Search - Lee Wiley :: 1931-1940

Lee Wiley--Amazing Style, Sound, and Feeling.

Harry Chandless | Hasbrouck Heights, NJ USA | 04/21/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"She started singing with jazz bands and pop bands at age 15! The two recordings at that age are on this wonderful CD. The songs run through to age 25. Part Cherokee Indian, she sang with what was called a "smoky, intimate...sexy, devastating way." Although she usually sang with the jazzbands and sang like no other jazz singer you have ever heard, she just considered herself a singer. She is on this CD with a variety of groups, but always chose to sing what she wanted and many of the great songs are on this recording,with the Dorseys, Glen Gray, Benny Goodman, Eddie Condon and on the last two cuts with famous jazz pianist, Jess Stacy, who was her husband. On some of Eddie Condon's CDs of the Carnegie Hall concerts you can also hear her sing in later years and usually songs not on this CD. Her death in 1975 was a tragic loss for music.She was so under-rated and unpublicized at the time of her career. Prophetically, here in 1931 she sings "A Hundred Year From Today", "Time on My Hands"(at age 15, with no less beauty than years and years later), and "But Not For Me". It is so difficult not to continue playing this CD over and over. These are 22 priceless songs by Lee Wiley, which may bring joy and tears from you."