A new blogger at the Washington Examiner. Note the “Sonny Boy” song. It could someday make the basis for a great song parody. I believe when Jolson first saw the song he absolutely hated it because it was so corny. However, it turned out to be a hit.
I say the judge gives him 40 years tomorrow and then later they start quietly shaving off time when he rats out the others including a certain tanning lamp fan.
...In his next film, The Singing Fool, Jolson was to play the part of a brash entertainer who is heartbroken at the death of his little boy. Although the movie had to include a song on this theme, no one had been able to come up with the right one. In desperation, Jolson had decided to track down the three buddies who had written so many hit songs for him in the past.
Jolson was not noted for his tact, and the three songwriters were piqued by this last-minute, long-distance order. They were amazed that Jolson could want a song on such a sentimental theme. As DeSylva said: “Who could take a thing like that seriously?”
Reacting to the request as if it were a joke, between them, amid hysterical laughter, the three put together “Sonny Boy,” a song containing just about every musical cliché imaginable. So ridiculous did they feel the song to be that they could not bring themselves to put it in the mailbox but instead asked a bellboy to do it for them.
Jolson did not see the joke. Instead of throwing the song into the garbage can, he gave it everything he had as a performer. The result: “Sonny Boy” was among the first recordings to sell a million copies, and The Singing Fool became the greatest box-office success of all time, unsurpassed until Gone With the Wind opened in 1939.