Early life and career
The son of the Rabbi of the Talmud Torah Synagogue (now Ohev Sholom Talmud Torah) in Washington, D.C., Jolson became a popular singer in New York City in 1898, and gradually developed the key elements of his performance: blackface makeup; exuberant gestures; operatic-style singing; whistling and directly addressing his audience.
By 1911, he had parlayed a supporting appearance in the Broadway musical La Belle Paree into a starring role. He began recording and was soon internationally famous for his extraordinary stage presence and personal rapport with audiences. His Broadway career is unmatched for length and popularity, having spanned close to 30 years (1911-1940). Audiences shouted, pleaded, and often would not allow the show to proceed, such was the power of Jolson's presence. At one performance in Boston, the usual staid and conservative audience stopped the show for 45 minutes. He was said to have had an "electric" personality, along with the ability to make each member of the audience believe that he was singing only to them. However, he is best known today for his appearance in one of the first "talkies" The Jazz Singer, the first feature film with sound to enjoy wide commercial success, in 1927. In The Jazz Singer Jolson performed the song "Mammy" in blackface. In truth, Jolson's singing was never jazz, indeed his style remained forever rooted in the vaudeville stage at the turn of 20th century.
Jolson is the first music artist to sell over 10 million records. While no official Billboard magazine chart existed during Jolson's career, their staff archivist Joel Whitburn used a variety of sources such as Talking Machine World's list of top-selling recordings, and Billboard's own sheet music and vaudeville charts to estimate the hits of 1890-1954. By his reckoning, Jolson had the equivalent of 23 No. 1 hits, the 4th-highest total ever, trailing only Bing Crosby, Paul Whiteman, and Guy Lombardo. Whitburn calculates that Jolson topped one chart or another for 114 weeks.
Among the many songs popularized by Jolson were "You Made Me Love You," "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody," "Swanee" (songwriter George Gershwin's first success), "April Showers," "Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye," "California, Here I Come," "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob-Bob-Bobbin' Along," "Sonny Boy" and "Avalon."
Jolson was a political and economic conservative, supporting Calvin Coolidge for president of the United States in 1924 (with the ditty "Keep Cool with Coolidge") unlike most other Jews in the arts, who supported the losing Democratic candidate, John William Davis.
Jolson was married to actress/dancer Ruby Keeler from 1928 to 1940, when they divorced. The couple had adopted a son, Al Jolson Jr., during their marriage, but when he was 14 the boy changed his name to Peter Lowe after his mother's second husband, John Lowe.
After leaving the Broadway stage, Jolson starred on radio. The Al Jolson Show aired 1933-1939, 1942-1943, and 1947-1949, and these shows were typically rated in the top ten. Jolson continued performing until his death in 1950.
The Jolson story
After the success of Warner Bros. film Yankee Doodle Dandy about George M. Cohan, Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky believed that a smiliar film could be made about Al Jolson -- and he knew just where to pitch the project. Harry Cohn may have seemed to a lot of people in Hollywood like a crude, loud vulgarian, but he had one soft spot: he loved the music of Al Jolson.
Skolsky pitched the idea of an Al Jolson biopic and Cohn agreed to it. Directed by Alfred E. Green (best known today for the pre-Code masterpiece Baby Face, The Jolson Story is one of the most entertaining of the musical biopics of that era -- an era that included Yankee Doodle Dandy, Till the Clouds Roll By, Words and Music and Three Little Words. With Jolson providing almost all the vocals, and actor Larry Parks playing Jolson, The Jolson Story was released in 1946, and became one of the biggest hits of the year. Parks received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and the film became one of the highest grossing films of the year.
"The Jolson Story," and its 1949 sequel "Jolson Sings Again," led to a whole new generation who became enthralled with Jolson's voice and charisma. Jolson, who had been a popular guest star on radio since its earliest days, now had his own show, hosting the "Kraft Music Hall" from 1947-1949, with Oscar Levant as a sardonic piano-playing sidekick. Despite such singers as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Perry Como being in their primes, Jolson was voted the "Most Popular Male Vocalist" in 1948 by a Variety poll. The next year, Jolson was named Personality of the Year by the Variety Clubs of America. When Jolson appeared on Bing Crosby's radio show, he attributed his receiving the award to his being the only singer not to make a record of Mule Train, which had been a widely covered hit of that year (four different versions, one of them by Crosby, had made the top ten on the charts).
