Marion Harris sings "Paradise Blues" on Victor 18152, recorded on November 17, 1916. Spencer Williams is the composer. Between making her first acoustic disc in 1916 and her first electrical disc in 1927, Marion Harris evolved from vaudeville "shouter," in the tradition of Sophie Tucker and Nora Bayes, to crooner. She began by recording mostly comic songs, blues, and Tin Pan Alley songs about blues as well as about the new music known as "jass." Towards the mid-1920s she made records that indicated a greater versatility and by the late 1920s her voice was different from earlier years, with Harris singing in the more intimate manner of torch singers such as Ruth Etting and Helen Morgan. Her late recordings suggest Harris had more vocal training than these singers. She was born Mary Ellen Harrison in 1896, at least according to obituaries, which may be inaccurate since they were only based on press releases approved at some point by Harris herself. The month and day are unknown. Even the year is open to question since no researcher has located a birth certificate. She may have wanted her background to remain obscure since a century ago many Americans looked down upon stage performers. Women were stigmatized if they worked in vaudeville. Harris may have been one of the many performers from middle-class backgrounds who were evasive or deceptive about their roots to avoid embarrassing family members. Newspaper obituaries state that she was born in the small town of Henderson, Kentucky, but no documents relating to a Mary Ellen Harrison exist in Henderson County, Kentucky. Columbia's September 1920 supplement states, "Marion Harris is a Kentucky girl and a descendant of Benjamin Harrison." The reference may be to the Harrison who signed the Declaration of Independence though most readers would infer that the Harrison here was the 23rd President of the United States. Her first recording, "I Ain't Got Nobody Much," was made on August 9, 1916, and issued on Victor 18133 in October. An example of her early association with jazz is her mid-1917 recording of Gene Buck and Dave Stamper's "When I Hear That Jazz Band Play" from Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic. Variety on November 22, 1918, confirms that Harris was only beginning to gain recognition: "Marion Harris, comparatively new to New York vaudeville, may be said to have stopped the show. Tall, very blonde, her locks dressed in an original fashion, she is an animated picture of youthful vivacity." Harris moved from Victor to the Columbia Graphophone Company in early 1920, making her Columbia debut with "Left All Alone Again Blues" (A2939). Elaborate, full-page advertisements in Talking Machine World publicized that she was exclusive to Columbia. The company's advertisement department provided dealers with Harris posters, window streamers, hearing room hangers, and cardboard cutouts. Columbia instructed its dealers to declare in shops that August 28 to September 3, 1920, was Marion Harris Week Many of her Columbia discs sold well. Harris remained with Columbia for two years, shifting to the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company in August 1922. She may have made this change because Columbia was financially troubled at this time, in contrast to Brunswick's steady growth as a record manufacturer. She recorded for Brunswick regularly from August 1922 to April 1925. Many of her early Brunswicks feature the type of songs she had recorded for Victor and Columbia, and even some late Brunswick discs, such as her jazzy 1924 "Charleston Charlie," share much with her 1916 "My Syncopated Man." Her last acoustically cut Brunswick number shares little with the earlier comic and blues work, instead foreshadowing the crooning style that would be fashionable in the late 1920s. Just as Brunswick shifted to the electrical recording process, she took a hiatus from her recording career, with stage work and especially family taking precedence. By the late 1930s she had evidently retired from show business. She married a London theatrical agent named Leonard Urry. Old friends contacted Harris at the Hotel Le Marquis during the week she was there, including vaudevillian Rose Perfect and former Ziegfeld queen Peggy Hopkins Joyce. On Sunday, April 23, 1944, Harris spoke on the telephone with Joyce to make dinner plans for the following week. The New York Daily Mail states, "Then, apparently, she fell asleep while smoking a cigaret." The time was around 6:00 p.m. Variety on April 26, 1944, reports, "According to police, the singer had gone to bed with a lighted cigaret that ignited the mattress. Not disclosed whether she died of burns or suffocation."

• published: 06 Dec 2013
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