When it came time to resurrect the songstress Peggy Lee for the stage, Tucson actress Betty Craig thought it only appropriate to focus on her extraordinary music.
"It was hard to show the complexities of her life," said Craig, who takes on the title role in the one-woman show "Fever! A Musical Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee" Saturday at the Doubletree Hotel Tucson.
"I had to decide if this was a story about her life or if I would tilt it toward her music," said Craig, who spent the last year researching and writing the tribute about the multiple Grammy-winning singer. "Then I thought, well, her life is pretty much all about her music."
The 70-minute show features Craig singing Lee's popular hits from the 1940s, '50s and '60s and includes classic numbers such as "Is That All There Is?," "I'm a Woman" and, of course, the bluesy jazz favorite, "Fever."
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"My intent is to make it feel like a club when you walk in," said Craig, who is working with the Jeff Haskell Band for the show. "I want it to feel like you're sitting there, listening and watching Peggy Lee in a cabaret."
After listening to a radio show commemorating Lee's life, Craig decided it was time to develop a show based on Lee's music. The singer died at age 81 in 2002.
Craig hopes her tribute relays Lee's impact on the world and her musical contribution to the masses.
As a nightclub singer, Lee went on to become a recording artist, a songwriter and an actress with a career spanning more than 60 years, Craig said.
She made more than 700 recordings and 59 albums and was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as an alcoholic in the 1955 film "Pete Kelly's Blues."
She also voiced several characters and sang three songs in the 1955 Walt Disney film "Lady and the Tramp."
Lee's work has been widely recognized, and among the honors she received was induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
"Peggy Lee is one of the greatest writers and interpreters of pop American song and jazz," said Jeff Haskell, a noted local pianist and composer who helped put instrumentals and arrangements together for "Fever."
"(Lee) embodies a certain subtle spirit of adventure in lyric and melodic interpretation. She's truly one of a kind," Haskell said.
Craig, who has been performing in Tucson since the mid-1970s, said developing the show was an opportunity not to be passed up. It's the first time Craig has written a production for the stage.
"I've done a number of roles, but how often do you get a chance to create something from scratch?" Craig said.
When Craig isn't on stage, she spends her time traveling the country, working with schools as an educational consultant for writing programs.
Her roots, though, remain on the stage.
"I've been singing all of my life," she said. "I can't remember a time when I didn't want to sing. It's a passion for me, but it's not a passion for performing, it's not about being Betty on stage; it's about singing, the absolute joy of singing."
Preview
"Fever! A Musical Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee"
• Written by and starring: Betty Craig.
• When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
• Where: Doubletree Hotel Tucson at Reid Park, 445 S. Alvernon Way.
• Tickets: SOLD OUT.
• Information: 1-800-838-3006.
• Running time: 70 minutes without intermission.