Jolson joked that he'd tried to sing the hit song. "I got the clippetys all right, but I can't clop like I used to."
Jolson's legacy is considered by many to be severely neglected today because of his use of stage blackface, at the time a theatrical convention used by many performers (both white and black), but today viewed by many as racially insensitive. Jolson was billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," which is how many of the greatest stars (including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Jackie Wilson) referred to him. Charles Chaplin wrote in his Autobiography that he was one of the most electrifying entertainers he had ever seen. A life-long devotion to entertaining American servicemen (he first sang for servicemen of the Spanish-American War as a boy in Washington, D.C.) led Jolson, against the advice of his doctors, to entertain troops in Korea in 1950 when his heart began to fail.
Death
Jolson died on October 23, 1950, in San Francisco at a card game, at the age of 64, apparently of a heart attack, and was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California, where a statue of Jolson beckons visitors to his crypt. On the day he died, Broadway turned off its lights for 10 minutes in Jolson's honor.
Al Jolson has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame:
1. For his contribution to the motion picture industry at 6622 Hollywood Blvd.;
2. For his contribution to the recording industry at 1716 Vine St.;
3. For his contribution to the radio industry at 6750 Hollywood Blvd.
Forty-four years after Jolson's death, the United States Postal Service acknowledged his contribution by issuing a postage stamp in his honor. The 29-cent stamp was unveiled by Erle Jolson Krasna, Jolson's fourth wife, at a ceremony in New York City's Lincoln Center on September 1, 1994. This stamp was one of a series honoring popular American singers, which included Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Ethel Merman, and Ethel Waters. Al Jolson is one of Mr. Burns' (from The Simpsons) favorite actors - he still believes that he is alive.
Jolson's song I'm Sitting on Top of the World was played during the opening montage of 1930's New York City in the 2005 remake of King Kong.
In August of 2006, Al Jolson had a street in New York named after him.
Back In Your Own Backyard
Al Jolson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Hoping ev'ry cloud will be silver lined.
But we all return as we live wo learn,
That we left our happiness behind.
When they sing you "Look for the Silver Lining,"
It is silver dollars they're looking for.
You will find my friend that the rainbow's end,
The bird with feathers of blue, is waiting for you,
Back in your own back yard,
You'll see your castle in Spain, through your window pane,
Back in your own back yard.
Oh you can go to the East go to the West,
But someday you'll come weary at heart back where you started from,
You'll find your happiness lies, right under your eyes,
Back In Your Own Backyard.
The lyrics to "Back in Your Own Backyard" by Al Jolson reflect the common human experience of leaving our homes and seeking out new opportunities with the hope of finding happiness, only to realize that we left our happiness behind. The lyrics also speak to the idea that we often go in search of things that are just within our reach, such as the rainbow's end or the blue bird of happiness.
The first verse sets the tone by saying that we leave home believing that we will find happiness easily, but we come back from our travels realizing that happiness is something we carry with us. The second verse speaks to the idea that when people tell us to look for the silver lining or to chase after rainbows, they are often looking for material or external things, when happiness is really within reach, right in our own homes.
The repeated line "Back in Your Own Backyard" is a nostalgic reminder that no matter where we go or how far we travel, our homes and the people we love are always waiting for us. The lyrics suggest that we don't need to look far for happiness; it can be found in the familiar surroundings of our own homes.
Line by Line Meaning
We leave home expecting to find a blue bird,
We start our journey with optimism, expecting to find happiness and good fortune.
Hoping ev'ry cloud will be silver lined.
We hope that every misfortune in life will eventually lead to something good.
But we all return as we live wo learn,
However, we all come back home realizing that life has taught us some tough lessons.
That we left our happiness behind.
We realize that we had what we were looking for all along, but we had left it behind in our own home.
When they sing you "Look for the Silver Lining,"
When people tell you to stay optimistic and look for the good in bad situations,
It is silver dollars they're looking for.
They may be looking for a financial benefit or reward for their optimism.
You will find my friend that the rainbow's end,
But in reality, true happiness can be found right at home.
Is somewhere around your kitchen door.
It's not in some faraway land, but in the familiar surroundings of your own home.
The bird with feathers of blue, is waiting for you,
The happiness we seek is right in our own backyard, like a blue bird waiting to be discovered.
Back in your own back yard,
We need to return home to find what we've been searching for.
You'll see your castle in Spain, through your window pane,
We will appreciate what we have at home, even if we once longed for something seemingly grander like a castle in Spain.
