Harris was born in Linton, Indiana, but grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and identified himself as a Southerner. His hallmark song was "That's What I Like About the South." He had a trace of a Southern accent and in later years made self-deprecating jokes over the air about his heritage. His parents were circus performers. His father, a tent bandleader, gave him his first job as a drummer with the circus' band.
His unusual first name "Wonga," is said to derive from a Cherokee word meaning "messenger of fleet" or, perhaps more accurately translated, "fast messenger."
Harris began his music career as a drummer in San Francisco, in the mid-1920s playing drums in the Henry Halstead Big Band Orchestra. He formed an orchestra with Carol Lofner in the latter 1920s[a] and started a long engagement at the St. Francis Hotel. In the 1930s, Lofner-Harris recorded swing music for Victor, Columbia, Decca, and Vocalion. The partnership ended by 1932, and Harris led a band in Los Angeles for which he was the singer and bandleader.

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