Jaye P. Morgan Up North, Down South...plus

Jaye P. Morgan

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Mary Margaret Morgan began her singing career at the age of three in the Morgan Family Variety Troupe. In her early teens she became a vocalist with Hank Penny's western swing band (performing on the pop standards rather than the country material). When Hank learned that bandleader Frank De Vol was looking for a good female vocalist to replace Helen O'Connell, he arranged for Mary Margaret to audition. She got the job. They needed to do something about her name because there was already a well-known big band singer named Marian Morgan who had worked with Harry James. De Vol suggested that they rename the singer 'J.P.' -- like the famous banker and financier who had founded U.S. Steel. And after they decided to spell it 'Jaye P' a career was born.

De Vol got Jaye P a contract with Derby Records where she made a few distinctly pop-oriented records (including the hit, Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries). In 1954 she recorded this cover of the year-old R&B hit, Baby Don't Do It by the '5' Royales (written by their guitarist, Lowman Pauling). De Vol was the orchestrator and arranger, and he does an admirable job of recreating the bandwork on the original. Jaye P turns in a fine performance singing in this R&B style but she didn't stick with it because she didn't like it. She moved to RCA Records and returned to doing the more pop-oriented material that she herself preferred. She was mighty good at that and very successful doing it. How successful? During the year 1955, she sang on six different Top 20 hits in 'Billboard'. (The biggest of those, That's All I Want From You, was redone as rockabilly by the Silva-Tones in 1957.)

We don't know how Baby Don't Do It came to be re-released on Decca Records, though we suspect it may have had something to do with Derby Records' filing for bankruptcy in late 1954.

Frank De Vol, a critical part of Jaye P's success, deserves attention as well. He was an extremely versatile arranger -- the orchestrations he created for Nat 'King' Cole's record of Nature Boy and the Supremes' record of The Happening sound nothing like Baby Don't Do It. He wrote the themes for many television shows (such as The Brady Bunch) and wrote the scores for many Hollywood movies (such as 'Cat Ballou'), getting four Oscar nominations.

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