During the first two decades of the twelve-inch, long-playing pop-vocal record (1955-1975), Peggy Lee released a staggering 39 original albums, in addition to numerous greatest-hits compilations and album reissues. A typical Lee album during these years combined Great American Songbook standards and rarities from decades prior with recent Broadway show-tunes and movie themes. Lee was usually careful to include one or two of her own co-compositions, as well as a few cover versions of hit songs introduced by a wide range of other performers, from Frank Sinatra to Teresa Brewer to Ray Charles to the Beatles to Sly and the Family Stone. An eclectic mix of material, to be sure, and most of it immaculately sung.

There’s a subsection of atypical Lee albums that fall into another category, which might best be labeled "Only Peggy Lee Would Have Done That" albums. These include Sea Shells, an odd but largely satisfying collection of folk ballads peppered with recitations of Chinese poetry in translation (recorded for Decca in 1955 but not released until 1958); her remarkably successful Latin ala Lee (Capitol, 1960), which set familiar Broadway tunes to arresting Afro-Cuban backings and, in the process, took the ongoing Latin trend a few steps beyond other singers’ efforts; and her post-Capitol tour-de-force Mirrors (A&M, 1975), a collection of complex and occasionally macabre cabaret songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, enhanced by Johnny Mandel’s slightly sinister string arrangements, and richly interpreted by Lee as though she were conducting a particularly productive seance.

Into the "Only Peggy" category also falls 1962’s Blues Cross Country, Lee’s first collaboration with Quincy Jones, even though their second album together – a far more conventional collection of lushly-orchestrated torch songs titled If You Go – was released first. As with Sea Shells, Lee’s more offbeat efforts took a little longer to wash up on shore.

When she recorded the twelve Blues Cross Country songs in the spring of 1961, the newly self-anointed "Miss" Peggy Lee had the world on the string. At the peak of her professional powers, she was both prestigious and prolific in almost every entertainment medium. In the early 1960s she was averaging three or four albums per year, and headlining nightclubs everywhere – Hollywood, Las Vegas, London, and of course New York, where critics and crowds alike swarmed to her several seasons at Basin Street East, even during one of the city’s greatest blizzards, to drink in every single note, wink, and finger-snap. During these years she starred in a series of television specials for both CBS and the BBC, and made many guest appearances on Ed Sullivan and other major variety shows. As a lyricist, she collaborated with Duke Ellington in 1960 and Harold Arlen in 1961.

Given her stature at this time, it’s not surprising that Capitol gave Lee leeway to collaborate with Quincy Jones, Lee’s "then-intimate colleague and companion" (quoting the new liner notes), on a less-than-commercial venture like Blues Cross Country. (As evidence of its presumed lack of chart potential, only one track from the album, Boston Beans, was released as a single – and as a B-side. In contrast, most of Lee’s other albums at the time were preceded by at least two singles, released in part as a build-up to the full LP.)

It’s obvious that Blues was a far more personal project than most of Lee’s Capitol efforts, if only because seven of the twelve songs were her own co-compositions. Her personal commitment to the album is also evident considering that she promoted it over five full years. She performed many of its songs at her Basin Street East engagements in the fall of 1961 and the spring of 1962; sang New York City Blues on Ed Sullivan’s show in May, 1962; performed a long medley with Andy Williams on his show in late 1963; and, for Something Special, her hour-long solo TV special in May, 1966, introduced the Blues Cross Country Suite, an entire song-cycle based on the album.

As with other "Only Peggy" albums, among Lee fans Blues Cross Country has both its ardent admirers and its steadfast detractors. Those who enjoy it praise the enormous force and facility of Jones’ orchestra, which included such noted musicians as pianist Jimmy Rowles, saxophonist Benny Carter, trumpeter Jack Sheldon, trombonist Frank Rosolino, bassist Max Bennett, and drummer Stan Levey. Admirers also relish Lee’s alternately silky and swaggering vocals, perfectly balanced with the huge orchestrations so that she’s never lost in the shuffle; and the sheer whimsy of the album’s concept: bluesy, though rarely down-hearted, songs set in various American cities. Even the borderline-kitsch album cover, which exudes idealistic Kennedy-era warmth and patriotism, has its fans.