Oh you can go to the East go to the West,
We can travel far and wide searching for happiness.
But someday you'll come weary at heart back where you started from,
But eventually, we will become tired and disillusioned and find ourselves back at our starting point.
You'll find your happiness lies, right under your eyes,
It's only then that we realize that happiness was always within reach, right in front of our eyes.
Back In Your Own Backyard.
True happiness can be found by returning home and appreciating what we have right in front of us.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Al Jolson, Billy Rose, Dave Dreyer
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Jeffrey Lipinski
AL JOLSON WAS SO MARVELOUS !!!
HIS SONGS AND VOICE AND ARRANGEMENTS
SUPERB !!
AND LARRY PARKS IS AND WAS
SENSATIONAL IN THE 2 AL JOLSON MOVIES.
JOLSON STORY 1946 AND
JOLSON SINGS AGAIN 1949.
I HAVE BOTH MOVIES ON DVD
AND WATCH THEM MANY TIMES.
AL'S VOICE AND MUSIC ALONE MAKES ME WATCH THEM OVER AND OVER AGAIN !!
BUT THE STORY IN THE BOTH MOVIES ARE SUPERB !!!
LARRY'S PERFORMANCES
WERE A+ ALL AROUND..
YOU CAN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT..
ONE OF THE GREATEST ACTING AND PERFORMANCES
EVER I HAVE SEEN IN MOTION PICTURES..
AL JOLSON
TRUELY THE " WORLD'S GREATEST ENTERTAINER " !!!!!!!!!!!
Larson Williams
Love this movie. Love this song. Al's one of my favourites
maureen1938
One of the greatest entertainers ever ! Thanks for the share.
Judy Judd
Love this song - found it by accident doing research on the Andrews Sisters and I had to learn it - check out my version! Thanks for posting this!
Barry I. Grauman
....until "The Jolson Story" was released. One day, George met Al in the club's dining room, and said how much he enjoyed the film, and his singing on the soundtrack. Jolson smiled, and told him, "You can buy your own sturgeon, kid, I'm a hit again".
Barry I. Grauman
Billy Rose and Dave Dreyer originally wrote the song as "Nobody's Fault But Mine". Once Jolson heard it, he insisted their lyrics be rewriiten (and cutting himself in on a "piece" of the song, as "co-composer"), guaranteeing a hit as soon as he introduced it....his intuition was as big as his ego!
FreedomKat
and as big as his talent!
Jeffrey Lipinski
AL JOLSON WAS SO MARVELOUS !!!
HIS SONGS AND VOICE AND ARRANGEMENTS
SUPERB !!
AND LARRY PARKS IS AND WAS
SENSATIONAL IN THE 2 AL JOLSON MOVIES.
JOLSON STORY 1946 AND
JOLSON SINGS AGAIN 1949.
I HAVE BOTH MOVIES ON DVD
AND WATCH THEM MANY TIMES.
AL'S VOICE AND MUSIC ALONE MAKES ME WATCH THEM OVER AND OVER AGAIN !!
BUT THE STORY IN THE BOTH MOVIES ARE SUPERB !!!
LARRY'S PERFORMANCES
WERE A+ ALL AROUND..
YOU CAN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT..
ONE OF THE GREATEST ACTING AND PERFORMANCES
EVER I HAVE SEEN IN MOTION PICTURES..
AL JOLSON
TRUELY THE " WORLD'S GREATEST ENTERTAINER " !!!!!!!!!!!
Debbie Taylor
My dad tormented us with this genius as i see him now in 1975-85 i wanted to smash every LP im really glad i never i couldnt of forgive myself god rest ur soul johnny dobbo hope ur croonin a tune with the ledgend who is MR ASA JOLS ON NITE DAD XX
Kwiksilver241
Yes, it kind of grows on you, doesn't it? I wasn't too keen when I first heard it in Jolson Sings Again as I felt is wasn't a very appropriate opening song for the show he was about to give the troops. I would have preferred something much faster and snappier as an opener..... but then I wasn't producing the film!!!
Gina Cassista
That is and was a great artist and a great movie. I am watching it on my dvd as I am writing. Could someone help me ? In this movie, when Helen Clark and her future father in law are dining in a "swanky" restaurant they suddenly decide to go and dance. Does someone recognize the music that is playing in the background. I have been searching for weeks now and I can not remember . Thanks