In attempting to enhance Peggy Lee's legend, which needs no enhancement, writers/producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who provided Lee with her 1969 hit, "Is That All There Is," and her biggest ever, "Fever," have cowed themselves. Their ten original songs on Lee's A&M debut are, for the most part, tuneless and wordy, implying less in 25 couplets than one verse from any of their countless hits for the Coasters or Elvis Presley. If "Is That All There Is" was nearly a classic of arch cabaret cynicism, these songs belabor that attitude. There are moments ("I Remember" and "Say It") when Stoller provides the vestiges of a tune, and Leiber's lyric for "Say It" is nicely, nastily ironic. The rest of the album, however, is dreck. Not even Miss Lee can pull off the role of a master of ceremonies for a performing dog show, which is what she's required ?? do ?? one cut. Leiber and Stoller are good songwriters who know as well as anyone the value of simplicity and tunefulness, and it is unfortunate that they have saddled Miss Lee—a fine interpreter with a voice that at age 50-plus still holds up well — with what amounts to rhymed patter. (RS 202)

STEPHEN HOLDEN