Peggy Lee The Singles Collection CD

The deluxe 4-CD SINGLES COLLECTION comes with a 71-page booklet including an essay by Will Friedwald and a complete singles discography by Ivan Santiago as well as rare photos and LP covers.
Personnel includes: Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Dean Martin (vocals); Dave Barbor & His Benny Goodman Orchestra; Bob Crosby & His Orchestra.
Compilation producers: Cy Godfrey, Steve Woof.
Recorded between 1941 & 1975.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
THE SINGLES COLLECTION was nominated for the 2004 Grammys Award for Best Album Notes and for Best Historical Album.
Peggy Lee was a renaissance woman, a multi-talented singer and composer who achieved popular as well as critical success. Short of a complete recordings box set, The Singles Collection is the best Peggy Lee career anthology yet, and a big improvement over the oddly compiled and sequenced 1998 box set Miss Peggy Lee. The Singles Collection isn't complete -- Lee released hundreds of singles -- and it doesn't come close to compiling all of her hits (in fact, it doesn't even compile all of her Top Ten hits), but it does offer a chronological journey through her catalog from her early days with Benny Goodman and Bob Crosby all the way up to the '70s when she recorded for A&M. Although Capitol Records produced the box set, the selections include cuts from other labels, including Lee's Decca Records period. Nearly half of the box's 110 tracks are new to CD, and collectors will appreciate the glimpse into the studio afforded by a handful of bonus tracks that include false starts and studio chatter. Lee may have enjoyed commercial success with "ethnic" novelties ("Mañana" being the foremost example) and upbeat pop songs, but it is her interpretations of serious jazz and pop tunes that have made her a contender for the title of Best Vocalist of the 20th Century. The Singles Collection follows her artistic growth and demonstrates the breadth of her interpretive abilities, which gives a better picture of Lee's artistry than any single album or inferior anthology could do. ~ Greg Adams
This comprehensive overview of Peggy Lee's singles output traces her development from the ex-big band singer of 1944's "You Was Right, Baby" (recorded more or less as a demo) to the established chanteuse she became in the '60s, covering the songs of youthful pop stars such as "Something" by the Beatles or Tim Hardin's "Misty Roses." Along the way, she has been conducted by Frank Sinatra ("The Folks Who Live on the Hill"), employed Randy Newman as an arranger ("Is That All There Is"), recorded with Louis Prima's Orchestra ("Yeah Yeah Yeah"), and rearranged a Duke Ellington theme into a hit song ("I'm Gonna Go Fishin'").
This is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg--there are jazz classics ("I Love Being Here with You"), ethereal ballads ("My Gentle Young Johnny"), and, of course, the amazingly sultry "Fever." But, most of all, there's Lee's voice--able to convey the strongest of emotions with the barest whisper, veering from modern-age ennui to aching sentimentality, always engaging our sympathies, and, above all, constantly swinging.

4cds-105 Singles From Entire Career-Incl:Cap/Col/Decca/A&M

Mojo (Publisher) (1/03, p.89) - "...Superb fare..."