Ella Mae Morse

Ella Mae Morse was one of the most exciting vocalists of the 1940s and 50s, a hard-to-classify, Texas-born white singer who knocked everyone out with her hip, black-inflected vocals from the moment she hit the scene as a seventeen-year-old with boogie pianist Freddie Slack's Orchestra in 1942. Her vocal that year on the huge hit Cow Cow Boogie, quickly established her as a name, and dozens of hits followed, both with Slack and under her own name. Sides like the Buzz Me, The House Of Blue Lights, Pig Foot Pete, The Blacksmith Blues remain classics, and The House Of Blue Lights, in particular, has been hailed as one of the seminal recordings in rock and roll history. Uncommonly versatile, Ella Mae could handle anything, from jazz to country, from R&B to lush pop. As she herself has said, “Cliffie Stone said: 'You're a country singer.' And Benny Carter said: 'You're a jazz singer.' T-Bone Walker said: 'You're a rock and roll-blues singer.'

See and hear Ella MAe on YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=ella+mae+morse&search_ty...

Ella Mae Morse got her big break at a young age with Jimmy Dorsey's orchestra. There are two stories about her short stay with Dorsey. One is that she called for an audition when the band was booked at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. Needing a female singer, Jimmy listened, liked her and hired her. She claimed to be 19, but was really 13, and later, when Jimmy received a notice from the school board that he was responsible for her, he fired her.

The other story tells that Jimmy discovered the 15-year-old Ella Mae at a Houston jam session. She had borrowed carfare to get to the session and walked out with a Dorsey contract. Soon after, the Dallas pares referred to here as "The Dallas Dark Horse". But she lacked experience and was undisciplined. Singer Bob Erbely recalls that on one radio program, she forgot the lyrics to one song and started ad libbing as to that fact, and on another song she sang an alternate set of risqué lyrics that was banned by the network. Dorsey fired her after only a month, having hired Helen O'Connell in her place.

The first story seems to be the official one, while the second is how Dorsey band members and music journalists of the time remembered it. Age-wise, the second story fits with the chronology of Jimmy Dorsey's orchestra.

Whatever the truth, young Ella Mae apparently made a good impression on Dorsey band member Freddie Slack. Three years later, in 1942, he hired her to sing with his new orchestra. It was there she had her biggest hit with Cow Cow Boogie, Capitol Records' first gold single. She was not under contract when the song was recorded and once told me she was only paid $35.00 for the song. Capitol signed her afterwards. She left Slack a year later and continued recording solo for Capitol into the mid fifties.

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                             Ella Mae and friend, Dick Ryan 

Her movies:

Reveille with Beverly (1943)

South of Dixie (1944)

Ghost Catchers (1944)

How Do You Do (1946)

"She was all of the above and then some: an instinctive, insouciant, sexy stylist with an innate feel for the blues that colored and characterized virtually everything she sang. Ella Mae Morse's entire output over her fifteen year tenure with Capitol Records (1942-1957), a label she helped put on the map. Ella Mae worked with the likes of Freddie Slack, Benny Carter, Barney Kessel, Gerald Wiggins, Pete Johnson, Jimmy Rowles, Red Callender, Al Hendrickson, Jimmy Bryant, Speedy West, Alvin Stoller, and countless others."

In later years, Ella Mae could be found at Disneyland in Anaheim singing with her old friends Ray McKinley and Bob Crosby. Once a year she teamed up with her old friend Martha Ray to do a benefit show on the East Coast. They both had the same wacky sense of humor and could make each other actually fall down laughing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Mae_Morse

Ella Mae Morse (September 12, 1924 – October 16, 1999) was an American popular singer.

Hit singles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Mae_Morse#Hit_singles