The album’s detractors, meanwhile, fault its travelogue concept as corny or tedious, and criticize the seven new songs, written by Lee in collaboration with Jones, Milt Raskin and Bill Schluger, for their mediocre melodies and for lyrics that strive in vain to be clever. To be sure, these songs aren’t Rodgers and Hart, although two are certainly worth revisiting. The Lee-Jones composition New York City Blues is an infectious valentine to Manhattan madness with an interesting structure, and Boston Beans, by Lee-Schluger-Raskin, is a fast-paced, nonsensical throwaway tune showcasing Lee’s occasional clownish flair. She undoubtedly made the most of it in nightclubs.

The five remaining new songs, though innocuous, don’t exactly linger like haunting refrains, especially given the quality of the older material on the album, including Goin’ to Chicago Blues, I Lost My Sugar in Salt Lake City (Lee’s second recording of this great tune for Capitol), and St. Louis Blues. The first two tracks, Kansas City and Basin Street Blues, offer a startling study in contrast. Kansas City, the first of many Leiber-Stoller tunes Lee recorded (she would soon introduce their I’m a Woman), brims with sass, swing and self-assurance in the vocal, while its booming instrumental passage, with a battery of horns, recalls Basie’s band at its best. Following a three-second pause, Lee then purrs, "And… then… there’s Basin Street / That’s the street…," delicately accompanied by Rowles, transporting the listener to an entirely different locale both geographically and emotionally in a relaxed, tender, and reverent reading of this classic song.

Unfortunately, the great promise of the album’s first 5:31 minutes soon gives way to such lackluster material as Los Angeles Blues, The Grain Belt Blues, San Francisco Blues, and Fisherman’s Wharf. All are admirably sung and orchestrated, but the lyrics have as much substance and sparkle as the average Chamber of Commerce pamphlet. (Furthermore, as writer Steve Sando points out in his recent review of this album for Mr. Lucky, few of the many varieties of fish mentioned in Fisherman’s Wharf are indigenous to the San Francisco Bay area!)

Capitol Jazz (an East Coast arm of Capitol affiliated with Blue Note Records) has added two Lee-Jones bonus tracks to this superbly-remastered disc. The first, Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh’s Hey! Look Me Over, from the Lucille Ball Broadway vehicle Wildcat, was recorded during the Blues Cross Country 1961 sessions, promptly released as a single, and eventually included on Lee's album Extra Special. The second, The Shining Sea (a bittersweet ballad by Lee and Mandel, conducted by Jones), was recorded a full five years later in May, 1966. These are disappointing selections for bonuses, given that both songs have been widely available on CD throughout the past decade. (In contrast, the five bonus tracks for Capitol Jazz’s 1998 Mink Jazz reissue included a rare Capitol single and three songs previously unissued in any format.) The inclusion as bonus tracks of some far rarer Lee-Jones collaborations (Farewell to Arms, Stay with Me, Happy Feet, and Lee’s first version of My Guitar) would have made Lee’s legions even more curious about a curiosity called Blues Cross Country.

Tracks
1. Kansas City (Leiber, Stoller)
2. Basin Street Blues (Williams)
3. Los Angeles Blues (Lee, Jones)
4. I Lost My Sugar in Salt Lake City (Rene, Lange)
5. The Grain Belt Blues (Lee, Raskin, Schluger)
6. New York City Blues (Lee, Jones)
7. Goin’ to Chicago Blues (Basie, Rushing)
8. San Francisco Blues (Lee, Raskin, Schluger)
9. Fisherman’s Wharf (Lee, Raskin)
10. Boston Beans (Lee, Raskin, Schluger)
11. The Train Blues (Lee, Jones)
12. St. Louis Blues (Handy)
13. Hey! Look Me Over (Coleman, Leigh)
14. The Shining Sea (Lee, Mandel)

Recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles in April and May, 1961, except for track 14, recorded in May, 1966. All tracks arranged by Quincy Jones except #8 (by Benny Carter) and #14 (by Johnny Mandel).

Capitol Jazz (Blue Note Records)

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