f40 The Boogiewoman
With her big 1942 hit Cow Cow Boogie, at the age of 17, Ella Mae Morse rescued a record label and embarked on a career that crossed the musical and racial stylistic borders. Jeanette Leech is a fan…
E
lla Mae Morse was deep in con- versation with her mentor at Capitol Records, Johnny Mercer. He had just told her that That Old Black Magic was not ‘her
type of song’. Always fiery, and annoyed by this perceived slight, Morse huffily asked: “What is my type of song?” “You’re a country singer,” Cliffie Stone said. “You’re a jazz singer,” Benny Carter chimed in. “You’re a rock ‘n’ roll, blues, black singer – that’s what you are,” was T- Bone Walker’s opinion.
Stone, Carter and Walker were all right. Ella Mae Morse’s effortless versatility made her recordings among the most exciting of the pre-rock ‘n’ roll era. Yet the lack of one signature style has undoubted- ly contributed to her obscurity after the hitmaking years ceased. Even today, her records remain largely well-kept secrets.
Ella Mae Morse was a Texan, born in Mansfield in 1924 to musicians George and Ann Morse. Ella Mae would tag along
when they toured, taking in the sounds of Dixieland and the smells of Texan dance- halls. However, the marriage was brief and Ann, with Ella Mae and her sister Flo (later to become pianist and vocalist Flo Hardy), moved to Paris, Texas in the early 1930s.
Black and white neighbourhoods were
segregated in Paris. Yet with each partition comes a border and the one in Paris was straddled by Anthony’s Grocery Store. On one trip there, along with the shopping, Ella Mae picked up her first lesson in the blues from an African-American man named Uncle Joe. “I heard this guitar playing and it just fascinated me,” Morse recalled to Kevin Coffey in 1997. “I stood around the corner there and I was singing along with him. And he stopped playing. I thought, ‘Oh dear!’ And he came around the corner and he said ‘Sing that for me, child.’ It was the begin- ning of a beautiful friendship.”
The nine-year-old had a startlingly mature voice, and Uncle Joe’s blues tute- lage developed it further. At 12, Ella Mae
Morse was auditioning for radio stations and bandleaders. Few of these were suc- cessful, for even the most open-minded broadcasters couldn’t place a pre-teen white girl who sang with such sass. Yet rejection merely served to thicken her skin and solidify her work ethic.
She also became savvier. When she spotted a talent contest at the Dallas radio station WRR, Ella Mae Morse didn’t let the minimum age deter her from entering; and when she won, with the support of her band, the radio station waived their objec- tion to her youth and awarded her a week- ly 15-minute broadcasting slot. But ban- dleaders were less accommodating to Ella Mae’s youth. “I tried to audition with every band that came to town. Usually, when they’d ask me how old I was, I’d tell ‘em 13 or 14, which I was. And they said, you know, ‘Later, babe’,” she said in 1997. Having been turned down by both Benny Good- man and Harry James, she changed tack with Jimmy Dorsey in 1938. He asked her age; she said 19. “He bought it,” she said. “The dope believed me – temporarily”.
For two months Ella Mae Morse per- formed with Dorsey’s band. Although she slotted in well with the musicians, she was nervous of audiences, and there are stories that she lacked discipline and forgot lyrics. Dorsey might have indulged this immaturi- ty for her singular style, but – upon receiv- ing a letter from the school board inform- ing him that he was accountable for Ella Mae’s care and protection since she was still a minor – he had no wish to become her governor too. Helen O’Connell (18 years old, and free of such concerns) sum- marily replaced her.
The resourceful Morse went back to auditions. “I was so arrogant,” she said in 1997, remembering her audition for Glenn Miller. Miller was then working with Mari- on Hutton, and Morse told Miller point- blank that she sang better than Hutton. Miller dismissed Morse’s argument, stating that Hutton was settled with him. “I thought about that 40 years later,” said Morse. “I thought, that’s why he had her – because she was happy with the band. See, I wasn’t happy with anything for any length of time.”
Unable to find a position, Ella Mae Morse returned to her mother. Ann Morse took the teenager to San Diego and Morse sang with a series of local groups. However, Ann herself was unsuc- cessful in finding employment. To avoid returning to Texas with Ann, Ella Mae – still only 15 – chose marriage. She and her husband moved to Arizona.
Photo: coutesy Bear Family Records
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