Capitol Records and Universal Music Enterprises have collaborated with Peggy Lee Associates to release Peggy Lee: From the Vaults (Vol. 2.) The record is the second installment in the new digital series that features rare tracks currently unavailable on streaming platforms. Vol. 2 is available now and includes 12 tracks recorded for Capitol between 1948 and 1951.
The songs come from a collection of different songwriters: there’s tracks by American songbook giants Irving Berlin and Yip Harburg, a song co-written by jazz great Benny Carter, another by classical-popular composer Alec Wilder, and one co-written by Lee herself.
Nine of the collection’s tracks feature orchestral backing by Dave Barbour, Lee’s first husband, with whom she co-wrote several chart hits in the 1940s. Those include “I Don’t Know About Enough About You,” “It’s a Good Day” and “Mañana,” one of the top-selling singles of 1948. From the Vaults (Vol. 2) offers the digital debut of the couple’s joyous “Happy Music,” which served as the B-side to Lee’s 1950 single “Show Me the Way to Get Out of This World.”
There are two broadway songs on the record: Irving Berlin’s “You Can Have Him” from 1949’s Miss Liberty, later recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Nancy Wilson, alongside “He’s Only Wonderful” by Sammy Fain and E. Y. “Yip” Harburg from the short-lived 1951 fantasy musical Flahooley. Lee and Sarah Vaughn were the only singers to record “He’s Only Wonderful” for popular release. Another track from Vol. 2, “Through a Long and Sleepless Night,” was also recorded by Vaughn, and originally featured in the 1940 20th Century-Fox film Come to the Stable.
With the release of the four-volume From the Vaults digital series, Lee’s entire catalog of issued master recordings from the Universal family of labels — Capitol, Decca, A&M, and Polydor — will be accessible via digital streaming. The third volume in the series will move chronologically from 1951 to 1969, while the fourth volume will compile duets and other musical collaborations recorded between 1947 and 1972, Peggy Lee’s last year under contract with Capitol Records.
Order Peggy Lee: From the Vaults (Vol. 2)
