Al Jolson - Legacy and Influence

Legacy and Influence

According to music historians Bruce Crowther and Mike Pinfold: "During his time he was the best known and most popular all-around entertainer America (and probably the world) has ever known, captivating audiences in the theatre and becoming an attraction on records, radio, and in films. He opened the ears of white audiences to the existence of musical forms alien to their previous understanding and experience ... and helped prepare the way for others who would bring a more realistic and sympathetic touch to black musical traditions." Black songwriter Noble Sissle, in the 1930s, said "e was always the champion of the Negro songwriter and performer, and was first to put Negroes in his shows". Of Jolson's "Mammy" songs, he adds, "with real tears streaming down his blackened face, he immortalized the Negro motherhood of America as no individual could."

A few of the people and places that have been influenced by Jolson:

Irving Berlin

As the movies became a vital part of the entertainment industry, Berlin was forced to "reinvent himself as a songwriter". Biographer Laurence Bergreen wrote that Berlin's music was "Too old fashioned for progressive Broadway, his music was thoroughly up-to-date in conservative Hollywood." He had his earliest piece of luck in the first sound picture, The Jazz Singer, where Jolson performed his song "Blue Skies", the first time a song was ever performed in a feature film. In 1930, he wrote the music for Jolson's fourth movie, Mammy, which included hit songs such as "Let Me Sing and I'm Happy", "Pretty Baby", and "Mammy".

Judy Garland

Garland had performed a tribute to Jolson in her concerts of 1951 at the London Palladium and at New York's Palace Theater. Both concerts were to become "central to this first of her many comebacks, and centered around her impersonation of Al Jolson... performing "Swanee" in her odd vocal drag of Jolson." Watch

Bing Crosby

Music historian Richard Grudens writes that Kathryn Crosby cheerfully reviewed the chapter about her beloved Bing and his inspiration, Al Jolson. . .where Bing had written, "His chief attribute was the sort of electricity he generated when he sang. Nobody in those days did that. When he came out and started to sing, he just elevated that audience immediately. Within the first eight bars he had them in the palm of his hand." In Crosby's Pop Chronicles interview, he fondly recalled seeing Jolson perform and praised his "electric delivery".

Crosby's biographer Gary Giddins wrote of Crosby's admiration for Jolson's performance style: "Bing marveled at how he seemed to personally reach each member of the audience." Crosby once told a fan, "I'm not an electrifying performer at all. I just sing a few little songs. But this man could really galvanize an audience into a frenzy. He could really tear them apart."

Tony Bennett

"My father... took us to see one of the first talking pictures, The Singing Fool, in which Al Jolson sang "Sonny Boy". In a way, you could say that Jolson was my earliest influence as a singer. I was so excited by what I saw that I spent hours listening to Jolson and Eddie Cantor on the radio. In fact, I staged my first public performance shortly after seeing that movie... to imitate Jolson... I leaped into the living room and announced to the adults, who were staring at me in amazement, 'Me Sonny Boy!' The whole family roared with laughter."

Neil Diamond

Journalist David Wild writes that the 1927 movie The Jazz Singer, would mirror Diamond's own life, "the story of a Jewish kid from New York who leaves everything behind to pursue his dream of making popular music in Los Angeles". Diamond says it was "the story of someone who wants to break away from the traditional family situation and find his own path. And in that sense, it 'is' my story." In 1972, Diamond gave the first solo concert performance on Broadway since Al Jolson, and starred in the 1980 remake of Jazz Singer, with Laurence Olivier and Lucie Arnaz.

Jerry Lewis

Actor and comedian Jerry Lewis starred in a televised version (without blackface) of The Jazz Singer in 1959. Lewis's biographer, Murray Pomerance, writes that "Jerry surely had his father in mind when he remade the film", adding that Lewis himself "told an interviewer that his parents had been so poor that they could not afford to give him a bar mitzvah." In 1956, Lewis recorded "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby".

Eddie Fisher

On a tour of the Soviet Union with his then wife, Elizabeth Taylor, Fisher wrote in his autobiography that "Khrushchev's mistress asked me to sing... I was the first American to be invited to sing in the Kremlin since Paul Robeson. The next day the Herald-Tribune headlines 'Eddie Fisher Rocks the Kremlin'. I gave them my best Jolson: "Swanee", "April Showers" and finally "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody". I had the audience of Russian diplomats and dignitaries on their feet swaying with me." In 1951, Fisher dedicated his "smash hit" song, "Good-bye, G.I. Al," to Jolson, and presented a copy personally to Jolson's widow. With one of his later wives, Connie Stevens, he had a daughter, Joely Fisher, whose name honors Jolson.

Bobby Darin

Darin's biographer, David Evanier, writes that when Darin was a youngster, stuck at home because of rheumatic fever, "e spent most of the time reading and coloring as well as listening to the big-band music and Jolson records... He started to do Jolson imitations... he was crazy about Jolson." Darin's manager, Steve Blauner, who also became a movie producer and vice president of Screen Gems, likewise began his career "as a little boy doing Al Jolson imitations after seeing The Jolson Story 13 times ..."

Ernest Hemingway

In his memoirs, A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway wrote that "Zelda Fitzgerald... leaned forward and said to me, telling me her great secret, 'Ernest, don't you think Al Jolson is greater than Jesus?'"

State of California

According to California historians Stephanie Barron and Sheri Bernstein, "few artists have done as much to publicize California as did Al Jolson" who performed and wrote the lyrics for "California, Here I Come". It is considered the unofficial song of the Golden State. Another example is the 1928 song "Golden Gate" (Dave Dreyer, Joseph Meyer, Billy Rose & Jolson).

Mario Lanza

Mario Lanza's biographer, Armando Cesari, writes that Lanza's "favorite singers included Al Jolson, Lena Horne, Tony Martin and Toni Arden."

Jerry Lee Lewis

According to singer and songwriter Jerry Lee Lewis, "there were only four true American originals: Al Jolson, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Jerry Lee Lewis." "I loved Al Jolson," he said. "I still got all of his records. Even back when I was a kid I listened to him all the time."

Rod Stewart

British singer and songwriter Rod Stewart, during an interview in 2003, was asked, "What is your first musical memory?" Stewart replied: "Al Jolson, from when we used to have house parties around Christmas or birthdays. We had a small grand piano and I used to sneak downstairs... I think it gave me a very, very early love of music."

David Lee Roth

Songwriter and lead singer of the rock group Van Halen, was asked during an interview in 1985, "When did you first decide that you wanted to go into show business?" He replied, "I was seven. I said I wanted to be Al Jolson. Those were the only records I had -- a collection of the old breakable 78s. I learned every song and then the moves, which I saw in the movies."

Jackie Wilson

African-American singer Jackie Wilson recorded a tribute album to Jolson, You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet, which included his personal liner note, "...the greatest entertainer of this or any other era... I guess I have just about every recording he's ever made, and I rarely missed listening to him on the radio.... During the three years I've been making records, I've had the ambition to do an album of songs, which, to me, represent the great Jolson heritage.. his is simply my humble tribute to the one man I admire most in this business... to keep the heritage of Jolson alive."