WITHIN THE PAST FEW YEARS, an ever increasing emphasis has been given to the folk music of America. Not only are the performances more numerous, but there is also a growing recognition that this music—which America has sung and danced to for generations—is an integral part of our native culture of which we may well be proud.

Folk music comes to us in many forms—work songs, spirituals, jigs, reels, sea chanties and cowboy songs. But of all of these, none are more beautiful and poignant than the ballads most often heard in the Smoky Mountain country of Kentucky and Tennessee. These melodies, while simple in form, require an interpretation calling for a rather distinct type of talent.

Probably more than any singer in the country today, Jo Stafford possesses the unique capabilities necessary for a proper presentation of these songs. In the first place, Miss Stafford is a singer and not just a song stylist. And secondly, because of family ties reaching back to Tennessee, these songs have always been a part of her musical life.

The preparation of these songs is not just the work of a few weeks. Over a year ago, Miss Stafford first sang “He’s Gone Away” on her own radio show. The response was instantaneous and this song was requested more often than any other performed by her that season. This suggested the idea of an album of folk music, and the work necessary to its preparation was begun, with Jo Stafford and Paul WEston choosing six songs from the hundreds available and comparing the many versions of each one which differ both musically and lyrically from one locale to another. (For example, there are over a hundred different interpretations of “Barbara Allen” alone, with no two exactly the same!)

Purists may object strenuously to the presentations of these songs with any accompaniment other than the traditional guitar, but after hearing the records, the listener will agree what the simplicity and loveliness can be preserved and even enhanced by the tasteful use of strings and woodwinds. In the arranging of these songs, Paul Weston has been most careful to preserve the modal form characteristic of each individual melody, and in the orchestration has used only the instruments to be found in a modern symphony orchestra, believing that these interpretations should be styled in such a manner that they might be acceptable in any concert of American music.

• 10121
  • Barbara Allen (2:42)
  • He’s Gone Away (2:58)
• 10122
  • Black is the Color (2:44)
  • Poor Wayfaring Stranger (2:44)
• 10123
  • Red Rosey Bush (2:50)
  • The Nightengale (2:56)

Copyright 1948 — Capitol Records — Made in U.S.A.

(72804)
Vocal with Guitar

DON’T BE A BABY, BABY (3:06)
(Howard Steiner-Buddy Kaye)

MILLS BROTHERS

18753 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(72804)
Vocal with Guitar

NEVER MAKE A PROMISE IN VAIN (2:50)
(Sammy Mysels-Nelson Cogane)

MILLS BROTHERS

18753 B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

(71610)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

I’LL GET BY (2:55)
(As Long As I Have You)
Featured in M-G-M Picture “A Guy Named Joe”
(Fred E. Ahlert-Roy Turk)

INK SPOTS

18579 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(71620)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

SOMEDAY I’LL MEET YOU AGAIN (3:12)
From Warner Bros. Picture “Passage To Marseilles”
(Max Steiner-Ned Washington)

INK SPOTS

18579 B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

(71233)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

STREET OF DREAMS (3:00)
(Sam M. Lewis-Victor Young)

INK SPOTS

18503 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(71237)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

DON’T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE (3:05)
(Duke Ellington-Bob Russell)

INK SPOTS

18503 B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

(70917)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

EV’RY NIGHT ABOUT THIS TIME (3:21)
(James V. Monaco-Ted Koehler)

INK SPOTS

18461 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(69788)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

I’M NOT THE SAME OLD ME (3:17)
(Al Law-Ned Brisbane-Tom Johnstone)

INK SPOTS

18461 B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

(70763)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

WHO WOULDN’T LOVE YOU (2:17)
(Carl Fischer-Bill Carey)

INK SPOTS

18383 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(70762)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

DON’T TELL A LIE ABOUT ME, DEAR (3:11)
(And I Won’t Tell The Truth About You)
(James Cavanaugh-John Redmond-Frank Weldon)

INK SPOTS

18383 B

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

(70349)
Vocal with Guitar

I’LL BE AROUND (1:53)
(Alec Wilder)

MILLS BROTHERS

18318 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(70348)
Vocal with Guitar

PAPER DOLL (2:34)
(Johnny S. Black)

MILLS BROTHERS

18318 B

(‘I’ll Be Around’ has a rather nasty scratch running through the latter third of the song, and it’s quite likely that a few seconds were lost as the needle skipped around.)

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

(67862)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

WHISPERING GRASS (2:08)
(Don’t Tell The Trees)
(Fred Fisher-Doris Fisher)

INK SPOTS

3258 A

DECCA
MANUFACTURED BY DECCA RECORDS, INC., NEW YORK, U.S.A.

