Al Jolson

Between 1912 and 1949 Al Jolson issued a steady run of hit recordings while simultaneously attaining unmatched prominence on the Broadway stage, presiding over multiple radio programs, and emerging as the leading pioneer of talking pictures. His delivery was aggressive and larger-than-life; he promoted himself as “the world’s greatest entertainer” and repeatedly invoked the catchphrase “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” Through a highly emotional, theatrical vocal manner he turned numerous songs into standards, an approach that, particularly before live crowds, seemed to many observers to validate every boast he made. By the time he reached middle age that manner had lost favor, yet he engineered a substantial revival of his career in later years. A more enduring obstacle to his historical standing remains his status as the era’s most visible blackface performer, an association whose minstrel-show origins grew ever more objectionable to subsequent audiences. Still, during the height of his fame in the 1920s he stood as the nation’s foremost entertainer.

Uncertainty surrounds the precise date of his birth. The son of a cantor, he came to the United States in April 1894, roughly eight years old, after his father had emigrated in the early 1890s and established the family in Washington, D.C. As a boy he gravitated toward the stage; by the summer of 1896 he and his older brother Harry were performing on the streets. His earliest documented theatrical appearance occurred in September 1899 in the play Children of the Ghetto. Early in the twentieth century he entered vaudeville, frequently sharing bills with his brother, and by June 1906 he was working solo in blackface. During 1908 and 1909 he belonged to Lew Dockstader’s celebrated minstrel company. He reached the legitimate theater when La Belle Paree opened at the Winter Garden on 20 March 1911; continuing in blackface, he became the production’s standout attraction across its 104 performances. Victor Records signed him soon afterward, and on 22 December 1911 he cut his first released sides, coupling “Rum Tum Tiddle” and “Ragging the Baby to Sleep” from Vera Violetta. Contemporary researchers concur that the disc achieved solid commercial results.

In The Whirl of Society, which premiered 5 March 1912 and ran 136 New York performances before touring until January 1913, Jolson introduced the character Gus, a shrewd African-American servant who thereafter became his regular stage persona. From that point he traveled widely with his productions, converting regional audiences into national followers. “Ragging the Baby to Sleep” supplied another chart success in the summer of 1912. The Honeymoon Express, his fourth Broadway vehicle, opened 6 February 1913 for 156 performances, after which it toured until May 1914. That March he recorded the comic number “The Spaniard That Blighted My Life” from the score and scored a further hit; “You Made Me Love You,” interpolated into the show, became his initial success under a Columbia contract signed in June 1913 and marked his first major romantic ballad, shifting public perception from comedian toward singer.

Thereafter the musicals in which he appeared functioned chiefly as platforms for his improvisations. He freely inserted or removed numbers, occasionally dismissing the ensemble to deliver solo recitals that audiences greeted with enthusiasm. Dancing Around opened 10 October 1914 for 145 performances and toured from February to December 1915; “Back to the Carolina You Love” proved his strongest-selling record of the period in January 1915. Robinson Crusoe, Jr. followed on 17 February 1916, running 139 performances before a tour that extended through November 1917, yielding the hit “Yaaka Hula, Hickey Dula” in June 1916. Sinbad opened 14 February 1918 for 164 New York showings and then toured three years until June 1921; during its extended run Jolson interpolated numerous additional successes, among them “I’m All Bound ’Round With the Mason-Dixon Line,” the wartime “Hello, Central, Give Me No-Man’s Land,” “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody,” “I’ll Say She Does,” the postwar “I’ve Got My Captain Working for Me Now,” “Swanee” (George Gershwin’s first major songwriting triumph), “Avalon,” and “O-Hi-O.” Beginning with “I’ll Say She Does,” his name appeared as co-writer on several numbers, an arrangement generally understood to have secured publishing revenue rather than to reflect substantial creative input. He also became closely identified with “My Mammy,” introduced late in the Sinbad engagement and retained in his repertoire, although he did not record it immediately.

Bombo, his eighth Broadway musical, opened 6 October 1921 at the newly christened Jolson’s 59th Street Theater and ran 218 performances before a two-year road tour ending May 1924. Hit recordings from these years included “April Showers,” “Angel Child,” “Toot Toot Tootsie (Goo’bye!),” and “California, Here I Come!,” the last marking his debut Brunswick release after a decade with Columbia. Between the close of Bombo and the next production he added “I Wonder What’s Become of Sally?” in November 1924 and “All Alone” in January 1925. Big Boy opened 7 January 1925 for only 48 New York performances because of illness, yet toured through 1927 and produced the hits “I’m Sitting on Top of the World” and “When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob-Bob-Bobbin’ Along.”

