Fever: The Life and Music of Miss Peggy Lee by Peter Richmond
Peggy Lee was everyone's favourite singer, from Judy Garland to Diana Krall. Discovered in a Chicago nightclub in 1941 by the bandleader Benny Goodman, from the late fifties till the late sixties she was regularly voted Best Female Vocal star for classic songs like "Fever", "Alright, Okay, You Win" and "I'm Gonna Go Fishin". She was at her peak during one of the greatest eras in American music, when singers like Frank Sinatra and jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong were in their prime. Peter Richmond tells the definitive story of Peggy Lee's tough and tempestuous life: born Norma Delores Egstrom to an alcoholic father, and enduring an abusive stepmother and four marriages in the course of a journey to Broadway, Vegas and Hollywood.