Close Enough for Love

Close Enough for Love could have been Peggy Lee’s nadir, but the fact that she turned the disco trend to her advantage speaks to the indomitability of her artistic voice. “You,” “Just One of Those Things,” “I Can’t Resist You”: it’s hard to say exactly what makes these songs work. Maybe it’s that the disco trimmings are subtle and organic instead of relentless and mechanical, as they were on so many other tracks of the era. Lee was too experienced to feign the extroversion of a disco diva. Instead, she embraced a more hushed and private voice, forcing the music to come to her. What really made Lee right for disco was that it was a new form of late-night music, and Lee was the original all-night chanteuse. These songs are a continuation of the mood she'd been plying for 40 years: awake in the wee hours, tipsy on something or other, happily ensconced in a frame of forlorn sentimentality. You might think it'd be awkward to hear 59-year-old Lee attempting the sleazy slow-motion gyrations of “Easy Does It,” but it’s not. She's as convincingly sultry—maybe more—as she was at 22.