film In 1924, Morse began her recording career with a contract with the Pathé label. Due to her deep voice, her Pathé and Perfect records were billed as "Miss Lee Morse". During this era of acoustic recording, the power of her voice was essential to the success of her recordings. Also during this time, she was given the opportunity to record many of her own compositions, such as "Golden Dream Girl". Among her notable recordings from this period are "Telling Eyes," "Those Daisy Days," "An Old-Fashioned Romance" (which she re-recorded for Columbia in 1927), "Blue Waltz", "The Shadows on the Wall," "Deep Wide Ocean Blues," "A Little Love," and "Daddy's Girl." Pathé gave Morse the opportunity to indulge in a level of experimentation, not only by recording her own songs, but also through the opportunity to explore the limits of her vocal abilities. Prevalent on these early recordings are her characteristic whoops, yips, and yodels. Although dismissed by some as a gimmick, these techniques added a personality to her voice and enabled her to demonstrate her multi-octave range. Morse's success as an entertainer took its toll on her personal life. Her husband, Elmer Morse, had created a home for her complete with furnishings he'd built himself. On February 18, 1925 he filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion and abandonment. Although she had deserted her husband and child five years earlier, Morse was able to keep custody of their son Jack. In October 1926, Elmer Morse died of scarlet fever in Spokane, Washington, aged 35. In 1927, with other prominent Pathé and Perfect vocalists (Willard Robison, Annette Hanshaw, Cliff Edwards), Morse moved to the Columbia label. From 1927 to 1932, she was one of the label's most popular female performers, second only to Ruth Etting. She continued to do vaudeville and other stage work, landing a role in Ziegfeld's Simple Simon that may have made her an even bigger star. But her drinking problem left her unable to perform on the show's February 18, 1930 debut. According to Lorenz Hart biographer Gary Marmorstein: "[On opening night], Wynn, the bicycle-piano and Lee Morse made their entrance and were greeted with applause. Everything would have been fine except that Miss Morse had had a few too many and couldn't remember the words or the music." Minus their star, the producers asked Ruth Etting to substitute. As a result, the show's "Ten