After reading Spencer "Wolf" Smartt's entry on Anita O'Day, I had to bring up June Christy.

I know she was compared to Anita from the start, but I think that over time, her own style evolved and she developed her own unique persona. I liked June and Anita, but I think I'd have to say that June was my favorite of the two. Maybe this is why...

I was an impressionable 14 year-old, living with my family, including my grandmother, in Sacramento, California. We were leasing a very large Victorian home in the mid-town area. It was a beautiful neighborhood: stately Victorians, sheltered by huge elm and oak trees; yards filled with lilacs, azaleas, and fragrant camellias, the city's favorite flower.

To help with expenses, we were able to rent out a small apartment and two other rooms. We had the whole first floor and two bedrooms upstairs for ourselves. It was a great arrangement. We loved our tenants, all young, unmarried, working-class people.

One day, answering the doorbell, I was surprised to find a slender, attractive young woman standing on the porch. She said her name was Linda and she'd just arrived in town to start a new job. She had been told that we often had rooms for rent and she needed a place to live.

When Grandma told her we were full up, her face fell and her big, blue eyes filled with tears. She had been looking all day with no luck, she stammered. She didn't know what to do or where to turn. Grandma pulled me into the kitchen and asked me if I'd like to share my bedroom with Linda, if she was interested. I was fine with it. In fact, I thought it might be a little like having a big sister.

Linda was thankful and moved in that evening. She was 23 and a nightclub singer. She had to start her new job the following night at a cocktail lounge downtown. I thought she looked an awful lot like Julie London, with her trim figure and her long strawberry blond hair that hung in waves around her shoulders.

Well, sharing my room with her turned out to be a wonderful arrangement for the next six months, until my Grandma died and we moved. Linda didn't have much money and didn't make a lot at her singing job. She didn't have much of a wardrobe, either, but that didn't stop her from looking glamorous every night. She was young and imaginative and in love with her life...and besides, she had me, eager to be her best friend.

Soon, I was helping her to turn colorful scarves, with beautiful printed designs, into form-fitting tops to wear with her long, pencil-thin, black skirts. I'd wind the scarf around the strapless bra that ended at her waist. Then I'd tuck it into the top of the bra and pin it from the inside at strategic places to secure it, give it form, and keep it from unwinding. Nobody ever guessed that she wasn't wearing expensive tops (and nobody ever pulled one of them loose, thank heaven).

Soon, Linda was like one of the family and I was as awestruck as a lovesick puppy. She was a happy, upbeat girl and she loved to sing around the house. Her singing style and sound was very reminiscent of June Christy, one of her idols. She even sang June's songs.

One night, my uncle took me to the club to see her perform (that's back when kids could go into bars). I was so excited and so impressed. I got dressed up in my most grown-up outfit and Mom let me wear some lipstick and little Cuban heels.

Linda was wonderful, so very glamorous...to a 14 year-old. My uncle was impressed, too, needless to say. I think he had a little crush on her, if the truth be told.

He had been a drummer until he developed Dupuytren's contracture, in which his smallest three fingers of each hand became permanently bent and frozen toward his palm. His music career was over, but it didn't destroy his love of music and other musicians.

Well, when Linda received a standing ovation for her sultry rendition of "Midnight Sun," I was in sheer heaven. The rest of the evening floated by in a haze of music and wonder for me, with Linda center-stage, a smoky spotlight illuminating her radiant face.

After Grandma died and we moved, we eventually lost touch with Linda. I wish I knew what happened to her, but I guess she's lost to me forever. However, sometimes late at night, I think I can still hear her singing in our old bedroom...or, is that June Christy?

Joanne Burkett
Roseville, California
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Many ambitions are never fulfilled, but popular Capitol Records singer, Miss Peggy Lee, always knew she wanted to be a singer and was determined to make the grade from the time she began singing as she washed the family’s dinner dishes back in Jamestown, North Dakota.

Now rated with the favorite female vocalists, Peggy has won her right to fame through her recordings, radio broadcasts, theatre appearances as well as her countless transcriptions for the Armed Forces Radio Service on such programs as “Mail Call,” “Jubilee,” and “Command Performance.”

