Original Album Liner Notes
The Jolson Story
MCA Records – MCA-2058
“Rock-a-bye your baby…”
__________________________________________________
Side One
1. My Mother’s Rosary
(George Meyer – Sam M. Lewis)
Vocal with Chorus and Orchestra
2. Pretty Baby
(Tony Jackson – Egbert Van Alsyne – Gus Kahn)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
3. Where The Black Eyed Susans Grow
(Richard A. Whiting – Dave Radford)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
4. For Me And My Gal
(George W. Meyer – Edgar Leslie – E. Ray Goetz)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
5. Someone Else May Be There While I’m Gone
(Irving Berlin)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
6. After You’ve Gone
(Henry Creamer – J. Turner Layton)
With 4 Hits and A Miss and Orchestra
Directed by Matty Malneck
7. Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody
(Jean Schwartz – Sam Lewis – Joe Young)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
SIDE TWO
1. Swanee
(George Gershwin – Irving Caesar)
With Orchestra Directed by Carmen Dragon
2. Avalon
(Vincent Rose – Al Jolson – B.G. DeSylva)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
3. My Mammy
(Walter Donaldson – Sam Lewis – Joe Young)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
4. April Showers
(Louis Silvers – B.G. DeSylva)
With Orchestra Directed by Carmen Dragon
5. I’m Just Wild About Harry
(Noble Sissle – Eubie Blake)
With Lee Gordon Singers and Orchestra
Directed by Morris Stoloff
6. Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goo’ Bye)
(Gus Kahn – Ernie Erdman – Dan Russo)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
7. Carolina In The Morning
(Walter Donaldson – Gus Kahn)
With Orchestra Directed by Morris Stoloff
__________________________________________________
The house-lights dim. The curtain goes up. The spotlight centers on a little man with black cork on his face and white gloves on his hands. Those broadly smiling blackened features, those white gloves, are to become famous throughout the world – the universally recognized trademark of the one and only Al Jolson.
He begins to sing … and the audience sits up. He walks down the ramp, loosens his tie, gets down on his knees … and the crowd goes crazy. He “stops the show,” but – “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”
Always informal … intimate and heart-warming … he was “Jolie” to millions. He never lost this appeal whether in person, on the screen, or on records.
That wonderful appeal is captured in these recordings. Here, as vivid as when he was alive, is the great voice of a great personality. Here, vibrantly and almost visually, is the humble cantor’s son who became a phenomenal figure – a legend in his time … and in ours.
This album presents the multiple Al Jolson – the master of many songs and many moods. All the number contained in this collection were issued in a half-dozen years, but they range widely in subject matter, scope, and sentiment.
Here, from 1915, is “My Mother’s Rosary,” and here – first heard a year later – is the contrasting “Pretty Baby.” 1917 and 1918 were great years for the song-writer, and for the singer. Within a little more than twelve months America was whistling, singing, and dancing to the strains of “For Me and My Gal,” “After You’ve Gone,” and the lilting rhythms of “Rock-a-Bye-Your Baby With A Dixie Melody” – all of which Al Jolson made his own.
The next three years were equally rich in memorable numbers. It was 1919 when “Swanee” became another Jolson specialty. A few months later “Avalon” and “My Mammy” were sung sensationally, and soon were synonymous with “Jolie.”
The Torrid Twenties were ushered in with “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” “Toot, Toot, Tootsie!” and “Carolina in The Morning” – all characteristically Jolsonian in appeal. As for “April Showers” … no one has paid a greater tribute to the song, as well as to the singer, than Jolson’s life-long friend and colleague, Bing Crosby. In the album “Songs I Wish I Had Sung (the First Time Around)” (DL 8352) Crosby wrote in his accompanying notes:
“ ‘April Showers’ of course is the song of the immortal Jolson. No man in my memory could generate such electricity in the theatre. Even in the closing days of his glorious career I have watched him sing for youngsters who had never seen him or heard of him. He would sing four bars and create such infectious excitement that it would be tough to get him off after half a dozen songs.”
Here is a rich assortment which is sure to please, as well as excite, listeners of every age. Every bar is packed with charm and crackles with the electric energy which could be produced by only one singer of this generation – the dynamic Al Jolson.
MCA Records, Inc. 100 Universal Plaza, Universal City, California U.S.A. Printed in U.S.A.
