Peggy Lee, 1920-2002

Peggy Lee, 1950. Photo credit - Wikipedia

An award-winning singer-songwriter.

Peggy Lee’s 6-decade musical career included more than 650 recorded songs and 60 albums. In 1995, she was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, she had a tough childhood – losing her mother at the age of four and staying with her alcoholic father and a stepmother. She began performing when she was 14 years old, and when her band was a guest at a local radio station, a program director advised her to change her name, saying “you look like a Peggy.”

She moved to perform in Chicago, where her big breakthrough came in 1941 – with an invitation from the jazz bandleader Benny Goodman to join his orchestra as a vocalist.

Lee met her first husband in the band, and the two moved to Los Angeles, where she started a solo recording career full of popular hits. Her version of “Fever” became her signature-song, capturing her playful, charismatic and sexy persona.

In her forties, she became more active as a lyricist and wrote more than 100 songs.
She also did some acting, with an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role as a troubled jazz singer in the film “Pete Kelly’s Blues.”

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“She knows what an exalted thing it is to be alive” - jazz singer Sylvia Syms about Peggy Lee.

“She knows what an exalted thing it is to be alive” - jazz singer Sylvia Syms about Peggy Lee.

Fun Facts

  • She wrote many of the songs for the Disney cartoon feature “Lady and the Tramp”. When it was released on video in the 1980s, she filed a lawsuit against Disney for royalties and won millions.
  • The famous Muppet Miss Piggy was inspired by Peggy Lee, and at first was called Miss Piggy Lee.
  • She also explored her talents for painting, writing poetry, and fabric design.
  • She was married four times – to two actors and two musicians – and had one daughter.
  • Her fans included Albert Einstein and Aldous Huxley.

Awards

  • Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
  • The Pied Piper Award from The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
  • The Presidents Award from the Songwriters' Guild of America
  • The Ella Award from the Society of Singers for Lifetime Achievement
  • The Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS)

Creations By and About Her

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Category: Music
Tags: Singer and Songwriter

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Alicia-Keys-WWP
Music

Alicia Keys, 1981

Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, producer, and actress.

Born as Alicia Augello Cook in Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in NYC. Her father left when she was 2 years old, and she was raised mainly by her mother. As a child living in a rough neighborhood, Keys was exposed to drugs, prostitution, and street violence. She credits her mother for leading her to the right path, supporting her interest in music and performance, which began at a young age. In preschool, she sang in her school’s productions, and at the age of 6, began classical training, practicing the piano six hours a day. At 12, Keys wrote and composed her first song. Two years later, she began studying jazz. After graduating at age 16 as valedictorian from the Professional Performance Arts School, she signed a deal with the record producer Clive Davis, first at Arista Records and later at J Records. In 2001, 20-year-old Keys released her debut album “Songs in A Minor”, which included the #1 hit “Fallin”. The album sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, and Keys won 5 Grammy awards. Four years later, Keys released her second album, “The Diary of Alicia Keys”, for which she won 4 Grammys, including best album award and best song award, and for her 3rd album “As I Am”, Keys won 3 more Grammys. Throughout the years, Keys continued to release #1 hits, including “No One”, “Empire State of Mind”, and “Girl on Fire”. Overall between 2001 to 2016, Keys released 6 studio albums, 2 live albums, and 1 EP. In addition to being an acclaimed musician, Keys is also an actress. She acted in various films and TV shows, including “Empire”, “SNL”, “Smokin’ Aces”, and “The Secret Life of Bees”. She is also a film producer and directed one out of five segments of the movie “Five”. In 2004, Keys co-founded and became the global ambassador of ‘Keep a Child Alive’ – a non-profit organization providing medicines in Africa for HIV and AIDS. Alicia Keys is a women empowerment icon; her point of view can often be found in her lyrics as well as in the #nomakeup campaign she launched. In 2016 Keys wrote an essay in which she stated that she lost herself behind eyeliners and lipsticks, and since she is make-up free, she feels more beautiful than ever. She is encouraging other women to discover themselves without the masks. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Music

Ángela Peralta, 1845-1883

A composer, harpist, pianist, and internationally-renowned operatic soprano. Was known as the "Mexican Nightingale."

