Vaudeville is alive and well read on the Jolson and Friends Blog

 

“In talking about what was needed to get into vaudeville you mention that there were two key ingredients, “chutzpah and moxie”.  This seemed to be much more important in many cases, than talent.”

 

Yowza, Yowsa, yowza. This is Brian Marcus Decker, for the Jolson and Friends Blog located on the web at www.JolsonBlog.com, the first tech-nostalgia blog dedicated to the musical influences of Al Jolson and friends.  Ladies and gentleman, we continue with Part II of our seven-part series on Vaudeville starring Trav S.D., an author, journalist, playwright, director and performance artist.  He has recently published a fascinating and entertaining book entitled “No Applause, Just Throw Money” which provides a provocative look at the history and impact of Vaudeville on American culture. 

 

The book also addresses a triage of topics including the performers, the Vaudeville circuit theaters as well as their owners.  Highlighted in this book are the musical, comedic, and magical talents of, of course, our one and only Al Jolson, as well as Eddie Cantor, Bert Williams, Sophie Tucker, Fanny Brice, Harry Houdini, Jack Benny, George Burns, Gracie Ellen, Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland, The Marx Brothers, Mae West, W.C. Fields, Bob Hope, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Milton Berle, Norah Bays, George M. Cohan, Weber and Fields and many, many more.  

 

Free Vaudeville Part III Interview Podcast

After collecting audio assets for five Jolson related interviews, in the last few months I have launched the First Jolson Podcast and you can listen to my 7-part interview on Vaudeville with author Trav S.D. 

 

To listen to the free Jolson and Friends Blog Podcast published audio files

Use http://feed.jolsonblog.com and click on:

 

Jolson and Friends Blog Podcast: Vaudeville Interview Part III

 

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Use http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ or http://www.podcastalley.com or http://bloglines.com/ to set-up account and then search on Jolson and Friends Blog Podcast.

 

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International Al Jolson Society 2007 Jolson Festival near Toronto

This exciting annual Jolson event will take place on Friday, May 25, 2007 through Sunday, May 27, 2007 in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.  Special entertainment will include Tony Babino (The heart of Jolson), Richard Halpern (Mr. Tin Pan Alley) and William Campbell (Scotland's own Jolson).

 

For more information on this great event, go to www.Jolson.org and click on the Click for information on May, 2007, Jolson Festival near Toronto, Canada link.

 

 

Brian Gari Annual Birthday Show

Sunday, February 18^th at 7:00 PM at DON'T TELL MAMA located at 343 W 46 ST in New York City. For Reservations call (212)757-0788.  There is a $5 Cover with 2 Drink Minimum (no credit cards).

 

Janet Cantor Gari

Janet Cantor Gari, youngest daughter of Eddie Cantor, is still recovering from multiple injuries from a recent mugging in New York City. Janet is still having difficulties walking.    

Anyone who would like to extend their personal wishes for a fast recovery can send an email to Garisongs@aol.com or a letter or card to:

 

Janet Cantor Gari

c/o Brian Gari

650 West End Avenue

New York, NY 10025>

 

 

Jolson and Friends Blog Special Feature: Clive Baldwin Video Play List

 

Copyright © 2007 Brian Marcus Decker

 

For those of you, who have not had the opportunity to see Clive Baldwin, the Jolson and Friends Blog, is featuring our concluding video link on www.youtube.com.

 

Click on the link below to view Clive Baldwin’s video performing the Jolson classic, “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee”.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sVO1EtQcIYQ&mode=related&search=

 

 

NEW SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Video tape to DVD transfer services

 

My overall mission for this blog is to preserve and archive an important part of our cultural history as it relates to Jolson, as well as related music and the performing arts.  Too often, many of these historical treasures, including people, films, recordings, artwork and theatres have disappeared and have been long forgotten.

 

In our personal lives, many of us have kept copies of videotapes of important friends and family events including vacations, birthdays, weddings and holiday celebrations. After 10 years of lying on the shelf in a closet, you may find out that some of your video tapes are no longer playable and these precious moments are lost forever.

 

As a special service to the Jolson and Friends community, Affinitee LLC is offering an affordable way to preserve these priceless memories digitally for generations by transferring your VHS tapes to DVDs.

