Movie Music Monday – Pete Kelly’s Blues

Today marks the 105th birthday of legendary singer Peggy Lee. She was discovered singing in a noisy club in Palm Springs. That noisy club played an important role in her sultry singing style. She said,

I knew I couldn’t sing over them, so I decided to sing under them. The more noise they made, the more softly I sang. When they discovered they couldn’t hear me, they began to look at me. Then, they began to listen. As I sang, I kept thinking, ‘softly with feeling’. The noise dropped to a hum; the hum gave way to silence. I had learned how to reach and hold my audience—softly, with feeling.

In 1941, she would go on to be the singer in Benny Goodman’s orchestra. She enjoyed a seven decade career which included songwriting and singing. She recorded over 1100 songs and of those co-wrote 270 of them.

Her record label kept her very busy, but she did find time to do some acting. In 1955 she did some voice work for Disney’s The Lady and the Tramp and starred with Jack Webb in Pete Kelly’s Blues. She played an alcoholic blues singer in the film and her performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Peggy sang 9 songs in the film. One of which was Sugar.

Fun Fact: Peggy Lee was used as inspiration for the Miss Piggy character in 1974. Originally called Miss Piggy Lee, her name was shortened to Miss Piggy when the Muppets gained fame.

As a bonus, for Peggy’s birthday, I want to include one of my favorite Peggy Lee songs. I mentioned earlier her sultry voice. I can think of no better song to demonstrate her sexiness and sultriness than Big Spender.

In the song she has her eyes on a guy with a big money roll. He caught her eye as soon as he arrived and she wants him to spend some time with her. The arrangement of the song makes you picture her walking slowly and deliberately over to him. You can picture her staring him in the eyes and shifting her hips from side to side as she moves closer.

When I was in Jazz Band in high school we played this song. I remember the director asking us to picture a beautiful woman walking towards us slyly as we played. As silly as that sounds, it made the saxes play the melody with a bit more feeling, it made us trumpets really hit to “stab” notes, and the trombones really made their glissandos loud and sloppy.

Happy Birthday, Peggy Lee!