Peggy managed to skip several grades during her high school career and was graduated at the age of 16! Determined that she could become famous as a singer, she left for California immediately after graduation exercises and started a tour of the many Hollywood night spots in the hopes of landing a job as vocalist.

After securing the attention of the manager of the Jade Night Club, Peggy auditioned and was hired -- but fast -- for $2 a night!

Bad luck was dogging Peggy and she soon became afflicted with a throat ailment and returned to North Dakota for a series of operations.

After suffering eight consecutive hours of throat bleeding, Peggy’s doctor finally saved her life -- and then refused payment for his services as he believed that when he saved a life, there shouldn’t be any money involved

Her ambition to become a singer, not dimmed in the slightest, Peggy journeyed to Fargo, North Dakota, where she persuaded the local hotel manager to permit her to sing for free from the hotel restaurant for a period of two weeks, with her vocalizing aired over the local radio station.

Up until the time Peggy Lee started her broadcasts, the restaurant was on a non-paying basis. But, within a week’s time, the place was jumping with customers who came to see and hear this great new singer: Peggy Lee. Catering to a college crowd exclusively, Peggy stayed at the hotel/restaurant for over two years, garnering new fans, and finally moving on to Minneapolis, Minn., and the Raddison Hotel. Peggy soon stepped across the Twin City borderline to St. Paul to be signed as the featured feminine vocalist on the Standard Oil Hour.

While broadcasting this series, Will Osborne listened to a few of her programs and called to see if she would be interested in joining the Osborne band as girl vocalist. Peggy accepted and went on the road shortly thereafter, but upon reaching St. Louis, Mo., the band broke up and Peggy was without a job -- and with another bad throat.

Another throat operation was performed and after the cutting ceremony, careless interns dropped Peggy, head first onto the operating floor, smashing her front teeth. So, there she was…without a voice, without teeth, without a job, and flat broke. Osborne’s manager paid Peggy’s fare to Palm Springs, Calif., and after resting a few weeks, Peggy hit the long road back to vocal stardom.

It was while singing in front of Jack Benny and his radio troupe in Palm Springs one night that Peggy Lee became so frightened that she developed her now-identified “soft style” of vocalizing. A Chicago department store magnate and his wife became her avid, nightly audience and they in turn introduced Peggy to Frank Bering, hotel magnate from the Windy City, and she signed for a summer engagement at the Ambassador West Hotel.

While at the Ambassador West in Chicago, Peggy began her “soft as silk” singing in earnest, employing such effects on the bandstand as a soft blue light on her face, the refusal of the waiters to serve while she was vocalizing, and a real sincerity of all lyrics voiced.

Just by chance, Benny Goodman was staying at Peggy’s hotel and she and Benny used to spend their intermission minutes talking about everything but her singing. Bandleaders Claude Thornhill and Glenn Miller as well as vocalist Buddy Clarke used to drop by and catch her act nightly, warmly applauding the fast-rising star from North Dakota.

Finally, one night, Benny Goodman called and said he would like to talk to her. Peggy came over after her night’s routine was finished and listened as Benny played her record after record. Then, as she was about to leave, she burst out with, “Well, Benny, aren’t you going to talk to me about anything!” Goodman spoke, and Goodman hired, and Peggy Lee stayed with the BG band for over two years.

While singing with the Goodman band, Peggy met her present husband and then Goodman guitarist, Dave Barbour. It was while the Goodman band was finishing a California engagement and planning to return East that Dave Barbour handed in his notice. Peggy was packing for the trek eastward, when Dave popped the question and Peggy handed in her notice as well, to stay behind as Mrs. Barbour.

Peggy and Dave stayed in California, with Peggy turning down many offers for picture work, theatre engagements, radio broadcasts and recording contracts to have her first baby.

And today, after first realizing that she wanted to be a singer while washing dishes back in Jamestown, North Dakota, Peggy Lee is hailed as one of America’s favorite all-time vocalists who has definitely arrived.

Posted by Joanne Burkett
Roseville, California
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Copied from Songs That Will Live Forever
Vol. VI, No. 9, July 1948, Page 30
Copied exactly as printed. No author was listed.