Liza (All The Clouds'll Roll Away)(George Gershwin-Ira-Gershwin-Gus Kahn) Al Jolson. Vocal with Orch

Описание: Directed by Morris Stoloff. Decca Personality Series label record # 24109 B (L 4445) Released 1947


Jolson was a vaudeville legend beginning mainly in the early 1910s and continuing through his starring role in the 1927 partly talking picture The Jazz Singer which ushered in the talking picture era. There were a number of reasons for his success, not the least of which was his ability to fill a large hall without using a microphone and with a slightly nasal edge to his powerful voice that made it possible to understand every word he was singing. He had a remarkable ability to project that row so that even people in the cheap seats could understand all that was going on.

Jolson was already making a name for himself in 1908 as a member of Lew Dockstader’s famous minstrel group, performing often in blackface. He was not yet a superstar but slowly was building a following and earning the respect of his colleagues, if not their friendship, for his drive to get to the top did not abate for anything that might stand in his way.

There were Broadway shows too such as Honeymoon Express, Bombo and Big Boy but these were more pretexts for his getting in front of an audience, often in full blackface and white gloves, going down on one knee and singing about Dixie and his Mammy far away. These actions first started in the show Honeymoon Express in 1913 where Jolson’s singing so dazzled the audience that the show completely stopped while he just sang his heart out, much to the consternation of the show’s star, French import Gaby Deslys, who eventually had to quit the show and Jolson took over as the superstar. It was the breakthrough that he needed and his audience now demanded.

Although he caused a sensation in his first movie, Jolson never did warm to the silver screen. His acting was terrible and his performances, if one could call them that, were more theatrical than heartfelt and he seemed to be playing the same character monotonously in subsequent films such as The Singing Fool and My Mammy. In Wonder Bar (1934) he was essentially playing himself and managed to get himself at the center of one of the most racist sequences ever put on film, the amazing Goin’ To Heaven On A Missouri Mule, culminating in a blackfaced Hal Leroy emerging from a giant watermelon and dancing.

Along the way, Jolson, along with Frank Fay, developed a reputation for being one of the largest jackasses in the business. He was petty about others on the bill with him going over well or possibly better than he so he’d get them fired. He couldn’t read or write music but he forced his name onto many songs so he could claim royalties. His justification was that his interpretation of a song constituted writing a part of it and his promoting of a song brought revenues no one else could deliver. It is hard to imagine a performer more universally disliked by his peers but big stars such as George Jessel, Eddie Cantor, and Burns and Allen learned that the way to work with him was to let him speak about himself and his accomplishments for a while and then he would be more human to work with after his enormous ego had been allowed to be front and center for a while. Mickey Rooney was another star who was frequently dealt with in this way, especially from about 1955 on when his influence in the business waned and he was increasingly ignored.

With the advent of crooning Jolson, who had been THE biggest superstar of vaudeville and Broadway, became less suited to the vacuum tubes of radio which preferred to be purred to gently. His marriage to ingenue and herky-jerky tap dancer Ruby Keeler wound down as her career with Warner Brothers kept her in constant demand as a partner for Dick Powell and others while the phone rang less and less often for Jolson who became more of a nostalgia performer, who kept his career afloat with guest shots on radio.

In 1946 with the movie The Jolson Story and its sequel Jolson Sings Again, starring Larry Parks, Jolson experienced a remarkable career revival and all the old songs became new again, generating new/old hits such as Toot Toot Tootsie, California Here I Come and April Showers. Despite health problems, Jolson enjoyed entertaining the troops and up until just before his death he remained an A list entertainer in constant demand so, appropriately enough, he was able to have a big big finish to a remarkable career.

For Al Jolson in a PRE- Jazz Singer talking film see this 1926 blackface biggest hits compendium that includes a version of When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin’ Along, which is the earliest record we have on film of Jolson performing.