 

VHS (unedited) videotape transfers to DVD is $14.99 plus shipping. Additional DVD copies of the same VHS tape are $9.99.

 

• Return shipping costs for up to three original videotapes and DVD copies is $9.95 via FedEx Ground or UPS with no signature required.
• These DVD-videos are 100% compliant to the DVD standards and will play on DVD players that read DVD-R media. Almost all DVD players made in the past 3 years play DVD-R media.
• Your tape transfer to DVD will include chapter markers every 10 minutes. Just use the fast forward function on your DVD remote to jump forward or backwards.
• These prices are based on up to two-hours of continuous tape conversions without any editing for VHS format tapes only.
• This service can not duplicate materials that are copy protected including commercial films.

 

To place a videotape transfer to DVD order or request additional information, payments through Pay Pal, please contact: brian@affinitee.com .

 

 

Save on limited edition T-shirts up (Includes FREE Shipping)

 

You will be “Sitting on Top of the World” with these limited edition T-shirts.  These are perfect holiday gifts for collectors of nostalgia and a must have for anyone interested in the legendary Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor. Each t-shirt comes with a FREE matching gift card.

 

AffiniTee LLC only uses brand new Hanes Beefy-Ts premium 6.1 oz. heavyweight pre-shrunk 100% cotton.  These unique vintage images are applied using a high pressure industrial heat press and professional grade hot transfers and a proprietary process for extended wear.

 

This unique T-shirts is available in white or black in adult sizes including small (34-36), medium (38-40), adult large (42-44) and XL (46-48) sizes. Additional sizes including children, adult XXL and XXXL are available on a special order basis and are subject to a $3.00 surcharge to prices listed below

 

 

 

 

     Jolson Singing Fool                           Cantor Tell to the Judge                   Moon Rocket Ride

 

     Jolie                                        Old Time Baseball                          Asbury Park Clowns

             Sherlock Double                         Sherlock Improbable                           Sudoku Puzzle

 

 

 

 

Here’s the Deal:

 

Al Jolson Limited Edition T-shirt: The Singing Fool

This is a vintage color reproduction of a 1928 theatrical program.

 

Eddie Cantor Limited Edition T-shirt: Tell it to the Judge

This is a vintage two-color reproduction of 1930s board game.

 

Moon Rocket Ride Limited Edition Carnival T-shirt

This is a vintage color reproduction of a hand painted tin carnival sign.

 

Jolie NEW Black & White Limited Edition T-shirt:

This is a vintage B/W illustration of Jolie from the 1920s.

 

NEW Color Old Time Baseball Limited Edition T-shirt:

Forget the Dodgers; this is real deal, a turn of the century Brooklyn Baseball T-shirt.

 

NEW Asbury Park Clowns Limited Edition Boardwalk T-shirt

This clown no longer graces Asbury Park Boardwalk, but this vintage color reproduction lives on.

 

NEW Sherlock Double Limited Edition T-shirt

Looking left and right “the game is afoot” with this vintage, black and white illustrated, Sherlock t-shirt, with no clues overlooked. 

 

NEW Sherlock Improbable Limited Edition T-shirt

Vintage Sherlock, black and white illustrated profile, on t-shirt with famous quote, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

 

NEW Sudoku Clueless Limited Edition T-shirt

Sudoku aficionados can proudly challenge the world with this puzzling T-shirt.

 

 

 

Here’s the Deal: Save up to 10%

 

White or Natural T-Shirt: $18.00 with FREE U.S Shipping and Matching Gift Card (Regular price $20.00)

 

Black T-Shirt: $20.00 with FREE U.S Shipping and Matching Gift Card (Regular price $22.00)

 

Pack of 5 gift cards: with envelopes is $9.00 with FREE U.S Shipping (Regular price $10.00)

 

Pack of 10 gift cards: with envelopes is $16.00 with FREE U.S Shipping (Regular price $18.00)

 

 

For additional information, special orders, discounted shipping outside the ostalCode w:st="on">U.S.ostalCode>, payments through Pay Pal, please contact: brian@affinitee.com .

