Today's disc is yet ANOTHER Maria Muldaur release – A Woman Alone with the Blues...Remembering Peggy Lee from Telarc Blues 2003. Again, an instant winner. But listening to this made me want to get out Jeanie Bryson's Some Cats Know: Jeanie Bryson Sings the Songs of Peggy Lee from Telarc Jazz 1996.
Both Jeanie and Maria chose to record Some Cats Know and Fever, and both of the versions are fabulous, which leads me to the conclusion that the songs themselves simply rock. I doubt if anyone could record a bad version.
The other stand-out track on Maria's disc is Black Coffee, and for Jeanie it is the magnificent I Don't Know Enough About You.
Contemplating these similarities made me then dig out my Best of Miss Peggy Lee disc from Capitol 1998. Fever is on it, of course, but not Some Cats, Black Coffee, and I Don't Enough About You. I found that incredibly odd that other vocalists would pick tunes that are clearly associated with her, yet they aren't on her “Best Of” collection. Granted, you get Big Spender and Alright, Okay , You Win...but still.
The best track on Peggy's disc for me is I'm A Woman, because as a child, before the invention of the video recorder, I used to sit my tape recorder in front of the TV speaker and record the Cher show. One night, Cher and Raquel Welch did “I'm A Woman”...I listened to that song until the tape ultimately disintigrated.
I am almost ready to declare 2005 the year of Maria Muldaur, but it is still a bit early, not even spring...
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