Why Lee?: A Musical Scrapbook about Lee Wiley

She was a favorite singer of George Gershwin, Cole Porter and other legendary American composers. Her sophisticated singing style has influenced the most iconic recording artists of the 20th century, from Peggy Lee to Barbra Streisand. She performed with the hottest jazz musicians of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, including Bunny Berigan, Eddie Condon, and Fats Waller, and pioneered the concept of the “songbook” album in the late 1930s with albums devoted to the music of the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and Harold Arlen. With her remarkable talent and astounding beauty, Lee Wiley seemed destined for stardom — yet she virtually disappeared in the 1950s at the height of her popularity. Award-winning performers Lois Walden, Barry Kleinbort, and Paul Greenwood tell the largely untold story of this acclaimed, notoriously enigmatic American singer and celebrate her enduring musical legacy in Why Lee? A Musical Scrapbook about Lee Wiley.