EDGE Chicago

Collector’s Choice has brought back the 1974 Peggy Lee album Let’s Love, best known for the title track. A big fan of Lee’s since childhood, Paul McCartney wrote and produced the single "Let’s Love" for her.

He presented it to her when he and Linda dined with Lee when she was in London for a gig. According to the album notes, "Sir Paul arranged and recorded the backing track himself at Abbey Road Studios in London several weeks before Peggy added her vocal..."

While she started her career in Benny Goodman’s band in 1941 and had her first hit a year later, Peggy Lee (1920 - 2002) never stopped checking out new musical developments. Whether in pop or rock’n’roll. Lee, an award-winning songwriter herself, could appreciate many types of music.

She covered all sorts of other songwriters on her albums, from Kris Kristofferson ("Help me Make it Through the Night") to Otis Redding ("Dock of the Bay").

In this album of 11 songs, she does listeners no disservice with her sweet and soulful rendition of the Stylistics’ hit "You Make Me Feel Brand New." In James Taylor’s "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight," she produces a magnificent chanteuse interpretation, playing against a luscious guitar and base line.

To both Melissa Manchester’s "He Is the One" and Max R. Bennett’s "Sweet Lov’liness," she brings a gospel sensibility. Lee finds the funkiness in "Sweet Talk" by Don Sebesky. And in Alan O’Day’s "Easy Evil" she proves that no one can sing the line "I’m a sucker for you, baby" like Peggy Lee.

To this reviewer’s ear, "Sometimes," written by Henry Mancini and his daughter Felice and originally sung by Karen Carpenter, is a bit labored and heavy.

Just as Peggy Lee admired the popular artists working in each of her six decades of performing, so she, in turn, has been the object of admiration by the younger musicians. This re-mastered edition provides listeners with a sense of her musical connections in her 50s during the early 1970s.

She continued to seduce audiences well into her 70s and her grave is marked by the saying, "Music is my life’s breath." It sure was.

by Peggy Lee