In October 1926 Jolson starred in one of the earliest sound-picture experiments, the short Al Jolson in a Plantation Act. The following summer he filmed The Jazz Singer, the first full-length feature with synchronized sound, loosely drawn from his own life as the son of a cantor who pursues popular entertainment against paternal wishes; the picture opened 6 October 1927, transformed the industry, and extended his celebrity to the screen. His second feature, The Singing Fool, premiered September 1928 and became the highest-grossing film to date, a record it held until Gone with the Wind in 1939; “Sonny Boy” and “There’s a Rainbow Round My Shoulder” emerged as notable record successes. Subsequent releases Say It With Songs (August 1929), Mammy (March 1930), and the screen adaptation of Big Boy (September 1930) fared less well, though “Little Pal” from the first yielded another hit. Meanwhile crooners such as Rudy Vallée altered popular taste, rendering Jolson’s robust style increasingly unfashionable.

Having moved to California with his third wife, actress-dancer Ruby Keeler, he nevertheless returned to Broadway in The Wonder Bar, which opened 17 March 1931 for 86 performances and toured through the 1931–1932 season. Back in Hollywood he completed the inventive Depression fantasy Hallelujah, I’m a Bum, featuring rhymed dialogue and Rodgers & Hart songs. Its November 1932 release coincided with the start of his initial radio series, Presenting Al Jolson, which continued into February 1933. He ended his Brunswick recording career that December. In August 1933 he assumed the long-running Kraft Music Hall for the 1933–1934 season. Further films followed: a screen version of Wonder Bar (February 1934), Go Into Your Dance (May 1935), and The Singing Kid (April 1936). Radio engagements included Shell Chateau (1935–1936) and Café Trocadero (1936–1939).

By the close of the decade Jolson had entered semi-retirement, accepting supporting roles that often cast him as a version of himself in Rose of Washington Square (May 1939), Hollywood Cavalcade (October 1939), and Swanee River (December 1939). He staged a final Broadway appearance in Hold On to Your Hats, which opened 11 September 1940 for 158 performances and toured into fall 1941. U.S. entry into World War II prompted extensive tours entertaining troops at home and abroad. A new radio series, Al Jolson, aired during the 1942–1943 season, after which he resumed camp shows until bouts of malaria and pneumonia forced his withdrawal in late 1944; early the following year surgeons removed part of his left lung. The operation lowered his voice to the bass range, yet he resumed singing, appearing as himself in the Gershwin biography Rhapsody in Blue (June 1945). His vigorous rendition of “Swanee” prompted Decca to sign him after more than twelve years away from the studio and inspired Columbia Pictures to produce The Jolson Story, released October 1946 with Larry Parks in the title role and Jolson’s voice on the soundtrack. The film ranked among the decade’s top-grossing releases. By the late 1940s his dramatic style had regained currency; “Anniversary Song” and a re-recording of “April Showers” became gold records, while the Decca album Al Jolson in Songs He Made Famous occupied the Billboard summit for twenty-five weeks, succeeded at number one by Al Jolson Souvenir Album and Al Jolson, Vol. 3, both largely comprising updated versions of earlier successes.

Fully revitalized, Jolson hosted Kraft Music Hall again for the 1947–1948 and 1948–1949 seasons. A sequel, Jolson Sings Again, opened August 1949 and generated an identically titled album that remained on the charts nearly a year. In September 1950 he traveled at his own expense to Korea to perform for troops; exhausted upon his return the following month, he suffered a fatal heart attack.

In the immediate postwar years his Decca sides received repeated reissues, exemplified by five LPs issued simultaneously by the label in 1957 under the collective title The Jolson Story. The 1962 double-LP The Best of Jolson reached the Top 40 and long served as the standard compilation. Most of his Victor, Columbia, and Brunswick material remained unavailable until Sony’s 1994 Art Deco reissue You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet: Jolie’s Finest Columbia Recordings and the 1996 Rhino/Turner Classic Movies soundtrack collection Let Me Sing and I’m Happy: Al Jolson at Warner Bros. 1926–1936. Overseas labels, benefiting from Europe’s fifty-year copyright term, issued numerous additional CDs of studio, broadcast, and film performances. Although his films have circulated more widely, their reception continues to be tempered by the persistent association with blackface, an identification shared by many contemporaries yet one that has uniquely shadowed his legacy.