“I regard singing pretty much like acting. Each song is like playing a different role. I get very involved with my material. I feel a responsibility for the emotion it brings out in the listener.” (Lee, AZQuotes, n.d.)
Born Norma Deloris Egstrom on May 26th, 1920 in the small town of Jamestown, North Dakota. Norma was the seventh of eight siblings. At the tender age of four, Norma lost her mother and their house burned down that same year. Within a year her father was remarried. Norma and her siblings endured abuse from their stepmother. One beating left a scar on the side of Norma’s face. Her older siblings ran away, leaving Norma to do all the chores around the house. She did the wash, took care of the farm animals, milked the cows, butchered…show more content… Peggy hit it big when she became a vocalist with Will Osborne’s band, unfortunately, the group broke up three months later and she got a ride to California with the manager. While working at the Dollhouse in Palm Springs, a hotel owner by the name of Frank Bering noticed her and offered her to perform at The Buttery Room, a nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel East in Chicago. It was there Peggy developed her soft and cool style of singing which became her trademark. She decided to sing this way due to the noisy audience to capture their attention. Consequently, she realized when she sang low the audience got quieter and began to listen to her sing. She had a purr-like, seductive distinctive yet delicate sound.
Moreover, Peggy got her next big break when Benny Goodman heard her singing at the Buttery and hired her to replace his current singer Helen Forrest. In 1941 Peggy joined his band and stayed for two years. This was short lived due to the fact that Peggy got involved with one of the band members which was forbidden by Benny. He had a rule that the band members could not date the band’s female singer. Benny fired Dave Barbour the guitarist and shortly after Peggy Lee quit the band and married Barbour in March 1943. They moved to Los Angeles, where their daughter Nicki was born in November
