Marion Harris (born Mary Ellen Harrison; April 4, 1896 – April 23, 1944) was an American popular singer who was most successful in the late 1910s and the 1920s. She was the first widely known white singer to sing
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
songs.
[Ward, Elijah (2005). ''Escaping the Delta''. .]
Early life
She was born Mary Ellen Harrison on April 4, 1896, probably in Indiana. She sang in
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
and movie theaters in Chicago around 1914. The dancer
Vernon Castle
Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers and dance teachers who appeared on Broadway and in silent films in the early 20th century. They are credited with reviving the popularity of modern dancing. Castle was a st ...
introduced her to the theater community in New York City, where she debuted in the
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook.
Born in Imperial Russi ...
revue ''Stop! Look! Listen!'' in 1915.
Recordings
In 1916, she began recording for
Victor Records
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidi ...
, singing a variety of songs, such as "Everybody's Crazy 'bout the Doggone Blues, but I'm Happy", "
After You've Gone", "
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
''A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories'' (published in the United Kingdom as ''The Artificial Nigger and Other Tales'') is a collection of short stories by American author Flannery O'Connor. The collection was first published in 1955. The ...
", "When I Hear That Jazz Band Play" and her biggest success, "
I Ain't Got Nobody
"I Ain't Got Nobody" (sometimes referred to as "I'm So Sad and Lonely" or "I Ain't Got Nobody Much") is a popular song copyrighted in 1915. Roger A. Graham (1885–1938) wrote the lyrics, Spencer Williams composed it, and Roger Graham Music Publi ...
" (originally titled "I Ain't Got Nobody Much").
In 1920, after Victor prevented her from recording
W.C. Handy's "
St. Louis Blues
The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the ...
", she joined
Columbia, where she recorded the song. Sometimes billed as "The Queen of the Blues",
she recorded blues and jazz songs throughout her career. Handy wrote, "she sang blues so well that people hearing her records sometimes thought that the singer was colored." Harris commented, "You usually do best what comes naturally, so I just naturally started singing Southern dialect songs and the modern blues songs."
She was briefly married to the actor
Robert Williams. They married in 1921 and divorced the following year. Harris and Williams had one daughter, Mary Ellen, who later became a singer under the name
Marion Harris Jr.
In 1922 she signed with
Brunswick. She continued to appear in Broadway theatres throughout the 1920s. She regularly played the
Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, or Palace Theater, is the name of many theatres in different countries, including:
Australia
*Palace Theatre, Melbourne, Victoria
*Palace Theatre, Sydney, New South Wales
Canada
*Palace Theatre, housed in the Robillard Block, Mo ...
, appeared in
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Edward Ziegfeld Jr. (; March 21, 1867 – July 22, 1932) was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the ''Ziegfeld Follies'' (1907–1931), inspired by the ''Folies Bergère'' of Paris. He also p ...
's ''
Midnight Frolic'', and toured the country with vaudeville shows.
After her divorce from a marriage that produced two children, she returned, in 1927, to New York theater, made more recordings with Victor and appeared in an eight-minute
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one th ...
short film, ''
Marion Harris: Songbird of Jazz''. After performing in a Hollywood movie, the early musical ''
Devil-May-Care
Devil May Care may refer to:
Music
* ''Devil May Care'', an album by Bob Dorough, 1956
** "Devil May Care", the title song, covered by Jamie Cullum on '' Pointless Nostalgic'', 2002
* ''Devil May Care'' (album), by Teri Thornton, 1961
* ''Devil M ...
'' (1929), with
Ramón Novarro
José Ramón Gil Samaniego (February 6, 1899 – October 30, 1968), known professionally as Ramon Novarro, was a Mexican-American actor. He began his career in silent films in 1917 and eventually became a leading man and one of the top box ...
, she temporarily withdrew from performance because of an undisclosed illness.
Later career and death
Between 1931 and 1933, Harris performed on such NBC radio shows as ''
The Ipana Troubadors
''The Ipana Troubadors'' (aka ''The Ipana Troubadours'') was a musical variety radio program which began in New York on WEAF in 1923. In actuality, the Troubadors were the Sam Lanin Orchestra. They opened the show with their theme, "Smiles."
Th ...
'' and
Rudy Vallee
Rudy or Rudi is a masculine given name, sometimes short for Rudolf, Rudolph, Rawad, Rudra, Ruairidh, or variations thereof, a nickname and a surname which may refer to:
People Given name or nickname
*Rudolf Rudy Andeweg (born 1952), Dutch poli ...
's ''
The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour
''The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour'' (also known as ''The Rudy Vallée Show'', ''The Fleischmann Yeast Hour'', and ''The Fleischmann Hour'') was a pioneering musical variety radio program broadcast on NBC from 1929 to 1936, when it became ''The Roya ...
''. She was billed by NBC as "The Little Girl with the Big Voice."
![MarionHarrisBanjoUke](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/MarionHarrisBanjoUke.jpg)
In early 1931 she performed in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, returning for long engagements at the
Café de Paris Café de Paris may refer to:
Establishments
*Café de Paris (London), a London nightclub
* Café de Paris, Chicago, a Chicago nightclub
* Café de Paris (restaurant), Geneva
* Café de Paris (Rome), a bar in Rome, Italy
* Café de Paris (Cubzac-les ...
(located in London). In London, she appeared in the musical ''
Ever Green
Ever may refer to:
* Ever (artist), creator of street art, from Buenos Aires, Argentina
* Ever, Kentucky
* -ever, an English suffix added to interrogative words in forms like ''wherever''
* KT Tech EVER, a South Korean mobile phone manufacture ...
'' and broadcast on
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
radio. She also recorded in
in the early 1930s but retired soon afterward. In 1936, she married
, an English theatrical agent.
Their house was destroyed in a German bombing attack in 1941, and in 1944 she travelled to New York to seek treatment for a neurological disorder. She was discharged two months later.
She died on April 23, 1944, at
from a fire that started when she fell asleep while smoking in bed.