippi..." was later added ...

" ( Clarence Williams) – 3:10 # "

Squeeze Me "Squeeze Me" is a 1925 jazz standard composed by Fats Waller. It was based on an old blues song called "The Boy in the Boat". The lyrics were credited to publisher Clarence Williams, although Andy Razaf has claimed to have actually written the ...

" (

Fats Waller Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz pi ...

, Williams) – 2:47 # "You Don't Know" (Walter Spriggs) – 4:09 # "

Fine and Mellow "Fine and Mellow" is a jazz standard written by Billie Holiday, who first recorded it on April 20, 1939 on the Commodore label. It is a blues lamenting the bad treatment of a woman at the hands of "my man". Notable performances and recordings ...

" ( Billie Holiday) – 5:13 # "

Baby Won't You Please Come Home "Baby Won't You Please Come Home" is a blues song written by Charles Warfield and Clarence Williams in 1919. The song's authorship is disputed; Warfield claims that he was the sole composer of the song. The song has been covered by many musicia ...

" (Charles Warfield, Williams) – 3:25 # "

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

" (

Leiber and Stoller Lyricist Jerome Leiber (April 25, 1933 – August 22, 2011) and composer Michael Stoller (born March 13, 1933) were American songwriting and record producing partners. They found success as the writers of such Crossover music, crossover hit songs ...

) – 3:43 # "

Birmingham Jail Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West M ...

" (Traditional) – 4:15 # "Love Me" (

Joe McCoy Wilbur "Kansas Joe" McCoy (May 11, 1905 – January 28, 1950) was an American Delta blues singer, musician and songwriter. Career McCoy performed under various stage names but is best known as Kansas Joe McCoy. Born in Raymond, Mississippi, h ...

) – 4:10 # " Beale Street Blues" (

W. C. Handy William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was an American composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musici ...

) – 2:52 # " 'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do" ( Porter Grainger,

Everett Robbins Everett "Happy" Robbins was a Chicago-based pianist,Fran ...

, Williams) – 5:45 # " God Bless the Child" (Holiday, Arthur Herzog Jr.) – 3:14

Personnel

- vocals *

Mike Renzi Michael Ernest Renzi (April 28, 1941 – September 29, 2021) was an American composer, music director, pianist, and jazz musician. Renzi graduated from the Boston Conservatory in 1973 and from Berklee College of Music in 1974. He was a musical ...

- piano *John Chiodini - guitar * Jay Leonhart - double bass * Mark Sherman - percussion * Grady Tate -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

*Gregory K. Squires -

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

*Bill Kipper, Andrew Milano - engineer

References

External links

New York Times album review
{{Authority control 1988 albums Peggy Lee albums