Not The Robber Baron

Artist: Jaye P. Morgan

Song: Tell Me More (b-side) (a-side is My Blind Date)
Label: RCA Victor 47-7178 (Black label silver printing)
Number: J2PW-0958

Songwriter: Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller
Time: 2:02
Released: March, 1958

Jaye P. Morgan, whose real name was Mary Margaret Morgan, had a long and varied career, starting in the 1940's. Her nickname was acquired in high school, where she was elected the class treasurer and people compared her to banker J. P. Morgan because she was so tight with money. The reference stuck and she took the name "Jaye P." when she started performing professionally. In 1954, she signed with RCA Records and during this popular 4-year period, there were several singles released. In fact, during the year of 1955, she had five hit singles! This particular record came toward the end of her association with RCA and has Neal Hefti directing the orchestra. It features Jaye P. Morgan on vocals and a great uptempo arrangement. The flipside My Blind Date has been anthologized recently, as has a lot of her works, but this particular song has never appeared on any album.

After her recording career started winding down in the mid-1960's, she did little entertainment-wise except a few nightclub appearances and television talk shows, later moving into acting in the 1970's. But, she is probably most remembered for a 1980 appearance she made on The Gong Show, of which she was a regular panelist, where she did something that got her fired from the show. She supposedly bared her breasts during a performance by Gene-Gene, The Dancing Machine. This infamous incident is detailed further elsewhere, so I won't go into specifics here.

She is currently retired and her latest release is entitled Jaye P. Morgan Lately!, re-released in 2005. (Originally it came out on the Palace Records label in 1983.) But, this is Jaye P. Morgan in the height of her popularity singing Tell Me More.