You are not logged in.   login to customize your own personal play list     

“Swanee” by Al Jolson

United States Federal Trade Commission forbids anyone under 13 from viewing these music videos!
I want another random song.
random song


rewind     play     pause     next song

play     pause     rewind     next song     TIME: starting

     
 

song info

    “Swanee” by Al Jolson is a jazz song.
    “Swanee” is an American popular song written in 1919 by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Irving Caesar. It is most often associated with singer Al Jolson.

    Song Title: Swanee
    Artist: Al Jolson
    Genre: jazz, Broadway
    Composer: Copyright © 1919 music: George Gershwin; lyrics: Irving Caesar
    Lead Vocals: Al Jolson
    Recorded: January 8, 1920
    Released: 1920
    Label: Columbia A 2884, matrix 78917-2

    This song is the number one (1) greatest 1920s popular song according to Digital Dream Door’s Bruce.

    Number of listens: 15055
    Current rank: 624 (updated weekly)
    Highest rank: 530 (play the video all the way through to register a vote for this song)

link to the static song information page for this song:
http://www.thissideofsanity.com/music/songs/sw/swanee.php

michaelm design
buy concert tickets from Ticket Liquidator buy music from iTunes buy songs from Amazon

    Summary quotation from Wikipedia:

    “Swanee” is an American popular song written in 1919 by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Irving Caesar. It is most often associated with singer Al Jolson.

    The song was written for a New York City revue called Demi-Tasse, which opened in October 1919 in the Capitol Theater. Caesar and Gershwin, who was then aged 20, claimed to have written the song in about ten minutes riding on a bus in Manhattan, and then at Gershwin’s apartment. It was written partly as a parody of Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home”. It was originally used as a big production number, with 60 chorus girls dancing with electric lights in their slippers on an otherwise darkened stage.

    The song had little impact in its first show, but not long afterwards Gershwin played it at a party where Al Jolson heard it. Jolson then put it into his show Sinbad, already a success at the Winter Garden Theatre, and recorded it for Columbia Records in January 1920. “After that,” said Gershwin, “Swanee penetrated the four corners of the earth.”. The song was charted in 1920 for 18 weeks holding No. 1 position for nine. It sold a million sheet music copies, and an estimated two million records. It became Gershwin’s first hit and the biggest-selling song of his career; the money he earned from it allowed him to concentrate on theatre work and films rather than writing further single pop hits. Arthur Schwartz said: “It’s ironic that he never again wrote a number equaling the sales of Swanee, which for all its infectiousness, doesn’t match the individuality and subtlety of his later works.”

    Jolson recorded the song several times in his career, and performed it in the movies The Jolson Story (1946), Rhapsody in Blue (1946), and Jolson Sings Again (1949). For the song’s performance in The Jolson Story, Jolson, rather than actor Larry Parks, appeared as himself, filmed in long shot. Although usually associated with Jolson, “Swanee” has been recorded by many other singers, most notably Judy Garland in A Star Is Born. Rufus Wainwright performs the song on his 2007 album, Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. In 1979 “Swanee” was performed by the Muppets.

—from Wikipedia (the Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License applies to Wikipedia’s block of text and possible accompanying picture, along with any alterations, transformations, and/or building upon Wikipedia’s original text that ThisSideofSanity.com applied to this block of text)

 
     

song information page

Contact
your name:
email address:
phone number:
(optional)
suggestions, corrections, additional information:
There is a delay before comments are posted because they must all be reviewed by a human to prevent spam.

open source code:

    This music player is available as open source code. Everyone can build their own personal free and legal music player. This source code is free for any legal non-commercial and/or non-profit and/or educational and/or private purpose. This open source player is courtesy of This Side of Sanity (ThisSideofSanity.com) and OSdata (OSdata.com).

    Build your own player. Avoid the hassles and fees of commercial music services. Let there be a million free and independent music players on the web. Strongly suggest building players dedicated to specific kinds of music. Notify me of the location (URL) and specialties of your custom player.


Proverb:

An answer is profitable in proportion to the intensity of the quest. —Proverb of the Inner Temple of Luxor

listen to music channels:

Adult ContemporaryHip-HopRap
Adult PopHouseReggae
AllIndependentRock
AlternativeJapaneseRockabilly
BluesJazzSmooth Jazz
ChristianKorean K-PopSoft Rock
Classic RockLatinSoul
CountryLatin PopSouthern Rock
Country RockMetalSurf
DanceMéxicanThis Side of Sanity
DemoMixedTop 30
DiscoModern RockTropical
Easy ListeningNew AgeWorld Music
ElectronicaNew Wave1940s
FolkOldies1950s
French MusicOld Pop1960s
FunkPop1970s
German MusicProgressive Rock1980s
GospelPsychedelic2000s
Hard RockR&B2010s
EDMIndianUrban

Green Orange archive
totals
michaelm


visitor number is 7

Twitter

Enjoy the This Side of Sanity website Twitter feed.

Enjoy the This Side of Sanity Twitter feed.


return to home page


    If you spot an error in fact, grammar, syntax, or spelling, or a broken link, or have additional information, commentary, or constructive criticism, please contact Milo at PO Box 5237, Balboa Island, Calif, 92662, USA.

    Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2013 Milo. All rights reserved. Todos Derechos Reservados. The copyrights on all source code and the data base belong to Milo and are used on this web site by permission.

ThisSideofSanity.com


count is 358 and current date is 2024-03-29 and date stored is 2022-05-01 exceeded limit
next date is 0000-00-00 and date stored is 2022-05-01