After offering a selection for the [Favorite Performance of the Cole Porter song “Looking At You”?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=737141&highlight=Lee Wiley) thread I wondered how many others have mentioned Lee Wiley here in the past 5 years. I found 2 other mentions, here (post #25, by Saintly Loser) and here (post #5, by Equipoise, an education in itself). Nowadays, one “Noah Wiley” (Noah Wyle?) seems much more popular, along with various “wiley” humans and (Wile E.) coyote. I am ignorant of much of today’s popular culture, while I still like me some Lee Wiley.
Her Wikipedia writeup is bland, blah. John Bush’s ALLMUSIC biography is better at describing her allure, as is Sue Russell’s jazz.com biography. What first caught my attention, though, was a 2 CD set released 21 years ago, Art Deco Sophisticated Ladies with program notes by Marc Kirkeby. Here is a short excerpt:
Golly, I’m part of that target audience. Here are 3 readily available Lee Wiley songs, to hopefully whet your appetite for more…
[ul][li]Oh! Look at Me Now!, by Joe Bushkin and John DeVries.[/li][li]Manhattan, by Richard Rodgers and Larry Hart.[/li][*]A Hundred Years From Today, by Victor Young and Ned Washington. Rena1934 has some tasty selections. And if you know the Jean Harlow movie The Girl from Missouri, this tune is appropriately the background music of one scene.[/ul]