Lee Morse was born Lena Corinne Taylor on November 30, 1897 and spent her early years in the small town of Kooskia, Idaho.  The daughter of a pastor and one of only two girls  among a brood of musical boys (some estimates place the number as high as 11), young Lena grew up amidst a family of performers.  Her younger brother, Glen Taylor, held a seat in the US Senate in 1948 and ran unsuccessfully for the Vice-Presidency with Henry Wallace in 1948.  Remembered as the "Singing Senator," Glen Taylor had enjoyed a career  in show business from the tender age of 15.  Even as he was taking his first steps as a performer, sister Lena was making a name for herself as a Vaudeville performer.

Lena Taylor married local sweetheart Elmer Morse in 1915, and together they had a son, Jack in about 1916.  When Lena seized the opportunity for a career in the Vaudeville of the West Coast, she left Kooskia, and Elmer, behind for good.  Brother Glen once observed "she left home when we were barefoot and had the best suite in a Portland hotel when I saw her again."  With a new name and a voice like no other, Lee Morse never looked back.

Elmer Morse, the man who had created a home for Lena complete with furnishings he'd built himself, sought a divorce on the grounds of desertion and abandonment in 1925.  Lena kept custody of son Jack.  Elmer died of Scarlet Fever in Spokane at the young age of 35.

Lee got her start with musical comedy producer Will King, who signed her in 1920.  A year later, she was working in musical revues under Kolb and Dill.  In 1922, she joined the Pantages circuit with a 15-minute act titled "Do You Remember One Small Girl a Whole Quartet."  Reviewers exclaimed over Lee's incredible vocal range, observing "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.'"  Indeed, during the early years of her career, those privy to her performances wondered aloud how such a strong, deep voice could issue from a petite singer who must have been "100 pounds soaking wet."  A writer in a November 1922 Variety article opined "She gives the impression of a male impersonator, yodels rather sweetly, sings the 'blues' number better than the majority."  Rowland Bond once theorized that Lee's well-developed lower range was the result of years of singing with her brothers and attempting to match their intonation.

In 1923, Lee won a role in the touring version of the revue Hitchy Koo.  The cast included star Raymond Hitchcock, as well as Marion Green, Irene Delroy, Al Sexton, Busby Berkeley and Ruth Urban.  Again, Lee's performance stole the show, prompting the observation that her voice "equals in tone a male bass singer, yet her voice has a feminine quality, a richness and sweetness which no male voice could produce...it seems impossible that such volume, such power and such lingering sweetness could all be produced by the same vocal cords."  Lee next performed in the Schubert revue Artists and Models, which opened on Broadway on August 20, 1923.  

Lee began her recording career with a contract with the Pathe-Perfect label in 1924.  During this era of acoustic recording, the power of Lee's voice was essential to the success of her recordings.  That her vocals come through with such clarity and strength on the acoustic Pathe-Perfect recordings of 1924-26 is further testament to her unique talent.  During these early years of her recording career, Lee was given the opportunity to record many of her own compositions.  Some notable sides include Telling Eyes (12/23/24), Those Daisy Days (04/24/25), An Old-Fashioned Romance (05/07/25 - rerecorded on Columbia in 1927), Blue Waltz (05/07/25), The Shadows on the Wall (06/19/25) Deep Wide Ocean Blues (12/09/25), A Little Love (06/01/26) and Daddy's Girl (06/29/26).  Pathe-Perfect gave Lee the opportunity to indulge in a level of experimentation, not only by recording her own songs, but also through  the opportunity to explore the limits of her vocal abilities.  Prevalent on these early recordings are her characteristic whoops and yodels.  Although dismissed by some as a gimmick, these techniques added a personality to her voice and enabled her to fully demonstrate her multi-octave range.

To be continued...(Yes, I know it's an evil trick, but I have to do something to keep you coming back.)

---Sources include Jim Bedoian of Take Two Records and the late Howard Hosmer, a journalist based in the Rochester area in the 1940s-1950s.  For more information, please see the Credits section.

If you would like a heads-up when this site is upd ated, please send me an email with "Lee Morse Site Updates" in the subject line.  I can't promise when installment two will be ready, but the receipt of positive feedback is sure to motivate me to move a little faster.

Click here to read Lee Morse's Rochester Democrat & Chronicle obituary.