Dave Barbour

Through various stages of his career, Dave Barbour was known as a banjoist, a guitarist, a songwriter, the husband of singer Peggy Lee and an actor. At other times he was known for doing not much of anything, including a final period of more than a decade when he hung out in Malibu and made only a few extremely random public appearances as a musician. His greatest accomplishment, all told, seems to have been propelling Lee -- who had initially given up her singing career for marriage and children -- into becoming a major singing star. Musically, he and Lee were just a great combination, writing much of her best material together, and Barbour often leading her backup band many of their recordings. Their private life, on the flipside, was supposedly something of a mess. Barbour's lips were glued to the alcohol bottle, a problem that continued after the relationship with Lee had fallen apart and no doubt accounted for his fallow period. Barbour 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. Benny Goodman hired Barbour in the summer of 1942, and not for a trim, although that was what the feisty bandleader wound up getting. In a story straight out of a '40s musical romance, the guitarist fell in love with the band's singer, Lee...