"Fever" (1956), Written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell, First Recorded by Little Willie John, Covered by Peggy Lee

[The Hersch]

Another of my favorite 20th-century chanteuses, Peggy Lee, sings "Fever" (1958), probably her most defining and recognizable recording.

Compare and contrast with the original recording by Little Willie John (1956). I love them both.

[LauraB]

Give me Little Willie John's version any day over Peggy Lee's.  Honestly, I've never understood why Peggy Lee's version was so popular.  To me, there's just no soul in it.  Every note is so clipped.  This song begs for more fire and passion.

[porcupine]

Peggy Lee's version is interesting because it's a cappella, but the key changes make it awkward.

[The Hersch]

Give me Little Willie John's version any day over Peggy Lee's.  Honestly, I've never understood why Peggy Lee's version was so popular.  To me, there's just no soul in it.  Every note is so clipped.  This song begs for more fire and passion.

If you want to like Peggy Lee's "Fever" you have to approach it on its own terms. Cool, ironic detachment was part of a 50s jazz zeitgeist that Peggy Lee's singing in the 50s rather epitomized, and that achieved its apotheosis, if you'll pardon the expression, in this recording. If you don't like her "Fever", then you don't like her singing, which is, of course, perfectly all right. I love it, myself, and in this recording I particularly love the irony of the way she sings "Captain Smith and Pocahontas had a very mad affair".

Another exemplar of what I'm talking about is the singing of Chet Baker, the wonderful jazz trumpeter. Not as good a singer as a trumpet player, and certainly not as good a singer as Peggy Lee, but cool and detached in his signature tune "Let's Get Lost" (the vocal starts at about 1:04). Less ironic, given the lyric, but it goes in the same general direction.

[The Hersch]

Peggy Lee's version is interesting because it's a cappella, but the key changes make it awkward.

Would you really call it a cappella, when it has bass and percussion?

[porcupine]

Honestly?  I never heard bass in it.  I heard a little percussion - tom-toms? - but since that struck me as rhythmic rather than pitched, I concluded a cappella.  Maybe I need to adjust the settings on my computer and crank up the volume.

ok I just listened again - I hear finger snapping, and an occasional percussive punctuation from what sounds like the toms on a trap set, but I don't hear bass at all.  Guess I need to play this on a decent sound system.

[The Hersch]

I can't really hear the bass when using the built-in speakers of my laptop, and even when I connect it to a crappy little pair of Altec Lansing speakers I can barely hear it. I have a better, though still quite modest, sound system at home, and the bass is very clear.

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Edit: Actually, now that I've played it again on my home laptop connected to a modest but half-decent sound system, I can say that the bass really shines forth. It's not merely there, it's quite prominent. Listening to this recording without being able to hear the bass has to be a maimed listening experience.

[DonRocks]

Give me Little Willie John's version any day over Peggy Lee's.  Honestly, I've never understood why Peggy Lee's version was so popular.  To me, there's just no soul in it.  Every note is so clipped.  This song begs for more fire and passion.

Laura, were you listening to the studio recording, or the dance number? I see the dance number as a disaster, but the studio recording is much more appropriate to the music.

I'm all over Little WIllie John's too - Lee might have defenders, but I think you need to sing this song like it's sultry and sweaty and *you* have a fever from burning with desire; Lee isn't giving me very much of that at all. Little Willie John isn't giving me everything I need, but more of it.

The first time I ever heard this song was when it was performed on TV (The Lucy Show?) in 1974, with Lucy Arnaz and Jim Bailey. Arnaz did a good job, but Bailey was catastrophic.

This song needs Rita Moreno.

I found it! After I wrote that, I Googled to see if she ever recorded it, and sure enough, she sang it with the Muppets. You know what? Even though this is a gag song, I like it the best of the four.