Ángela Peralta was born in Mexico City, Mexico. Her musical talent was noticeable from a young age, performing solo cavatina from the opera Belisario when she was 8 years old. She continued to sharpen her operatic skills, and at 15, Peralta made her operatic debut at the Teatro Nacional – Mexico’s premier opera house. Soon, she became known for her expressive timbre voice and high pitch range. After her successful show, Peralta traveled to Italy with her father to study singing, and in 1862, at the age of 17, she performed at the La Scala opera house in Milan. In the next two years, Peralta sang in the most prestigious opera houses in the world, including Rome, Lisbon, Madrid, St. Petersburg, and Cairo. During this tour, she became known as the Mexican Nightingale. In 1865, the 20 years old opera singer received a formal request from the Second Mexican Empire to return to her home country and sing in the National Imperial Theatre. In the following year, Peralta performed for Maximilian I of Mexico and Charlotte of Belgium and was named Chamber Singer of the Empire. In that same year, Peralta returned to Europe, making stops along the way to perform in major cities, such as NYC and Havana. On her arrival in Madrid, she married her cousin, Eugenio Castera. Peralta was also an accomplished pianist, harpist, and composer. After her wedding, she took some time off from singing and composed various songs and piano pieces, including waltzes, fantasies, and gallops. In 1871, at the age of 26, Peralta founded a touring opera company, where she often sang her most known roles of Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor and Amina in La Sonnambula. In 1877, her husband died, and she began a relationship with her manager Julián Montiel y Duarte. The affair caused a scandal in Mexico City’s social elite, who boycotted her performances and paid hecklers to interrupt her shows. Though she managed to recover her reputation, Peralta made a vow to never perform in Mexico City again. In 1883, Peralta went on a tour in northern Mexico. When she arrived in Mazatlán, she and 76 of her company members contracted yellow fever. On her deathbed, she married her longtime lover, able only to nod to show her agreement. She died in her hotel room at the age of 38. In 1937, more than 50 years after she passed away, her remains were disinterred and moved from Mazatlán to the Panteón in Mexico City. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Music

Aretha Franklin, 1942-2018

An award-winning singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Known as “Queen of Soul.”

Aretha Louise Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father was a Baptist minister and a preacher, and her mother was a piano player and a gospel vocalist. By the age of 5, her parents separated, and she lived with her father and grandmother in Detroit. Franklin’s musical talent was apparent from an early age, learning to play the piano by ear and singing solo in front of her father’s congregation at the New Bethel Baptist Church. At the age of 12, her father began managing her, and they traveled and performed in various churches throughout the country. At 14, she recorded and released her first album, Spirituals. At 18, she moved to NYC and signed with Columbia Records, releasing her first single, Today I Sing the Blues, in that same year. At 19, she issued her first secular album, Aretha: With The Ray Bryant Combo, which included the single Won’t Be Long, which was entered to the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the R&B chart. She also scored her first international hit with her rendition of Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody. In the following year, Franklin released two more albums – The Electrifying Aretha Franklin and The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin. In 1966, at the age of 24, Franklin signed with Atlantic Records, which allowed her to return to her gospel-blues roots. Under the label, she recorded her first million-seller hit I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You). In that same year, she released her version of Respect, which became her signature song and later was recognized as a civil rights and women’s rights anthem. By the end of the 1960s, Franklin has recorded 7 records, releasing top-ten hits such as Chain of Fools, Think, and I Say a Little Prayer, for which she earned her first two Grammy awards. In 1972, at the age of 30, she recorded a live-church album titled Amazing Grace, which sold in more than 2 million copies. It is considered one of the great gospel albums in history. Her success continued to grow during the following decade, releasing albums year after year, with singles such as Spanish Harlem and Day Dreaming. At the age of 40, under her new label Arista Records, Franklin made a comeback with the hits- Jump to It and Freeway of Love. During the 1990s, Franklin juggled between different genres, recording gospel, pop, and R&B albums. At the time, she also played Aunt Em in the musical The Wiz. In 1998, 56 years old Franklin had another commercial success with her gold-selling record A Rose Is Still a Rose. For the next two decades, she recorded 7 more albums and appeared in historical events, such as President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, where she performed My Country ’Tis of Thee. In November 2017, she had her final public performance at the 25th anniversary gala for the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Throughout her career, Franklin recorded 38 studio albums and 8 live albums and released almost 60 compilation albums. She retired after been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, from which she died at the age of 76.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Aretha Franklin with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Ava Gardner The portrait that got Gardner famous. Taken at the Ava Gardner Museum WWP
Theater & Cinema

Ava Gardner, 1922-1990

Actress and singer, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars of all time.

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