ERR input text too short

"Sunday Morning" originally aired this story on February 6, 2022. 

In 1970, Peggy Lee won the Grammy for "Is That All There Is". This is the song that many have heard as an ennui hymn ...

That's it. That's all there is.
If you have friends, keep dancing
Drink and bring the ball
If that's all

But Lee Her granddaughter, Holly Foster Wells, said: This is happening.

And Lee had a lot to celebrate. When she was 50, she was already a legend and an artist of amazing diversity. She is a master of cool ("Black Coffee"), a heartbreaker ("Then Was Then (And Now Is Now)"), and a pioneer ["I'm woman"].

Correspondent Mo Rocca asked Lee's biographer Peter Richmond, "Musically, how many Peggy Lee were?"

"Oh, dozens of people," he laughed. "I have Latin. I have blues. I have jazz. I have pop." Oh, you cry because you want me to do "folk people". I can do it. "You want me to have" black coffee ", so I think it's something like this:Oh, I'm hanging out at the kitchen table.I can do that. '"

And all those Peggy Lee can be traced back to the desolate plains of North Dakota. At Wimbledon, now the Peggy Lee Museum, Norma spent her high school days.

Rocka said, "That wind, it's like rumbling."

"It's powerful. It feels like it could blow this house away," Foster Wells said. Told. , The house where Lee grew up, Wimbledon, North Dakota CBS News

Her mother died at the age of four. The town's railroad depot manager was alcoholic. Foster Wells said, "She had to take over him because he couldn't run the depot from time to time."

To make matters worse, her father remarried. She is a physically abused woman. Lee later wrote that her stepmom once hit her head with a cast iron skillet.

"My grandmother said she just looked at the tracks and imagined where they were. She took the lead," Fosterwells said. That's what the railroad showed her. And of course, her other way was music.

By the age of 17, she sang on the radio as Peggy Lee and eventually toured with Benny Goodman's band. did. In many cases, she is the only woman on the bus.

"She said these guys were always looking for her. People took her under their wings. She wanted you to protect her. It had that quality. "

So far, she has grown a style that is as minimalist as the landscape she grew up in.

Foster-Wells said, "She had the philosophy that less is more, and she will bring you. For example, you had to pay attention. She Got them. "

" She said the challenge was to exclude everything except what she needed. Minimize it, "Fosterwells said. Mr. says.

Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman Orchestra will perform "Why Don't You Do Right" in the 1943 musical "Stage Door Canteen".

I met guitarist Dave Barber while touring with Goodman. They got married in 1943. 

"They had such a chemistry together," Foster Wells said. "It was my grandfather, the love of her life."

Peggy Lee performs "I don't know enough about you":

However, Barber had the same drinking problems as his father. Her marriage ended in 1951, worsening as her Lee grew older.

"It broke her heart," Foster Wells said. "But as she always did, it stimulated her music."

Don't cry, spring is coming again
Let our hearts dance again I know
And I'll sing again, so wait till

The 1950s were Lee's most prolific and innovative era. Unusual among women at the time, she was a singer-songwriter with 270 songs in her name.

Rocca asked, "When you were a kid, was it really cool for you that your grandmother was part of Lady and the Tramp?"

"That's how my friend knew her," Foster Wells replied.

Lee co-authored her score on Disney Classic and was the voice of a Siamese cat. Darling, mother. And a dog pound peg. 

In 1958, Lee recorded her biggest hit on her "fever", arranging only her bass, drums and finger snapping.

Richmond "She keeps doing so much. If this (finger snap) is the only thing that tells you that you're singing, it's powerful.

But it was fascinating to see Peggy Lee live, as evidenced by the hypnotic performance of "Sea Sea Rider" at Basin Street East in New York:

Lee was inevitably gaining icon status. "She just came up with the Bob and the glasses," Foster Wells said. "And that's weird." Then I saw Gwen Stefani doing the same.

"Probably not a coincidence," Rocka said.

She influenced Miss Piggy, a Muppet character originally named Miss Piggy Lee. "She thought it was great, which means the pig is fascinating," Foster Wells said.

"Miss Piggy is a fascinating paragon," Rocka said.

"Yes. She was a diva. And my grandma was a diva."

And her lifewasglamorous. She recorded a party home movie at Bel Air Real Estate.

But one song spoke of her greatest unfulfilled wishes.

Someday we will build a house
At hilltop height, you and I,
Shiny new, two-person cottage.
And we are happy to be called
"people who live in the hills".

Foster-Wells said, "'The Forks Who on the Hill' is her favorite. I think it's a song. It just draws this picture of growing older with an idyllic relationship and always having that soulmate on your side.

After Dave Barber, Lee got married and divorced three more times,she died in 2002

Rocka asked: "And do you think she's her? I was happy in the end."

"That's a really complicated question," Foster-Wells replied. "I think she had an incredible moment of happiness, but incredible loss, broken heart, disappointment, and fear were scattered."

"And where did the horror come from?" Do you think you came? "

" She said she actually came from growing up with nothing she felt at home. "

One day he left and thought I would die, but I didn't die
And when I didn't die, I told myself
I love you.

"But she wouldn't have been Peggy Lee without this heartache and this pain, and it's true that it resonates with people. I would say, "This music will live longer than I do."

"She knew," Rocka said.

"She knew."

     
More information:

• peggylee. com (Official Site)
• "Fever: Miss Peggy Lee's Life and Music" Peter Richmond (Picador), Trade Paperback and eBook Format, Amazon and Indie Bound

• Midland Continental Depot Transportation Museum, Wimbledon, N. featuring Peggy Lee exhibits. D.

      
A story created by John D'Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.