 

To order please specify style (Jolson, Cantor, Moon, Jolie, Brooklyn Baseball, Asbury Park Clown, Sherlock Double Profile, Sherlock Improbable, Sudoku), quantity, size, t-shirt color (white/natural or black), type (t-shirts or matching gift cards) and your shipping address. Please send checks to:

 

AffiniTee LLC c/o

Brian Marcus Decker

24 Arverne Road

West Orange, NJ

07052>

 

 

Part III: Vaudeville Interview with Trav S.D.

“You could sort of argue Jolson’s success in talkies because he came first and he had a massive, massive success, but it’s been said that his movies became a little too formulaic and fell off and if you watch when he does a number he seems really on and extremely electric”

 

Brian Marcus Decker:  The vaudeville era experienced its first premature burial around 1931 but you emphatically state that, “the vaudeville business didn’t die, it just grew and modernized.” 

How did this fable era of entertainment continue to reinvent itself and maintain a mass audience?

 

Trav S.D.:  Well, like I said before, TV was one way and it’s interesting to me because vaudeville is sort of like this hodge podge format, like a circus, or like a shooting gallery. It’s a parade, it’s a succession of things, so you can plug whatever you like into the format and that allows it to swallow modern forms like you know having the Beatles at the doors or Elvis Presley debut on the show works absolutely fine.  Because you’re accustomed to this thing where whatever you’re going to see next has nothing to do with what happened before and you could, you know to this day, you can reinvent vaudeville.  There is a website that a university did that’s got a sort of a virtual reality version of an old vaudeville show.  It’s imminently adaptable.

Brian Marcus Decker:  Jolson successfully worked in the vaudeville circuit for several years excluding his time with the Lew Dockstader’s Minstrels.  He was also moderately a successful gambler who loved the track, boxing, and betting on cards.  As a gambler he also achieved stardom in making a successful transition to the legitimate book theater.  He is also recognized as a successful recording artist, as well as a first feature film length talking star of the silver screen as well as his success in radio.  With the exception of Eddie Cantor many of his talented contemporaries such as Sophie Tucker had limited success in films.  Buster Keaton’s career suffered with the mass adoption of talking pictures.  What is it that you think that drove Jolson’s successful transition into all these mediums?

Trav S.D.:  You could sort of argue Jolson’s success because he came first and he had a massive, massive success, but it’s been said that his movies became a little too formulaic and fell off and if you watch when he does a number he seems really on and extremely electric, but he seems maybe a little ill at ease.  It’s not necessarily his best form and in fact in silent film he was downright scared and fled his one, D.W. Griffiths is the picture he was booked to perform in, but he was you know he was a cocky SOB and I think anything that was thrown his way he would you know take on and succeed at.  He would certainly try.

Brian Marcus Decker:  In talking about what was needed to get into vaudeville you mention that there were two key ingredients, “chutzpah and moxie”.  This seemed to be much more important in many cases, than talent.  Can you share with us a few examples of some of the most unusual but successful acts in vaudeville that were a little light on talent?

Trav S.D.:  Well, you know, I can only think of one act that was, that you could describe as light on talent that you could also describe as successful and that’s The Cherry Sisters.  This was an act in the 1890s of five sisters from Iowa who were really, really awful singers and really, really awful dancers, and apparently they weren’t terribly bright and so they became notorious in Iowa for their performances and people would throw things at them and they were so awful that they were spectacular, and what happened was Oscar Hammerstein, who was still running The Olympia as opposed to The Victoria, (which was his more famous theater of the vaudeville era), heard about it and brought them to New York and they became a smash hit lasting for several weeks and they’d do these sort of corny, patriotic, and religious songs and people would throw vegetables at them and that’s the one talent less act, and again you know that’s a question of public relations and showmanship, you know.

Brian Marcus Decker:  Well I think all those vegetables and fruits actually kept most of these starving artists alive during those time periods, so I think it was probably appreciated. 

In talking of theaters, of all the many vaudeville theaters, why was it The Palace, why was it considered the Mecca of show business?

