[Dixielandjazz] Who's Ever Heard of Lee Morse

[Robert Ringwald]

Idaho’s Little Songbird with the Big Voice 


by Syd Albright

Coeur d’Alene (Idaho) Press, March 31, 2015


Who’s ever heard of Lee Morse, the ninth of 12 children raised in the small town of Kooskia, Idaho -- a diminutive singer with a remarkable three-octave singing voice whose backup band included future musical giants like Bennie Goodman and the Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey brothers?


She was a uniquely talented beauty with Bette Davis eyes and Mae Murray “bee-sting” lips who rose to stardom in the Jazz Age, only to die suddenly after illness and a long battle with the bottle.


Lee could sing from bass to soprano -- and play guitar, banjo, ukulele, piano and kazoo. She was also a composer. Her father was a preacher and the whole family sang. She started singing at age three and early on learned to mimic her brothers, which no doubt helped her reach the deep notes.


She also added yodeling and whoops to her talents. At times she sang with a touch of Kate Smith or Edith Piaf, and at others like a man -- remarkable for a women scarcely five feet tall and 100 pounds “wringing wet.” The recording technology of those early days required performers to have a strong voice, and Lee had one.


Even when she was a teenager, the Kooskia Mountaineer newspaper in 1914 wrote: “Miss Lena Taylor, daughter of Judge and Mrs. P.J. Taylor, is a vocalist of a rare type. She has a deep, rich voice of peculiar timbre that with cultivation, is capable of doing great things. She is a general favorite throughout the entire region, and wherever heard.”


There was more to her than just music. “She could hunt and fish and, if you deserved it, she could punch your lights out!” one biographer wrote. Must have been the years growing up in Idaho.


Old-timers will remember some of the tunes that made her famous like:


“Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “Mississippi Mud,” and “Little White Lies.”


Among the many songs she sang or composed that included yodeling was “Sing Me a Song in Texas.”


Lena Corinne Taylor was born to Pleasant John and Olive Taylor in Cove, Ore., on Nov. 30, 1897, the family moving to Idaho 11 years later.


In 1915, Lena married Elmer Morse, a woodworker in Kooskia, and the following year gave birth to a son Jack -- her only child. She always wanted to be an entertainer and her first performance was at a local silent movie theater in 1918. Then she branched out to sing in other small towns in the region. Two years later, the couple broke up due to career differences and at age 23 she headed for the bright lights, leaving Elmer and her son behind.


Her first big break was singing at the St. Francis Hotel during the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco in 1920. Vaudeville producer Will King saw the performance and signed her to a contract.


Using her stage name of Lee Morse, she sang with the German comedian team of Kolb and Dills, adding music to their comedy act. Then she joined Alexander Pantages, the Greek-born vaudeville and burlesque impresario who built a theater circuit in the U.S. and Canada where he booked live performances.


One reviewer of Lee’s Pantages act said, “She sings a baritone ‘Silver Moon,’ then swings into a bass with ‘Asleep in the Deep’ and finishes in a soprano with ‘Just a Song of Twilight.’”


The prestigious Variety magazine wrote, “She gives the impression of a male impersonator, yodels rather sweetly, sings the ‘blues’ number better than the majority.” Some early recordings listed her as “Miss Lee Morse,” lest she be mistaken for a male singer.


While touring in 1923, one reviewer wrote: “It is safe to say that Miss Lee Morse, the girl with a wonderful voice... most satisfying, enjoyable, and all around favorite... accomplishes a low register and a volume which equals in tone a male bass singer, yet her voice has a feminine quality, a richness and sweetness which no male voice could produce.”


Her next career jump came in 1924 when Pathe signed her up as a recording artist and gave her free rein to record her own songs and experiment with her voice with “whoops, yips and yodels.” Some critics called them gimmicks, but others said they “added a personality to her voice and enabled her to fully demonstrate her multi-octave range.”


Her glory years were just ahead, but so also were dark clouds. The husband she left behind in Idaho built a fine home for her and her son, but she never went back to enjoy it. In despair, he filed for divorce, and then died a year later in Spokane of scarlet fever. Custody of young Jack was returned to his mom.


In 1927, Lee sang for the Columbia Records label and for the next five years she and Ruth Etting were their top female performers.


Her back-up band called “Lee Morse and Her Blue Grass Boys” included such future greats as Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey on clarinet and his brother Tommy on trombone. Red Nichols played cornet, Manny Klein with trumpet, drummer Stan King and Eddie Lang on guitar (They didn’t play string “Blue Grass” like today’s Oak Ridge Boys and others).


Talkie movies were in and Lee appeared in three short one-reel films.


During those days, she continued in vaudeville and almost made it to the top when cast in Florenz Ziegfeld’s Simple Simon show on Broadway.


Fame is often a heavy burden to carry, and alcohol became Lee’s new companion -- and worst enemy. When she showed up intoxicated for Simple Simon, Ziegfeld fired her on the spot and brought in Ruth Etting. Lee’s career never fully recovered from that blow.


The show’s “Ten Cents a Dance” number by Rodgers and Hart became Ruth’s signature song, and since then has been recorded by many top artists; made into movies, and is listed as one of the great songs in American musical history.


Sometime in the 1920s, she met musician Bob Downey (cousin of then popular singer Morton Downey) and they became a couple (It is still uncertain if they were ever married). They weathered the Depression together playing small gigs in small clubs, then taking their act to Fort Worth, Texas and opening a nightclub, but also performing at other venues.


Doctors for years told Lee that she should have her tonsils removed, but she nixed the idea, claiming that the operation could ruin her “trick yodel.”


Like many other talented performers, Lee could be difficult. The Fort Worth Press wrote: “Lee Morse opened an announced week’s engagement at Midway Inn Saturday night, but did not appear last night. Singer and club parted when Miss Morse objected to Band Leader Bob Millar being billed above herself in newspaper ads. Too bad for Midway, because Lee wowed audiences at two shows Saturday night.”


After a fire destroyed their nightclub in 1939, they moved to Rochester, N.Y., where Lee would spend the rest of her life. Then Downey left her for a striptease dancer from Buffalo.


With World War II raging and Downey gone, it was a hard time for Lee, and friends worried about her health. Then she met Ray Farese in Rochester who helped find her a radio show and nightclub appearances. They were married in 1946.


During the war, she wrote a song for the soldiers called “Don’t Even Change a Picture on the Wall.” It was a good song but sadly it did not re-launch her career, as they hoped it would.


“Up until her untimely death, her voice remained strong, gutsy and distinctive,” wrote one biographer, “and the fire that drove her career still burned in her eyes. She was deeply loved by her friends, and admired by her fans. The great tragedy to her story is that she was not given more time to enjoy her hard-earned happiness.”


She made some 200 recordings. The pleasure in listening to Lee is that she seemed to really enjoy singing, even though many of the lyrics mirrored some real life heartbreaks that despite the triumphs, must have made it hard to put on a happy face.


On Dec. 16, 1954, Lee Morse died suddenly in Rochester while visiting a neighbor -- and the world lost Idaho’s gifted little songbird.

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Ian House has created an excellent website dedicated to Lee Morse, including audio of her songs. They are worth listening to and sharing with family and friends.


http://www.leemorse.com/homepage.htm 


Click on “Her Songbook” link, sit back and enjoy!


http://www.cdapress.com/columns/syd_albright/article_6806bd90-d807-11e4-a2d4-ef2274c994d5.html 

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-30

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