Peggy Lee’s granddaughter, Holly Foster Wells, has teamed up with the Great American Songbook Foundation to create a video paying tribute to Lee’s singular style.
Wells showcases a gown that Lee designed herself in the 80s, explaining: “When she liked a design, she designed several in multiple colors.”
Wells added: “When my grandmother first got started in the business, she was very young, she didn’t have a lot of money, she had to borrow dresses from friends, from local people in town in North Dakota. So, as she got older and more successful, she was able to really create the look she wanted, not the look she had to borrow.”
Check out the whole video below.
The video comes at an exciting time in the world of Peggy Lee. Last month, the fourth edition of the Peggy Lee series From The Vaults was released, highlighting rare jazz collaborations and vocal duets from the iconic singer-songwriter’s career.
Vol. 4 features thirteen tracks recorded between 1947 and 1967, including duets with then-emerging vocalists Dean Martin and Mel Tormé, homages to TV characters Batman and Mr. Magoo, and some of Lee’s own compositions. This fourth volume marks the final installment of the From the Vaults digital series. With its release, Lee’s entire catalog of master recordings from the Universal family of labels (Capitol, Decca, A&M, and Polydor) are now available via streaming.
From the Vaults (Vol. 4) features a variety of fascinating moments in Lee’s career, including collaborations with celebrated jazz artists George Shearing and Toots Thielemans. Lee’s 1948 duet with Dean Martin, “You Was” had been previously released, but it’s updated here with improved sound quality. There are also a number of songs where Lee is backed by vocal groups (a rarity in Lee’s lengthy career). You can hear Lee with the Guadalajara Boys on “When You Speak With Your Eyes,” a song co-written by Lee. (Six of the collection’s 13 tracks were written or co-written by Lee in an era when popular and jazz vocalists rarely wrote the songs they recorded.)
Listen to the best of Peggy Lee on Apple Music and Spotify.
