Recorded in March 1942, “We’ll Meet Again” by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles hit the pop music charts in May, peaking at number sixteen. This nostalgic but lightly swinging song gave Lee a chance to share her optimistic spirit and encouraging personality. The lyrics promised a future meeting after time spent apart from one’s dearest friends. For many years this song has continued to grace retirement parties, family reunions, and class reunions as an anthem of hope for enduring friendship. Having resonated strongly with older music fans drawn to the music of yesteryear, the song enjoyed significant popularity in the early 1940s and beyond. Lee approached this lyric in a straightforward and sincere manner, showering her sunny disposition upon the music to match the hopefulness contained in this sentimental text.
“Full Moon” (also known as “Noche de Luna”) was recorded on the same date in March. It arrived on the music charts in June and peaked at number twenty-two. A moderately fast song, it opened with a heavily swinging big band sound followed by a gently moving clarinet solo, and after another interjection by the full band, it tapered into a more delicate vocal tune perfectly suited for the vulnerable feminine voice of the young Peggy Lee. Beginning the vocal chorus in an up-tempo Latin style and falling into swing feel eighteen bars later, the tune provided both exotic and laid-back flavors for fans of different styles. The Latin flair returned at the very end to provide unity and cohesion to the piece—an ode to the power of the moon to influence romance. Lee and Goodman found a good match for their talents in this sentimental swing song blending both older and newer styles.
“There Won’t Be a Shortage of Love,” an unissued single finally released on the Columbia Legacy series in 1999, came into being in March 1942 courtesy of Lee and the Goodman band. This cute ditty followed the format of several other swing songs recorded by this band, as it was arranged by pianist Mel Powell, who held the responsibility of arranging several of their recorded songs. Goodman offered a taste of the melody in a brief solo following a fairly quiet opening with Mel Powell playing flowery piano lines amid short brass hits and a swath of soft padding by saxophones. Powell’s tasteful arranging ability showed a great depth of variety, giving young Lee a sense of what might be possible for her own songs and arrangements later in her career. The timely lyrics described various food shortages, rising taxes, and other sacrifices suffered by Americans during the lean years of World War II. As always, this swing band managed to keep even wartime messages light and danceable, pointing to the abundance of love to be enjoyed in the midst of such relative lack. Even with this extremely positive spin on the plight of working American civilians, the song was never released to provide the encouraging message it sought to deliver.
In May 1942 the Goodman band entered the studio again with Lee to record Irving Berlin’s classic song “You’re Easy to Dance With,” from Paramount’s Holiday Inn. With the success of Fred Astaire’s timeless version taken directly from the movie musical, it is no mystery why this somewhat less polished rendition was never released. Although an adorable song, the arrangement did not lend itself to improving the original enough to endure as an alternate version.[9] Although Lee sang her vocal line acceptably, her opening phrases sounded less stable and confident than usual, and she seemed to be less vocally prepared for this selection. This song may have been cut from an album (or a series of singles) before a final edited version was made. Masters never meant to be heard by the public tended to be less polished than fully rehearsed, edited recordings. Even before the days of painstaking, months-long editing processes that current songs undergo, major studios like Columbia and Capitol went over final cuts with a fine-tooth comb to ensure a high standard of quality.
The slow, charming ballad “All I Need Is You” that Lee and the Goodman band recorded in May 1942 sounded as if it belonged to years gone by rather than to the leading styles of the day. Deftly sung by Lee (even in the passages befitting a soprano), the song included wide melodic leaps landing the singer in a higher vocal range than was usually performed in jazz and swing. A jazz or swing song’s performance keys were, and still are, generally selected with the singer’s spoken voice range in mind. This ensured that the lyrics came through clearly and differed from the emphasis of classic genres like opera, where the power of the voice was more important than the clarity of lyrics. Since jazz, swing, and popular singers’ voices were amplified in performance and recording, they could place a greater emphasis on lyrics. As this need to amplify one’s own voice quickly waned at the dawn of the technological age, voices with excess vibrato and projection fell out of vogue. By contrast, soft, sultry voices like Lee’s became popular, and gentler vocal stylization began to evolve among the popular, swing, and jazz set.
Along with many other bands, the Goodman band participated in war bond rallies in New York to assist with the war effort. Returning to New York to perform at the Paramount Theater in May 1942, Lee and Goodman wowed audiences with their renditions of “Where or When” and “Sing, Sing, Sing,” Goodman’s swing era anthem. Back in 1937 the Goodman band had recorded this Louis Prima standard, clocking the recording at over eight minutes—way past the usual three-minute limit for radio play. The song was instrumental in continuing the swing frenzy begun on August 21, 1935, at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. Goodman ushered in the swing era that evening with the national radio broadcast of his live concert at this colossal dance hall attended by twenty thousand dancers. With the help of AM radio’s long wavelengths traveling hundreds of miles farther than modern FM radio, and a string of DJs devoting their airtime to broadcasting the concert, the event blanketed the nation in swing. One of the most influential concert performances in music history, Goodman’s Palomar debut ushered in a whole new genre of popular music and made Benny Goodman one of the first American pop culture stars. Even though other bands (notably Duke Ellington’s) had been playing swing for years already, the public awareness and appreciation among white audiences was sealed that evening. Goodman later commented about the song: “‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ (which we started doing back at the Palomar on our second trip there in 1936) was a big thing, and no one-nighter was complete without it.”[10] Thereafter, Goodman’s audiences expected to hear the song whenever he appeared. New York’s Paramount Theater crowd responded with the usual appreciation accorded to this era-defining hit.
During an interview with George Christy in 1984, Peggy Lee related that she was a fan of Lil Green, “a great old blues singer.”[11] Being in the habit of playing Green’s recording of “Why Don’t You Do Right?” repeatedly in her dressing room at the Paramount, Lee heartily accepted Goodman’s offer to create an arrangement of it especially for her. In July 1942 Peggy and the Goodman band entered the recording studio to record the song that would change the trajectory of Lee’s career. Charting in January 1943, Lee’s rendition of the song stayed on the popular music charts for nineteen weeks, peaking at number four. The success of the recording led to a spot in a film for Lee and the band. Their scene from Stage Door Canteen, in which they played the song in its entirety, became a famous moment in music history, announcing the arrival of Lee as a new solo recording artist. The vital importance of this recording to Lee’s ensuing career cannot be overstated. Her performance of “Do Right,” as it was often called, unveiled Lee’s unique soulful blues and swing sound in a key aligned with her speaking voice. Lee infused her rendition with a respectful nod to the style of African American singers of the time while delivering her own original stylistic interpretation. Any skeptics as to whether Lee had merely copied Billie Holiday’s sound were silenced after hearing Lee’s signature style develop over decades.
“Let’s Say a Prayer” was the final recording made while Lee was with the Goodman band. Recorded in July 1942 but not released until 1999, this patriotic wartime anthem was Lee’s swan song with the top swing band in America. Opening with a long instrumental section, Lee’s vocal chorus rendered heartfelt sentiments asking God to bless young men fighting for American freedom.