Peggy Lee returns to her roots, at least by name and location, with
Norma Deloris Egstrom from Jamestown, North Dakota, reminding fans of the name and place on her birth certificate. The album is credited as "produced & conceived by
Tom Catalano." Maybe
Catalano's conception was the LP title. If he also chose the songs and the arranger/conductor, he didn't really do much different from recent
Peggy Lee albums, however. Once again, the collection is a mixture of contemporary material with songs
Lee might have sung back at the start of her career in the 1940s. Arranger/conductor
Artie Butler employs a studio of jazz-pop session aces like guitarist
Larry Carlton, pianist
Michael Omartian, percussionist
Victor Feldman, and drummer
Earl Palmer, then adds horn and string charts at various points. Early-‘70s pop stars like
the Carpenters,
Elton John, and
Leon Russell are evoked in selections like the leadoff track,
Lesley Duncan's "Love Song" (most prominently heard on
John's 1971 album
Tumbleweed Connection),
Russell's "A Song for You," and his and
Bonnie Bramlett's groupie lament "Superstar," a hit for
the Carpenters. While
Butler tries for unusual arrangements in spots, there isn't much that
Lee can do with such songs that hasn't been done already, and she settles for rendering them in her calm, precise voice. Not surprisingly, she sounds much more at home in the album's second half, when she gets a chance to handle more vintage songs such as Lil Hardin Armstrong's 1939 copyright "Just for a Thrill," and the album comes to a close with a double shot of such nostalgia, combining two 1940s hits, "The More I See You" and "I'll Be Seeing You." Thus, does
Lee, in the hands of
Catalano and
Butler, continue to try to bridge the old with the new, and she continues to succeed modestly. [
Norma Deloris Egstrom from Jamestown, North Dakota turned out to be
Peggy Lee's final recording for Capitol Records, a label she joined in 1945 and stayed with, except for a five-year stint at Decca, 1952-1957, through 1972.] ~ William Ruhlmann