Marion Morgan (born Marion Swires; December 14, 1923 – October 21, 2013) was an American vocalist who sang with big band leader

Harry James Harry Haag James (March 15, 1916 – July 5, 1983) was an American musician who is best known as a trumpet-playing band leader who led a big band from 1939 to 1946. He broke up his band for a short period in 1947 but shortly after he reorganized ...

Career

Born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, Morgan was billed as Lee Barrie when she sang on the Pacific Coast. She changed her name at the suggestion of bandleader

Russ Morgan Russell Morgan (April 29, 1904 – August 7, 1969) was an American big band leader and arranger during the 1930s and 1940s. He was best known for being the one of the composers of the song "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", with Larry Stock ...

. Morgan had a 15-minute Monday to Friday morning program on WMGM radio in New York City in 1951. A review in the trade publication ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' said that she "exhibited a professional adequacy but little more" on the show. '' Radio-TV Mirror'' magazine reported in its May 1952 issue that she "has been concentrating on night-club dates and has been playing the supper club circuit around the country." In the 1960s, Morgan was "hostess-singer-interviewer" for the ''Panorama Pacific'' program on KNXT in Los Angeles, California.

Personal life

While performing with

, Marion Morgan fell in love with Sidney "Sid" J. Beller (1913–1991), the band's road manager, who decided to leave his job just before Morgan left in 1949. Beller and Morgan were married in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

on October 7, 1949. They had two children: Jay Howard Beller, born November 21, 1957, and Julie Lenore Beller.

Selected discography

*" White Christmas" - with Harry James ( Columbia), 1946 *" Heartaches" - with Harry James (Columbia), 1947

References

General references * ''The Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz, 1900-1950,'' Three volumes, by Roger Davis Kinkle (1916–2000), Arlington House Publishers,

New Rochelle, NY New Rochelle (; older french: La Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the seventh-largest in the state of ...

(1974) ; ; Inline citations

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Marion 1923 births Swing singers American women jazz singers American jazz singers American women singer-songwriters MGM Records artists Columbia Records artists People from Detroit Singers from Michigan Year of death missing