Conclusion: “When Jolson Was King”, Sybil Jason and We Want Cantor!

This is Brian Marcus Decker and this is the Jolson Blog, this is the first blog dedicated to the legendary life and musical influences of Jolson and Friends.

Watch for the Mail, I'll Never Fail

Last week I was more than pleasantly surprised when I received some positive feedback on this blog from Sybil Jason who starred with Al Jolson and Cab Calloway in the 1936 classic film The Singing Kid.  Sybil Jason, the exceptionally talented child star who appeared in a total of 11 feature films from 1935-1940. She was also featured in a number of Vitaphone shorts and has written, “My Fifteen Minutes” with a special chapter on Jolie.

Thank you Sybil and we hope to have an opportunity in the future to share some of your great stories with the www.JolsonBlog.com community.

And you thought I was surprised!

Keep those comments coming!  Your feedback is greatly appreciated and truly helps shape future content of www.JolsonBlog.com .

Starting Next Week: We want Cantor, We want Cantor!

Next week I will be starting a special 9-part interview with Janet Cantor Gari, the youngest daughter of Eddie Cantor and Brian Gari the grandson of the legendary, “Apostle of Pep”. Janet and Brian will be sharing with us their stories and special memories about “Banjo Eyes”, Al Jolson, Bert Williams, Margaret Whiting, Sammy David Jr., the August 2006 Jolson Festival on Long Island and their ongoing efforts to keep the memory of Eddie Cantor alive even 42 years after his death.

 1930s Eddie Cantor board game

This Week

Interview Part V: “When Jolson Was King” and Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge and Bonus Clue

Last Chance: Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge and final bonus clue:

Although I have gotten some interesting responses, no one has sent me the correct answer to the June Trivia Challenge.  Two winners will receive a FREE Al Jolson, “The Singing Fool” color T-shirt answer the following question by Tuesday, June 27^th correctly:

Question:

Name the famous radio and TV personality that appeared with Al Jolson in “Hold Onto your Hats” as well as Eddie Cantor in “The Kid from Spain”?

Final Bonus Clue:

This legendary radio and TV personality was a child when he appeared with Jolson and Cantor and is strongly associated with one of the most famous bands in the history of sixties ‘Rock n Roll’.

Come on, don’t keep Jolie waiting and enter the Trivia Challenge!

Rules: Answers must be e-mailed to Brian@JolsonBlog.com , with “Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge” in the subject line. Two winners will be selected at random from correct responses and must be received by 12:00 noon (EST) Tuesday, June 27, 2006. Please include your full name and mailing address in your response. Only one response accepted per person per monthly Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge. These collector edition T-shirts, are provided by AffiniTee LLC, include a vintage color reproduction of a 1928 theatrical program promoting “The Singing Fool” feature film starring the legendary, Al Jolson.

Part VI Conclusion of Interview: “When Jolson Was King”

Brian Marcus Decker:   Richard both you and I was greatly influenced at a relatively early age by the Jolson Story staring Larry Parks which you started to talk about earlier before. Well, for that movie Jolson re-recorded most of his most famous songs of his career as well as a couple of new ones for both that movie as well as Jolson Sings Again. Forgetting about the improved recording quality of the later Decca recordings, there are many noticeable differences in Jolson singing style For example, many critics felt that his voice developed a deeper richness and I guess after losing a lung that was certainly part of what was responsible for that.  Of the earlier versus later recording which recordings do you prefer and could you give some examples of your favorite Jolson songs?

Richard Grudens: Sure, I could.  My favorite Jolson recording is an old recording called “Golden Gate” where he is chiding the orchestra, “Come On, Get Hot” and he is snapping his fingers and then moving along as quickly as he would like to sing the song and the recording – I think it came from a movie that particular song and that particular action.  I liked his quirky vaudeville voice much better than I liked his later mature voice that we all know from the Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again and all those Decca recordings.  Joe Franklin tells me that he likes the old ones too.  Some of the really old songs back from 1910, 1915, 1920 in that range.  In the movies, he started to change.  Everyone changes, your voice changes over the years.  Crosby’s voice. I never liked Crosby’s voice in the 50’s or 60’s or 70’s.  I just never liked it.  I like Crosby in the 20’s.  There was a charm about his singing and Jolson the same thing.  You get effervescent when you hear Jolson sing the old, old songs.  When he sang the new songs, he sang the same songs over again in the 50’s sure it was good, he had a mellower voice, it was rollicking, it was strong, it was contagious, not as charming, not as happily sung as he did when he was in his 20’s and 30’s or even before that.  And, the very earliest recordings are my favorite.

Brian Marcus Decker:  I tend to agree in having an extensive library of Jolson related recordings.  I think there is a certain energy level that is so different from the earlier recordings.  Richard, how can people purchase “When Jolson was King” or any of your other published books?

Richard Grudens: Well, we have our own website called www.RichardGrudens.com you enter the site and all the books come up, reviews of the books, great works from great people like Katherine Crosby who just really helps me a lot, with Frankie Laine, Connie Haines, and so many others that I have been fortunate enough to be aligned with over the last few years.  You can buy the books directly on the website.  If you want to spend more money, you can go to www.Amazon.com and if you want to spend even more money, you can go to Borders and order the book or to any of the main bookstores.  But buying the book directly from us, you get free freight, we sign every book, and we ship them out the next day because we have plenty of them around to ship.  Hopefully, we will sell out thanks to this blog. 

Brian Marcus Decker:  And, I certainly hope so.  One last question, what is your next project?

Richard Grudens: Ok, well you know I sat back after we got the first books on Jolson and said, “Now something’s missing”.  We did Bing Crosby, we did Dick Haynes, we did Connie Boswell, we did Connie Haines, we did Harry James, we did Tommy Dorsey and something is missing.  Sinatra was missing in a big way.  We refer to him and we have stories about him.  I had a good friend in William B Williams WNEW some years ago and he gave me some tapes and interviews he held with Sinatra.  Another friend of mine named Jack Ellsworth from radio station WALK who has a long running Sinatra show was championed by Sinatra.  Sinatra gave him a lot of promos that he was able to use on the air so I have enough reference and enough people that I have known from Jo Stafford to Johnny Mince about Sinatra that I think I can put together a pretty good Sinatra book pretty much the way I did Jolson and Crosby.  I bought every Sinatra book and most of them are coffee table books or they talk about his personal life and things that don’t concern me.  So this book will be a Jolson book but it will be called Sinatra.

Brian Marcus Decker:  Well Richard, good luck on your next project and I want to thank you again.  I am here with Richard Grudens who is the musical biographer and author of “When Jolson Was King”.  Thank you once again for this engaging and enlightening conversation on “The World’s Greatest Entertainer”, the legendary Mistah Al Jolson.

For more information about, “When Jolson was King”, please visit www.RichardGrudens.com .

This is Brian Marcus Decker and thank you for joining us on the Jolson Blog.  This is the first blog dedicated to the legendary life and musical influences of Al Jolson, The Worlds Greatest Entertainer and Friends and don’t forget to visit us weekly at www.JolsonBlog.com .

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This is Brian Marcus Decker and thank you for joining us on the Jolson Blog.  This is the first blog dedicated to the life and musical influences of Al Jolson, the Worlds Greatest Entertainer and Friends and please visits again at www.JolsonBlog.com.