Dave Barbour born 28 May 1912

 David Michael Barbour (May 28, 1912 – December 11, 1965) was an American jazz guitarist. He was married to singer Peggy Lee and was her co-writer, accompanist, and bandleader.

Barbour was born in Long Island, New York. He was educated at Flushing High School and in private music study. When Barbour was twelve, he played banjo at Carnegie Hall.  He came out of an early generation of jazz string players who changed from banjo to guitar as the swing era took off. He began playing professionally with one-armed Dixieland trumpeter Wingy Manone in the early '30s, and at that point he was still on banjo. 

By 1936 Barbour had picked up guitar and was in the group of vibraphonist Red Norvo, who almost always featured guitars. Through the late '30s and into the early '40s, the guitarist was extremely busy with a variety of studio and performing groups, 

including those of Lennie Hayton, Charlie Barnet, Raymond Scott, Glenn Miller, and Lou Holden. He also recorded with André Previn in 1945.

While a member of Benny Goodman's orchestra in 1942 the guitarist fell in love with the band's singer, Lee naturally, and the pair ran off, leaving Goodman minus two band members. They got married 8 March 1943 and moved to Los Angeles where they bagan a flourishing partnership writing songs whose titles might have suggested elements of their evolving personal relationship: i.e., "It's a Good Day," "Just an Old Love of Mine," "I Don't Know Enough About You," "Confusion Says," "(I'm Not Gonna) Let It Bother Me," and "Blum Blum, I Wonder Who I Am." 

                              

 Barbour also conducted and arranged for record companies and joined ASCAP in 1947. Lee wrote "Johnny Guitar" with Victor Young, but listeners familiar with Lee's personal life will no doubt hear Barbour in there somewhere, as the singer couldn't have helped but think about him while interpreting this especially sad ballad. They divorced in 1951.

Barbour’s drink problem continued after the relationship with Lee had fallen apart and no doubt accounted for his fallow period. If there was life after Lee for him, it was for the most part sustained by royalty checks, as songs written by the couple were covered by a wide range of performers, from top jazz vocalists to '50s pop icons such as Doris Day and Perry Como. 

During this era, Barbour recorded a few sides as orchestra leader for Capitol, Decca and Arwin record labels between 1949 and 1959. he also made a dash at an acting career and shows up in two films, both with vaguely biographical titles: The Secret Fury and Mr. Music. From 1952 on his musical appearances were limited to a small number of charity events and a 1962 Benny Carter recording session.

Barbour died in 1965 of a haemorrhaged ulcer in Malibu Beach, California, at the age of 53. Late in life, Lee wrote in her autobiography that shortly before his death she and Barbour were considering remarriage. After her death, their daughter had Barbour's ashes interred with those of Miss Peggy Lee.

(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia)

Peggy Lee born 26 May 1920

Peggy Lee (born Norma Deloris Egstrom May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002) was an American Grammy award winning Jazz and Popular Music singer, songwriter, composer and actress.

Peggy Lee was of Scandinavian descent, her grandparents being Swedish and Norwegian immigrants. She endured a difficult childhood and her mother died when she was four; when her father remarried she experienced a decidedly unpleasant relationship with her stepmother. Her father took to drink, and at the age of 14 she found herself carrying out his duties at the local railroad depot. Despite these and other hardships, she sang frequently and headed out to Hollywood in 1938, but despite a singing engagement at the Jade Room on Hollywood Boulevard the trip was not a success.

Leaving California, Egstrom relocated to Fargo in her home state where she appeared on the local radio station WDAY. The manager of the station changed her name to Peggy Lee and her career took an upswing when she moved to Minneapolis, landing several engagements on the local club circuit. Another California visit was equally unsuccessful and she then tried Chicago where, in 1941, as a member of a vocal group, the Four Of Us, she was hired to sing at the Ambassador West Hotel. During this engagement she was heard by Mel Powell, who invited Benny Goodman to hear her. Goodman's regular singer, Helen Forrest, was about to leave and Lee was hired as her replacement. She joined the band for an engagement at the College Inn and within a few days sang on a record date. A song from this period, "Elmer's Tune", was a huge success. Among other popular recordings she made with Goodman were "How Deep Is The Ocean?", "How Long Has This Been Going On?", "My Old Flame" and "Why Don't You Do Right?".

Later, Lee married Goodman's guitarist, Dave Barbour. After she left Goodman's band in 1943, she had more successful records, including "That Old Feeling" and three songs of which she was co-composer with Barbour, "I Don't Know Enough About You", 

"It's A Good Day" and "Mañana". She also performed on radio with Bing Crosby. 

In the 50s she made several popular recordings for Decca Records and Capitol Records, the orchestral backings for many of which were arranged and conducted by Barbour, with whom she maintained a good relationship despite their divorce in 1951. Her 1958 hit single "Fever" was also a collaboration with Barbour. Her Black Coffee album of 1953 was particularly successful, as was Beauty And The Beat! a few years later. On these and other albums of the period, Lee was often accompanied by jazz musicians, including Jimmy Rowles, Marty Paich and George Shearing.  

 During the 50s Lee was also active in films, performing the title song of Johnny Guitar (1954), and writing songs for others including Tom Thumb (1958). She also made a number of on-screen appearances in acting roles, including The Jazz Singer (1952), and for one, Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), she was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. However, her most lasting fame in films lies in her off-screen work on Walt Disney's Lady And The Tramp (1955), for which Lee wrote the song "He's A Tramp" and provided the voice for the characters of "Peg", the Siamese cats, and one other screen feline.

Her recording successes continued throughout this period even if, on some occasions, she had to fight to persuade Capitol to record them. One such argument surrounded "Lover", which executives felt would compete directly with the label's then popular version by Les Paul. Lee won out and her performance of her own arrangement, played by a studio orchestra under the direction of Gordon Jenkins, was a sensation. Towards the end of the 50s, though, the intense level of work began to take its toll and Lee suffered a period of illness.

Throughout the 60s and succeeding decades Lee performed extensively, singing at concerts and on television and, of course, making records, despite being frequently plagued with poor health. Her voice, light with a delicate huskiness, offered intriguing contrasts with the large orchestral accompaniment that usually formed a part of a Lee performance. Over the years her repeated use of previously successful settings for songs tended to make her shows predictable but she remained a dedicated perfectionist.

In the early 80s she attempted a stage show, Peg, but it proved unpopular and closed quickly. In the late 80s she again suffered ill health and on some of her live performances her voice was starting to betray the ravages of time. For her many fans, it did not seem to matter: to paraphrase the title of one of her songs, they just loved being there with Peg. In 1992,

wheelchair-bound for the previous two years, Lee was persisting in a lawsuit, begun in 1987, against the Walt Disney Corporation for her share of the video profits from Lady And The Tramp. A year later, dissatisfied with the "paltry" £2 million settlement for her six songs (written with Sonny Burke) and character voices, she threatened to write a book about the whole affair. Meanwhile, she continued to make occasional cabaret appearances at New York venues such as Club 53.

In 1993 she recorded a duet with Gilbert O'Sullivan for his album Sounds Of The Loop. Six years later Lee once again started 

litigation for unpaid royalties, this time against her former record company Decca. By this point her performing career had finally been ended through a stroke suffered on 27 October 1998, and she remained in poor health until passing away at her Bel Air home in January 2002. The cause of death was given as a myocardial infarction.

Lee will be remembered as one of the greatest song stylists of the century, alongside such stellar artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter. (info mainly NME)