Jane Morgan - American Success

American Success

Morgan wanted to advance her career in the United States, but booking agents and managers in show business felt she was too specialized and wouldn't make it outside the nightclub circuit. She left her agent and began singing at Lou Walters' Latin Quarter in New York. Walters kept Morgan at the Latin Quarter for a year, when she was noticed by Dave Kapp, who had recently founded a new recording label, Kapp Records. Kapp signed Morgan to a recording contract, and near that same period he also signed pianist Roger Williams.

To counter her reputation as a French singer, Kapp had Morgan record "Baseball, Baseball," and her first album release was entitled "The American Girl from Paris". She recorded several additional albums and soon was paired with Williams, who had gained national acceptance with his recording of Autumn Leaves. They recorded Two Different Worlds, which gave Morgan her first significant airplay on US radio. In 1957 Kapp brought The Troubadors, a virtually unknown group of five musicians, to his studio. They had appeared in the 1957 comedy film Love in the Afternoon.

Kapp asked Morgan to join The Troubadors and sing "Fascination". Although written in 1904 by F. D. Marchetti as "Valse Tzigane", the song was modified in Paris at the Folies Bergère as a "strip" number. With English lyrics added by Dick Manning in 1932, it had been played throughout the 1957 movie (the French lyric had been created in 1942). Morgan's recording was released in late 1957 and remained on the charts for 29 weeks. In 1958 Kapp released The Day the Rains Came (a French song by Gilbert Becaud called "Le jour où la pluie viendra") with Morgan singing in English on one side and in French on the other. It reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in January 1959. This led directly to her first TV Special, Spectacular: the Jane Morgan Hour in early 1959. She was featured on the November 10, 1959 jazz special Timex-All-Star Jazz III alongside Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Anita O'Day, Gene Krupa, Bob Crosby's Wildcats, Les Brown and his orchestra and Chico Hamilton and his orchestra.