Ella Mae Morse—Miss Morse to you—was born on September 12,1924, in Mansfield, Texas, a small place not too far south of Dallas. Her mother was a pianist. Her father was a drummer. Her breasts delevoped at an early age. Aside from these meager facts, little is known of Ella Mae’s younger years.

Full-breasted, yet un-high-schooled, Miss Morse began singing in her father’s local jazz band in the late 1930’s. Toward the end of 1938, Jimmy Dorset, passing through Texas, happened to hear her. So very impressed was he with the well-gartered, fiery-voiced 14-year-old girl, that he immediately offered her a job as lead singer in his band.

Ella Mae began traveling with the Jimmy Dorsev/ Orchestra in January, 1939. Although she never . recorded with Dorsey—the bandleader continued to employ Helen O’Connell at his sessions— Ella Mae’s fame spread as the Dorsey bus wound its way from town to town, dancehall to dancehall.

At the close of 1939, Freddie Slack, the legendary, 29-year-old boogie-woogie man who had been with Dorsey since 1937, quit the band to become the arranger and pianist for Will Bradley’s Orchestra. Less than two years later, Slack forsook the bigband sound and formed his own group, the Freddie Slack Trio. In September, 1941, and January 1942, the trio found work recording with Joe Turner in Los Angeles. Not long after these sessions (from which came such Joe Turner classics as “Goin’ To Chicago” and “Blues In The Night”), Slack decided to expand his band and add a vocalist. It was then that he remembered the teenage Texas girl with sinful bosom and voice aflame.

Slack was one of the first artists to be signed by the New Capitol label. When he went into Los Angeles studio to record on May 21, 1942, he brought with, him Ella Mae Morse. That session, Ella Mae’s recording debut, resulted in the first hit in the history of Capitol Records: “Cow-Cow Boogie,” a song which had been written the year before by Gene DePaul, Benny Carter, and Don Raye. (Raye had previously written boogie classics such as “Down The Road A Piece,” “Rhumboogie,” and “Beat Me, Daddy, Eight To The Bar.”)

“Cow-Cow Boogie” hit the charts in August, 1942, and eventually rose to Number 9. With Freddie Slack playing piano behind her, Ella Mae performed the song in the Columbia picture Reveille With Beverly, a musical which also featured Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the Mills Brothers, and Frank Sinatra.

Before “Cow-Cow Boogie” appeared on the charts, Slack and Morse had returned to the studio, on July 20. A surprising addition to the band at this session was guitarist T-Bone Walker. Once again, Slack and Morse came up with a hit: “Mister Five By Five,” which hit the charts in December,

1942, rising to Number 10.

Ella Mae and Slack parted company in

1943. For the next two years, she, like Slack, recorded as a solo artist for Capitol. Several of Ella Mae’s records during those years were hot-*-“Invitation To The Blues,” “Party Cake Man,” “Buzz Me”—but there were no hits. On February 12, 1946, Morse and Slack reunited in the studio, joined this time by the elusive Don Raye himself. The result was one of the most apocalyptic recordings in the history of what , in a few years’ time would be called rock ’n’ roll.

Written by Raye and Slack, “The House Of Blue Lights” opened with a fast-spoken dialogue between Raye and Morse, as Slack pounded piano behind them. It is perhaps the classic hep colloquy.

“We//, whatcha say, baby? You look as ready as Mr. Freddy this black. How ’bout you and me goin’ spinnin’ at the track?

What’s that, homie?If you think I’m goin’ dancin’ on a dime, your clock is tickin’ on the wrong time.

Well, what’s your pleasure, treasure? You call the plays, I’ll dig the ways.

Ay, daddy-o, I’m not so crude as to drop my mood on a square from way back. I’m there and have to dig life with father—and I mean Father Slack.

Well, baby, your plate gives my weight a solid flip. You snap the whip, I’ll make the trip.”

Then Ella Mae—free, white and 21 now—began to sing one of the roughest, sexiest hyms to the night that had ever been heard. The record was released by Capitol in April, 1946; but it never made the charts.

Ella Mae Morse continued to record for Capitol through 1947—the raunchy “Pig Foot Pete” and the funny, nasty “Pine Top Schwartz” stand out—but there were no hits. She married a Navy man named Marvin Gerber, settled down in Palo Alto, and birthed three children. Soon the cow-cow boogie girl was forgotten.

She came back in the fall of 1951, singing in West Coast clubs and recording for Capitol a strange mixture of pop, country, and black material: country songs such as “Tennessee Saturday Night,” “A-Sleepin’ At The Foot Of The Bed,” and “Big Mamou;” R&B songs such as “Greyhound” and “Smack Dab In The Middle.” Her hungry-housewife voice was as strong and sultry as ever it had been—stronger perhaps, and more sultry—but no one seemed to understand what she was doing.

In 1953 she recorded a startling EP, Barrelhouse, Boogie, And The Blues, composed of her versions of recent R&B songs: The Ravens’ “Rock Me All Night Long,” the Drifters’ “Money Honey,” Bull Moose Jackson’s “I Love You, Yes I Do,” and Ruth Brown’s “Daddy, Daddy.” She sang magnificently, ruthlessly (“Rock Me All Night Long” emerged from her throat not as merely suggestive, but as sublimely and plainly lewd.) But it was to be at least another year till the advent of Elvis and the appreciation of such things.

Ella Mae Morse withdrew again a few years later, and Capitol released her last record in 1957, when she was barely 33. No one heard from her again until 1976, when she emerged for a handful of club dates in the Los Angeles area. But it was over, and the tears of ancient hepsters fell as the lank lady stood onstage and sang “Feelings” and “Send In The Clowns.” Someone had indeed, ahem, pulled the plug on the house of blue lights.

“They tell me,” Ella Mae Morse recalled, “that I was the first gal singer to hit the big time with one record. It [‘Cow-Cow Blues’] sold way over a million, I hear. I wasn’t getting royalties. Man, I made 35 bucks on it. Isn’tthat the end!” Perhaps, my well-garter^d girl; perhaps. ~