(67863)
Vocal with Instrumental Accompaniment

MAYBE (2:24)
(Allan Flynn-Frank Madden)

INK SPOTS

3258 B

(This disc is damaged, with a chunk taken out of the edge, so both of these tracks lose a few seconds from the beginning of the song.)

(One of many old 78s in my collection. Dates are approximated as best as possible based on the labels and what information I can find on the ‘net. The sound quality on these is quite variable. I’ve cleaned the worst of the pops and skips as best as I can, but these won’t be anywhere near modern fidelity. Enjoy them for what they are.)

NOTES ABOUT JOLSON…
by Budd Fielding White

An amazing thing has happened in the entertainment business—specifically in films, radio and records, which constitute a large chunk of it—something that, by all the odds, all the predictions of the wiseacres, shouldn’t have happened at all! A star who was the toast of yesterday’s generation has swept today’s generation just as completely off its feet. Al Jolson has never been more popular than he is right now, never more widely acclaimed a truly great entertainer, fully thirty-five years after the brothers Shubert first installed him in New York’s Winter Garden Theatre and starred him there.

The snowball of Al’s tremendous new popularity began accumulating its present astounding proportions in August of 1946, when Decca did an album of “songs he made famous, featured in the Columbia Picture, ‘The Jolson Story’” (Decca Album No. A-469). The picture, released in October of that year, featured a comparatively unknown youngster by the name of Larry Parks who catapulted himself to stardom with his almost unbelievably accurate portrayal as Jolson. Parks’ grasp of the famous star’s vibrant personality, mannerisms, and even the way in which he spoke, were so nearly Jolson himself that many people thought Parks actually sang the songs in the picture. It was, of course, the inimitable Jolson voice that they heard, “dubbed in” to perfection.

And it was the Jolson voice that they kept on clamoring for. “The Jolson Story” was a great picture and a box-office smash, and immediately after it began to be shown throughout the country, record dealers were deluged with demands for Decca Album No. A-469, Al singing songs from the film. To date—within less than a year of its release—it has become one of Decca’s biggest selling albums of all time, one of the few to reach the million sales mark.

Partially due to the impact of the colorful movie-story of his life, and partially because of people’s reawakened awareness of the fact that seldom, if ever, has an entertainer packed his wallop for sheer magnetism and ability to “sell” a song, Jolson became again the man of the musical moment.

You could walk along Broadway and, from any of a score of record shops, hear Al Jolson’s rich baritone singing the surprise hit from “The Jolson Story,” Anniversary Song, on Decca Record No. 23714. As a single, the disc hit the million mark all by itself—and the song became the nation’s No. 1 hit for many months.

Al extended his triumphal return to the entertainment world to radio. Invited to appear as a guest on Bing Crosby’s show for Philco, Al proved so welcome to listeners that he was invited back on the program four times. He sang solos, sang duets with Bing Crosby and traded quips with him; once joined Bing and John Charles Thomas in an uproarious “minstrel show” broadcast starring the threesome; and once co-starred with Bing and Irving Berlin in a program devoted to the great composer’s songs.

Jolson and Crosby clicked together the way Crosby and Hope do as a team, on the air and on records—witness their duet on Decca Record No. 40038, wherein the Jolsonian and Crosbian voices blend to tell of Alexander’s Ragtime Band and The Spaniard That Blighted My Life.

And so a great star has come back into his own—to prove again that he is one of the greatest singing comedians of ‘em all.

This second Decca album of Jolsoniana offers still more of the selections from “The Jolson Story”—other than those included in album number A-469—in addition to several other songs that will always be identified with the name, Al Jolson.

DECCA ALBUM No. A-575
Complete on Four Ten-inch Records

• 24106
  • Waiting For the Robert E. Lee (1:53)
  • When You Were Sweet Sixteen (3:01)
    Vocal with Quartet
• 24107
  • Golden Gate (1:58)
  • I’m Sitting On Top of the World (1:48)
    (Just Rolling Along—Just Rolling Along)
• 24108
  • Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (2:08)
    (Goo’Bye)
  • Back In Your Own Back Yard (2:23)
• 24109
  • Carolina in the Morning (2:31)
  • Liza (2:09)
    (All the Clouds’ll Roll Away)

(We got a small but very appreciated stack of old Decca 78’s from Prairie’s Grandfather. Most are from the late ‘40’s, like this one, but there are a few undated platters, some of which are even single-sided discs. Getting these imported is a little amusing; my turntable maxes out at 78rpm, so to get these to sound right, I have to import them at 45rpm — Jolson on some serious valium — and then speed up the recording in software.)