Tish Oney's Music Blog

For several years I have been entertaining the idea of authoring a book on a topic I researched extensively when I was a doctoral student at the University of Southern California. The book is finally here! Peggy Lee: A Century of Song , I am pleased to announce, is available for purchase at the website of my publisher Rowman & Littlefield. This volume celebrates the one hundredth birthday of Peggy Lee, a pillar of twentieth-century American popular music, jazz, and blues. It recounts her expansive work as a film composer, actress, radio host, songwriter of 270 songs, voiceover artist, live performer, and recording artist of 1100 recorded masters. Lee's contributions to American music run the gamut from a large catalog of recorded music and original songs (many which became hits), exceptional stagecraft and performance practice, exemplary musicianship, nuance, authentic style in a wide palette of genres, music advocacy, and much more. Her pioneering work as a female bandleader/...

I have recently given myself permission to read for pleasure again. This has been a long time coming. I have been elbow-deep in so many creative projects, with even more pressing things on my to-do list related to home maintenance, family obligations, and mundane tasks, that I had begun to view books as "time luxuries" I could not afford. On the contrary, it has been reiterated to me by multiple trusted sources that if I am to remain intellectually sharp and artistically inspired, I must not neglect the important personal growth that devotion to reading great authors' works affords. That said, in the past thirty days I have gleaned inspiration from books by Twyla Tharp, Sarah Ban Breathnach, Diane Ackerman, Sarah Palin, Eugenia Price and Edith Wharton, among others. Turning toward women whose ideas and/or language mastery enrich my experience has proven to bring a sense of well-being and balance back into a formerly crowded and stressed existence. These women have aptly...