Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee (1920–2002) recorded ‘Fever’ in 1958 and made it hers so completely that it became her signature song. She rebuilt the arrangement into the famous stripped-down version — little more than voice, bass and finger-snaps — and wrote new verses that most later performers have kept. This is the rare misattribution where the cover is the more iconic record; the only error is forgetting it was a cover at all.