Mabel Lee—”Half Past Jump Time” (1940s)

One of the classic ways to distribute songs in the 1940s was through the extremely popular Soundies. Between 1941 and 1947, over 2,000 Soundies were made. Many of the most popular recording artists of the era appeared in them. Georgian singer and dancer Mable Lee (1921-2019) starred in more than 100 of these clips and became known as “The Queen of the Soundies.”

Mable Lee is accompanied by pianist Deryck Sampson and his Band, with Jimmy Shirley playing the guitar solo. Details of the composer are not known, but the song was copyrighted on December 30, 1945 by the Soundies Distributing Corporation, Inc. The film was directed by William Forest Crouch.

These musical films were shown in a jukebox machine called a Panoram. Due to the shortage of production material during the Second World War, the Panorams themselves were in short supply. This shortage ultimately spelt the demise of the Soundie in 1947.

Mabel Lee also appeared in Soundies with jazz men like Fats Waller, Noble Sissle and Louis Jordan. Her stage career began as a 4 year old in her home town Atlanta and continued until she was 96 years old. During the war she was cast in the first all black USO show, and in March 1947 she appeared on the first full-color cover of Ebony magazine. In 1976 she played the starring role in the show “Bubbling Brown Sugar.”