Russ Morgan
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Born

  • April 29, 1904
  • Scranton, PA

Died

  • August 8, 1969
  • Las Vegas, NV

Theme Song

  • Does Your Heart Beat For Me?

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Russ Morgan

Best remembered for his ''wah-wah'' trombone style, Russ Morgan was born in Scanton, Pennsylvania, in 1904 and began studying music at an early age. Both his father, a coal-mine foreman, and his mother were former professional musicians. Morgan himself began to work in the mines at an early age to pay for piano lessons. At age 14 he earned extra money playing piano at a Scranton movie theater and bought a trombone. He spent a year with the Scranton Sirens, working alongside Jimmy Dorsey, before heading off to New York in 1922, where he arranged for Victor Herbert and John Philip Sousa. He toured Europe with Paul Specht's orchestra in 1923 and a year later was invited to Detroit to arrange for Jean Goldkette.

Morgan soon left Goldkette to serve as musical director at WXYZ radio. He also arranged and played for the Detroit Symphony. After a serious automobile accident in 1929 put him out of the music business and the stock market crash finished Detroit as a major music center he went back to New York, where he found steady work writing arrangements and playing in studio orchestras.

Another automobile accident sidelined Morgan in 1933. Unable to play his trombone during a long period of recuperation he went to work for Freddie Martin in 1934 as a pianist and later became musical director at Brunswick Records. He formed his own orchestra in 1936 with the help of friend Rudy Vallee and spent the next two years at the Biltmore Hotel. He later served as a staff conductor at NBC radio and was musical director for the Lifebouy and Philip Morris radio series.

Morgan both sang and played trombone in his new orchestra, which used the famous moniker ''Music in the Morgan Manner.'' His music was soft, loose, easy-going, and well-blended, and had an infectious lilt. His style leaned toward the commercial, and he had a knack for knowing what the public liked.

After suffering financially in the early 1940s Morgan experienced his greatest popularity after the war. During the 1950s his orchestra remained a popular dance band in the vein of Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo and was featured in its own television program in 1953. His sons, Jack and David, joined the band in the early part of the decade. Jack took over the orchestra when his father passed away in 1969. It remains active to this day.