Folks I've just been down, down to Memphis town,
That's where the people smile, smile on you all the while.
Hospitality, they were good to me.
I couldn't spend a dime, and had the grandest time.
I went out a dancing with a Tennessee dear,
They had a fellow there named Handy with a band you should hear
And while the folks gently swayed, all the band folks played Real harmony.
I never will forget the tune that Handy called the Memphis Blues.
Oh yes, them Blues.
They've got a fiddler there that always slickens his hair
And folks he sure do pull some bow.
And when the big Bassoon seconds to the Trombones croon.
It moans just like a sinner on Revival Day, on Revival Day.
Oh that melody sure appealed to me.
Just like a mountain stream rippling on it seemed.
Then it slowly died, with a gentle sigh
Soft as the breeze that whines high in the summer pines.
Hear me people, hear me people, hear I pray,
I'm going to take a million lesson's 'til I learn how to play
Because I seem to hear it yet, simply can't forget
That blue refrain.
There's nothing like the Handy Band that played the Memphis Blues so grand.
Oh play them Blues.
That melancholy strain, that ever haunting refrain
Is like a sweet old sorrow song.
Here comes the very part that wraps a spell around my heart.
It sets me wild to hear that loving tune a gain,
The Memphis Blues.
Between making her first acoustic disc in 1916 and her first electrical disc in 1927, Marion Harris evolved from vaudeville "shouter," in the tradition of Sophie Tucker and Nora Bayes, to crooner.
She began by recording mostly comic songs, blues, and Tin Pan Alley songs about blues as well as about the new music known as "jass." Towards the mid-1920s she made records that indicated a greater versatility and by the late 1920s her voice was different from earlier years, with Harris singing in the more intimate manner of torch singers such as Ruth Etting and Helen Morgan. Her late recordings suggest Harris had more vocal training than these singers.
She was born Mary Ellen Harrison in 1896, at least according to obituaries, which may be inaccurate since they were only based on press releases approved at some point by Harris herself. The month and day are unknown. Even the year is open to question since no researcher has located a birth certificate.
She may have wanted her background to remain obscure since a century ago many Americans looked down upon stage performers. Women were stigmatized if they worked in vaudeville. Harris may have been one of the many performers from middle-class backgrounds who were evasive or deceptive about their roots to avoid embarrassing family members.
Newspaper obituaries state that she was born in the small town of Henderson, Kentucky, but no documents relating to a Mary Ellen Harrison exist in Henderson County, Kentucky.
Columbia's September 1920 supplement states, "Marion Harris is a Kentucky girl and a descendant of Benjamin Harrison."