Marion Harris

Marion Harris was an American popular singer whose recordings helped bring jazz and blues styles to a national audience in the 1910s and 1920s. Her repertoire included “I Ain’t Got Nobody” and W. C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues.”

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“I Ain’t Got Nobody”: A popular song written by Spencer Williams and Roger Graham and first published in 1916. Harris’s recording became one of her best-known performances.
Gramophone record: A disc-based sound recording medium played by a stylus on a turntable. Commercial records made Harris’s performances reproducible and widely distributed.
Vaudeville: A form of variety entertainment featuring short acts such as music, comedy, and dance. Harris developed as a performer in the theatrical circuits that showcased popular singers.
Blues recording: The commercial recording of blues performances, songs, and styles for distribution to listeners. Harris’s records helped make blues material marketable beyond its established communities.
“St. Louis Blues”: A 1914 blues composition by W. C. Handy, widely recorded by jazz and popular performers. Harris’s 1920 recording helped establish the song among white audiences.
Acoustic recording: A recording process that captures sound mechanically without electronic microphones or amplification. Harris made early records before electrical recording transformed vocal sound capture.
Victor Talking Machine Company: An American record company founded in 1901 that became a major producer of phonograph records. Victor issued recordings that brought Harris’s performances to a broad market.
Bessie Smith: An American blues singer celebrated for her powerful recordings during the 1920s. Smith’s career shows the parallel growth of blues recording centered on Black performers.
“After You’ve Gone”: A 1918 popular song composed by Turner Layton with lyrics by Henry Creamer. Harris recorded this standard during her rise as a popular singer.
Jazz singing: Vocal performance shaped by jazz phrasing, rhythm, improvisation, and instrumental influence. Her syncopated phrasing helped popularize jazz-inflected singing.