Ultimate Christmas CD

Any idea if there will be anything hitherto unreleased on this upcoming CD, as yet unmentioned on this official site?

I can answer my own question, having just found a track-list on-line -- the answer is essentially no! Personally, I think Peggy's true fans have been very poorly served in this centennial year... sorry!

It would be nice if the original Norma Deloris Egstrom could be released on CD instead of the different-takes version that appeared on the EMI twofer.

The release of the original "Norma Deloris Egstrom" on CD would be a real gift to Peggy fans!

Paul B, I remain pleased and relieved that you and Richard and Paul Brownsey and a few other fellow posters among us are still contributing to this board, thus keeping it somewhat active! ... So, don’t misunderstand my comments below as antagonistic, because nothing could be further from the truth. You know very well that you and I share the same passion.

Alas, it would have been impossible to include any previously unreleased Peggy Lee Christmas masters in this collection. That's because (to my knowledge) there are none! All of them have already been issued on both LP and CD, over the years.

But this collection does include a few “extra” or “special” tracks -- i. e. , numbers that have not been in a Peggy holiday collection before. We have, for instance, the song “Here Comes Santa Claus,” never on either a Peggy Lee CD or a Peggy Lee LP, until now. And, best of all for my own personal taste, “Peace on Earth” is finally showing up on a holiday anthology, as I have long felt it should. (As far as CD releases go, “Peace” also qualifies as a pretty rare choice, since it had previously been only on one compact disc.)

On the matter of not seeing the release announced on this site yet, I imagine that a proper announcement is being prepared, along with a page exclusively dedicated to the release. (I mean, such has been the case with all other previous official items.)

I am actually surprised to already see those pre-order pages at the commercial sites. I had wrongly assumed that news of this release would remain under wraps until a time closer to December. Now I’m finding out that it is going to be released well in advance of that month. My hope is that the relatively early release date is a vote of confidence -- an indication that the label knows and expects Peggy's holiday material to sell reasonably well, for an artist of her vintage ... In any case, the better the sales, the greater the chances to keep the official labels willing to consider any future physical product.

I would also like to point out that this Ultimate LP/CD series aims at giving listeners a fine slice of Peggy’s better-known recordings in a single disc, with good sound quality and in a properly designed package. Still, dedicated fans such as us were not forgotten during the preparation of the earlier Ultimate Peggy Lee release (the one out a few weeks ago, in June 2020): a previously unissued track was included for our benefit ... From the label’s perspective, that CD's target audience is likely to be the people who has fallen under Peggy's spell in recent decades. Meanwhile, from the perspective of Holly Foster Wells (according to what she has said in several interviews), this was her joint effort with the label to produce an official one-disc anthology to which she herself can point whenever she is asked for a recommendation.

I don’t tend to post in this board much any longer, in part because there seems to be so little traffic (migration to Facebook). But this time around I’ve felt compelled to chime in, mainly because I fear that we long-time fans are getting somewhat pessimistic about the state of Peggy’s catalogue. And yet this is a time when, quite to the contrary, there are reasons to be highly optimistic! If you compare what we Peggy fans have been getting to what fans of other centennially celebrated singers got in recent years (e.g., Dean Martin), we are the lucky ones, by far. This is not to say that I don’t also regret seeing that some product, such as the recent selection of Decca rarities, is coming out only digitally. I do. But, all things considered, we should not lose sight of the fact that physical Peggy Lee product is still being generated for us by the official labels, too, deep into the digital era, and in spite of heavily lagging sales for CD product. Furthermore, this is happening for us even at a time of crisis (a time which has actually forced the cancellation and postponement of quite a few Peggy projects for which there had been incipient steps during the second half of 2019).

As a bit of a teaser, let me conclude by mentioning my awareness of an ongoing Peggy Lee music project that is likely to bring pleasure to many of us long-time fans. (I saw a reference to this project in Facebook a few weeks ago, from somebody who is likely to be directly involved. I took the reference to be a sign that the project is enjoying progress.) Details and specifics have to remain under wraps for the time being, but if it goes through, I imagine that we will see it released next year.

Ivan

Ivan, I very much appreciate your gracious response. However, I won't be buying this -- in fact I don't even like the cover artwork! I am intrigued by the potential future "project" though (and I wholeheartedly agree with other posters requests for the "Norma Deloris Egstrom" CD).