Marion Harris

Marion Harris

Source: Jazz Age 1920s

Born on 4 April 1896 in Indiana, Marion Harris began singing in Chicago at age 18 on the vaudeville stage, also adding voice to silent films. By Dec 1915 she was in New York City already doing the big time with a minor role in Irving Berlin's 'Stop! Look! Listen!'. Harris was twenty years old when she first recorded in 1916. DAHR has her in session as early as 9 August for 'My Syncopated Melody Man' (Victor 18152) and 'I Ain't Got Nobody Much' (Victor 18133). She proved to be a popular singer four months later when 'I'm Gonna Make Hay While the Sun Shines in Virginia' reached #8 on the charts in December.

As mentioned by the compiler of the Wikipedia popularity chart for Harris, though popularity charts were variously published nigh as soon as recordings began getting commercially issued in 1890, their accuracy was and remains debatable until Billboard (founded 1894) published its first singles chart on 27 July 1940. Early charts, however, weren't entirely of another universe, and were probably partly, if not wholly, accurate. With the understanding that multiple factors warp early charts, such as that best-selling lists were published locally by companies with commercial interests in calling such or such a best-selling title, rather than nationally with a more rigid approach to data, charts for the first half century of commercial recording yet lend a relatively good notion of what sold well. If some early data is water for tossing out, it likely points to some babies as well.

Which is a fairly long way to preface that 'Don't Leave Me Daddy' of 1916 wasn't especially popular. But 'Paradise Blues' is tiered to #7 on charts as of February 1917. 'They Go Wild, Simply Wild, Over Me' found its way to #2 as of December 1917. 'Everybody's Crazy 'Bout the Doggone Blues" is listed at #3 as of May 1918. Recording data herein is gleaned from DAHR, Discogs and the '1921 Catalogue of Victor Records'. The master list for Harris at DAHR (ADP) is currently offline so it can't be referenced. Google searches including "adp" presently find sessions per individual titles.

Moving over to Columbia in 1920, then Brunswick in 1922, Harris positioned forty songs in the Top Ten to as late as 'The Man I Love' in 1928. Four of those topped the charts at #1: 'After You've Gone', 'St. Louis Blues', 'Look for the Silver Lining' and 'Tea for Two'. Her last title to chart was 'Nobody's Using It Now' in 1930 at #20.

Harris performed on Broadway in 'Yours Truly' from January to May of 1927. She appeared in one of the earliest soundies for the first time in 1928 per the short film, 'Marion Harris, Songbird of Jazz'. She sang on radio for the first time in 1931 for NBC, also touring to London that year. Crossing the Atlantic between NYC and London on multiple occasions, Marion is thought to have recorded as late as 1934 in the UK, issuing 'Singin’ the Blues' / 'Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday' on Decca F 5160. Per below, 'I'm Funny That Way' is an early torch song, though not so lamentable in love as the torch song would come to be. The torch song of sad undying love was generally sung by a female from a female perspective, Billie Holiday probably the most famous among them, "carryin' the torch" for 'Jim', a classic torch song of 1941 (Okeh 6369). Popular in smoky cabarets, torch singers often lounged about a piano with cocktail in hand, making nice Saturday nights for folks not waking up Sundays too hung over.

By 1936 Harris was married (again) and living in London where her home was destroyed by a German rocket during World War II in 1941. A trip to NYC in 1944 proved fatal when Harris died of smoking in bed in her hotel room in Manhattan on 23 April, she only 48 years old.