Unfortunately for this and many other outstanding swing bands, the American Federation of Musicians declared a recording ban to commence immediately after July 31, 1942. The ban continued for Columbia Records until 1944, eliminating further opportunities for more recordings to be made by union musicians. The union hoped that the strike would yield artist royalties from jukeboxes and radio stations playing music without paying for it. The strike backfired when no fair resolution was found to compensate musicians. Sadly, this unfortunate situation has continued to the present day. Modern songwriters continue to lobby Congress to rectify this long-unjust situation.
Interestingly, the ban did not extend over the contracts of singers, which was a major reason young Frank Sinatra’s career launched during this period. Singers were not required to join the union, so they could continue to record, albeit with non-union musicians. The monopoly that ensued for Sinatra upon his release of a slew of new recordings during the ban ensured that those recordings received radio play, since radio stations had nothing else new to play. Established union bands could not compete and many established singers, faithful to and standing by their union bands, waited for the ban to be lifted before returning to the recording studios. This reality gave Sinatra, an emerging non-union singer untethered by band loyalties, a greater advantage and career boost than that of any other singer in American pop music history. Although the Goodman band did not record during this time period, it continued to perform with Lee until she left the band in March 1943.
In addition to jump-starting Lee’s career and releasing several hit songs, the Lee-Goodman collaboration yielded another huge benefit for Peggy. In the summer of 1942, guitarist Dave Barbour joined the Goodman band and quickly became a new love interest for the chanteuse. In March 1943, having defied Goodman’s rule against band members becoming romantically involved with one another, Barbour and Lee left the band and soon married. Barbour became the first collaborative composer with whom Peggy wrote a long string of songs. For the moment, though, Peggy was content to simply enjoy being Mrs. Dave Barbour.
Notes
1.
Peter Richmond, Fever: The Life and Music of Miss Peggy Lee (New York: Picador, 2006), 52.
2.
Richmond, Fever, 19.
3.
Mary English, “Softly . . . with Feeling,” Record Whirl, October 1955. http://www.peggylee.com/library/551000.html.
4.
David McGee, “Peggy Lee: A Consummate Artist,” Record World, December 27, 1975, http://www.peggylee.com/library/751227/html.
5.
Iván Santiago-Mercado, “The Benny Goodman Years (1941–1943),” The Peggy Lee Bio-Discography and Videography, accessed November 23, 2018, http://www.peggyleediscography.com/p/Goodman.php.
6.
Benny Goodman, Peggy Lee & Benny Goodman: The Complete Recordings 1941–1947, Columbia Legacy C2K65686, CD liner notes, 1999.
7.
Jack Zaientz, “Lost in Translation–Di Grine Kuzine (The Greenhorn Cousin),” Teruah Jewish Music, accessed 13 September 2019, http://teruah-jewishmusic.blogspot.com/2009/01/lost-in-translation-di-grine-kuzine.html.
8.
Oren Jacoby, Benny Goodman: Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing (Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures, 1993).
9.
A well-known maxim among recording artists has endured through the ages: when covering a song, improve it, reframe it, or skip it! This unsuccessful recording may have been a case in point.
10.
Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), 320.
11.
George Christy, “Peggy Lee: Still at Fever’s Pitch,” interview by George Christy, Interview (October 1984).
Chapter 2
A Capitol Idea
Peggy Lee’s career as a major-label recording artist began and ended at Capitol Records, spanning twenty-nine years. She spent five of those years sharpening her jazz chops in the studios of a major competitor that became well known for its outstanding jazz talent. Overall, though, Lee’s home was with the Capitol family throughout the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, and into the ’70s. She began winning the hearts of her fans even from her earliest days.
Toward the end of her tenure with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, on December 30, 1942, Peggy returned the Paramount Theater in New York for a special performance. This engagement happened to include the solo debut of a young singer who had recently left the Tommy Dorsey Band to actively pursue a solo career. Bob Weitman, the manager at the Paramount, booked this performer as an additional act on the bill. When Goodman dryly announced the entrance of this young singer, Frank Sinatra, the theater erupted in girlish hysteria akin to that accompanying Beatles concerts a couple of decades later. Both Lee and Sinatra would soon enjoy worldwide renown and stardom as fellow artists on the roster of a new label called Capitol Records. While the Paramount introduction may have left an indelible first impression upon both artists, their common link to Capitol would not commence for several more months.
In February 1943 the Goodman band spent six weeks performing in Hollywood. While there, Lee gave Goodman her notice of intention to leave the band, as she and Dave Barbour (who had already been fired for fraternizing with the singer) planned to marry. Another take on the story was that Dave had simply quit and asked Lee to marry him at the moment he informed her of his leaving.[1] Either way, the Barbours tied the knot in March of that year, and their daughter Nicki would arrive in November. In the meantime, Peggy found contentment in her domestic roles of wife and soon-to-be mother.
Producers at Capitol Records became interested in signing young Peggy Lee following the success of her hits with the Goodman band, especially “Why Don’t You Do Right?” which led to a video spot for Lee and Goodman in the film Stage Door Canteen. The film spot consisted of a scene containing a full performance of the song with the camera on the band and singer. The film’s popularity created some of the first inroads for Lee’s talent to be seen and appreciated on a national level. Just prior to the film’s release, the song itself rose slowly and spent almost five months on Billboard’s Top 30 chart in 1943, creating an unusually long period for the hit and its singer to bask in the public’s consciousness.
Lee’s subsequent successful recording dates as a guest vocalist with ad hoc bands also created allure strong enough to attract Capitol’s producers. Concert dates and radio performance opportunities continued to roll in. Lee, however, was committed to her new job as wife and mother and harbored no plans to return to her former mode of employment. She engaged her musical interests by writing songs with her husband. Dave eventually convinced Peggy to return to her career, feeling strongly that with such talent she would one day regret leaving the stage for a purely domestic life. Her husband was sensitive to the fact that Lee’s recent difficult childbirth and an ensuing hysterectomy would prevent her from ever having more children. Dave’s unflagging encouragement toward his wife to pursue a music career under such sober realities at home showed a support of his spouse’s best interests that was well before its time. As a result of Dave’s support, as well as the reality that the Barbours needed the money, Lee began accepting some performance and recording offers while turning others down as she sought balance between her home life and occasional work. This part-time music lifestyle proved to be short lived. As her daughter grew stronger, Peggy began to accept more and more offers to perform and record, effectively taking her career to the next level. Before Nicki reached her second birthday, Lee had fully returned to a