Trav S.D.:  Well you know, for a long time there was this really strange agreement between certain vaudeville managers that only The Victoria, which was Hammerstein’s theater, would be the only one in the Times Square area.  So that the other theaters who ran circuits, their part of the bargain was that Hammerstein wouldn’t start a circuit and they would agree not to start a theater in the Times Square area.  So for a while, it was The Victoria, but then Hammerstein passed away and Hammerstein’s son managed the theater. The Palace was built and so it sort of became the Times Square vaudeville theater and of course Times Square is the heart of American show business.  So I think that’s one important reason; it was you know, it was beautiful and the top acts of the Keith Circuit were booked there as the kind of prime showcase.  I almost think of it as The Tonight Show before television.  It’s when you know people like you know Burns and Allen debuted there, and Jack Benny and various people.

 

February 25, 2007: Vaudeville Interview Part IV

• One of the hardest topics that you address in the book is the cultural legacy and historic importance of black face.  You refer to this art form as “problematic at best”.  Its racial depiction you address as uniformly heinous, but  you also indicate that these Minstrel songs, the monologues, the sketches, laid the foundation for all American popular music including jazz, blues, country, as well as improv and sketch comedy.  How do we as a culture embrace these roots of this art form and still remain politically correct?

• Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker, Eddie Cantor, Emmett Miller, and even Mae West, performed their careers in black face (and let’s not forget Shirley Temple).  Why do you think, or not, as a performer Jolson perhaps more than any other, seemed to carry the majority of the negative stigma associated with Minstrels and black face today?

• Bert Williams and Eva Tanguay are among the highest paid performers in vaudeville.  While no-one ever questioned the extraordinary talents of Bert Williams, Eva, the girl who made vaudeville famous, was historically referred to as “talent less and homely”.  What was it about these performers that resonated so well among these audiences?
• I read at a recent interview that the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz fuelled your ongoing interest in your younger days as well as your passions for vaudeville.  What’s the significance to you of this classic film?

 

 This is Brian Marcus Decker and thank you for joining us on the Jolson and Friends blog.  This is the first and most important blog dedicated to the life and musical influences of the legendary Al Jolson, The World’s Greatest Entertainer, as well as his friends.  And please visit us again http://www.jolsonblog.com. 

 

Jolson and Friends Blog Required Reading List

No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous (Paperback) by Trav S.D.

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

 

 

My Fifteen Minutes: An Autobiography of a Child Star of the Golden Era of Hollywood (Paperback) by Sybil Jason.

 

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

 

When Jolson Was King: (Paperback) by Richard Grudens.  Richard Grudens has written an entertaining and informative (must read) book for anyone interested in the legendary, Al Jolson "The World's Greatest Entertainer".

“The book contains many facets of Jolson' career including those around him, his competition, employers, and comments from those he inspired enough to form their own careers, the issue of minstrel, blackface performers, fabled stories of the famed Friar's Club, a chapter of the infamous Shubert Brothers, and chapters covering Jolson's experiences in film, radio and his extensive USO travels. Covered too are vignettes of the theatres in which Jolson performed, and of those great theatrical competitors like the Barrymore's and where they were voicing their talents while Jolson was pulling them in at the Winter Garden, and a full feature on Jolson's films from the first talkie, The Jazz Singer to his famed bio-pics The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again.” – Richard Grudens

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

 

Changes to Jolson and Friends Blog

 

In the upcoming months I am looking to continue to evolve the Jolson and Friends Blog and wanted preview some upcoming changes.  As of this post, I am promoting the sale of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and fifteen new Limited Edition T-shirt designs (featured above) and matching gift cards (with free shipping). The sales from these items will help offset the cost of maintaining this blog.

 

Due to the time intensive nature of ongoing research, content development, production and maintaining and the Blog, I will am publishing twice a month instead of weekly. The next blog update will happen on February 25, 2007.

 

 

I am starting to work on several future Jolson and Friends projects including:

·         Video tapes to DVD transfer service.

·         Jolson and Friends Recommended Reading and Viewer Lists including cost-saving shopping links to find out-of-print books, videos and more.

·         Expanded global coverage of local events.

·         Future podcasts of upcoming interviews and special performance-based content.

 

To ensure that you are automatically informed about new postings, please enter your email address at the sidebar on the left of this blog page or send an email to my attention, with the subject line “Subscribe”, to: brian@JolsonBlog.com.

 

 

 

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