I saw Rita Moreno and Sally Struthers in a female version of "The Odd Couple" on Broadway, and she still had a sultriness to her, even though she was in her early-mid 50s and was co-starring in a goofball comedy - I knew she was Latina, and that's how I figured she'd probably be able to pull this piece off - there's a certain "Latin Heat" to the piece (I think I'm stating the obvious here).

So far, I rank them:

1. Rita Moreno (and the Muppets)

2. Little Willie John

3. Peggy Lee (Studio)

4. Peggy Lee (Dance)

with only the last being unacceptable (as someone once said, there are many ways to perform a piece correctly; there's only one way to perform it incorrectly - this has never made all that much sense to me, but I think what it's saying is, "If if doesn't go over well, it's performed incorrectly." And even understanding that, I'm not sure I agree with it.)

Sorry to hijack your Peggy Lee thread, Herschel, but it became more about the song than the singer - you're more than welcome to start another on Lee herself. I think there's much to be gained by comparing different performances of the same song, but there's also much to gain from an in-depth study of a single performer - we have room for both and much more.

[The Hersch]

It is kind of funny that what people (here, anyway) seem to dislike, or at least are unsatisfied by, in Peggy Lee's studio version is exactly what I love about it. De gustibus, and all that. That production number, though. I wish I hadn't watched it. I'd be much happier now.

Sweaty? I don't think Peggy Lee knew how to sweat.

And by the way, I do have to wonder had I not posted the link to Little Willie John's recording along with Peggy Lee's how many would have known it or known to look for it.

Speaking of Little Willie John,

is probably the most perfectly insane performance of any song by any singer I have ever heard (so sleepy!). Which is not to say that I don't adore it.

[DonRocks]

And by the way, I do have to wonder had I not posted the link to Little Willie John's recording along with Peggy Lee's how many would have known it or known to look for it.

Probably nobody.

If I hadn't posted about chefs and GMs starting in about 2003, not to mention this strange, unknown term, "sous chefs" (e.g., Michael Hartzer, Brendan Cox, Amy Brandwein, Joseph Harran, Cedric Maupillier, Julien Shapiro, Ron Tanaka, Barry Koslow, Diana Davia-Boldin, John Manalatos, Katsuya Fukushima, Brian Wilson, Jonathan Copeland, Andrew Markert, Massimo Fabbri, Johnny Spero, Edan Macquaid, Rachael Harriman, Joe Raffa, Nick Palermo, Harper McClure, and about 50 others I'm not thinking of), how many people would be able to name any? How many of them would have become chefs as quickly as they did? I know, I know, they would have all risen on their own merits, and some other radical website host besides me would have materialized out of thin air and started raving about them. Eater would have absolutely sprung into existence from nothing, and changed everything. Newspapers nationwide would have suddenly revamped their restaurant coverage due to some mysterious, external force. Everybody in the United States would have started caring about the people behind the restaurants, instead of just the restaurants themselves (due to the same mysterious, external force). Television would have picked up on this sudden human interest, and made rock stars out of people who previously would have been considered the dregs of society, placing a glamorous veneer of grunge-colored tat ink over the prevailing counter-culture of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and turning disheveled pirate figures into heroes.

Go back in time and check out the state of restaurant writing, nationwide, circa 2004. There was Chowhound talking about which hospital cafeterias had good vegetable-beef soup, Yelp paying 20-somethings to write posts for them in their empty forums, LVMH with earnest but terribly unorganized posts in Chicago, maybe some remnants of Usenet hanging around somewhere, and eGullet - and in 2004, the Mid-Atlantic forum of eGullet, for whatever reason, became more active than their home New York City forum.

It is true - I know about Little Willie John only because of your post, so keep up the good work, and I'll keep doing my best as well.

[The Hersch]

Don, I know about tons of shit only because of you. I'd never suggest otherwise. Some things go without saying.

[DonRocks]

Don, I know about tons of shit only because of you. I'd never suggest otherwise. Some things go without saying.

Likewise. (It's not because of me; it's because of Member Number One - I decided many years ago that she was going to have an impact on this world even though she wouldn't be around to see it.)