The Best of Peggy Lee [EMI] (1999)

About this title: Produced for British consumers but widely availably in the States, The Best of Peggy Lee collects 16 singles Lee cut while at Capitol Records in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. Some of these tunes (such as "Fever," "I'm a Woman," and "Is That All There Is?") were career-defining hits for Lee while other tracks ("The Shining Sea" and "Don't Smoke in Bed," for example) are moody ballads that show that Lee could be ethereal or glum as easily as sassy or sexy. This isn't the best single-disc overview of Lee's Capitol Records period that's on the market, but it's not a bad place to start. Nick Dedina ... read more

Tracks:

1. Maņana (Is Soon Enough for Me) [Barbour/Lee]
2. Golden Earrings [Young/Livingston/Ev]
3. It's a Good Day [Barbour/Lee]
4. Don't Smoke in Bed [Robison]
5. Why Don't You Do Right? [McCoy]
6. Fever [Davenport/Cooley]
7. The Folks Who Live on the Hill [Hammerstein/Kern]
8. Hallelujah I Love Him So [Charles]
9. I'm a Woman [Leiber/Stoller]
10. A Doodlin' Song [Coleman/Leigh]
11. Big Spender [Coleman/Fields]
12. So What's New? [Lee/Pisano]
13. The Shining Sea [Mandel/Lee]
14. Alright, Okay, You Win [Wyche/Watts]
15. Is That All There Is [Leiber/Stoller]
16. I'm Gonna Go Fishin' [Ellington/Lee]

Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is further described below.