Well folks, we now continue with Part V of my interview with Rich Conaty from WFUV. He has been the host of the Big Broadcast radio program for over 30 years. This spectacular Sunday night radio show features only classic songs from the '20s and '30s. He will be sharing his thoughts on Al Jolson, Cab Calloway, Connee Boswell, tips on buying 78's, the new DVD release of the Jazz Singer, the Ziegfeld Follies, Vince Giordano's Nighthawks and more.

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 "So this is all after the interview, the tapes had stopped rolling, and I spent the rest of the afternoon getting drunk with the King of Hi De Ho. And I’ll never regret it. And a week or so later, I got a package of 78’s from Cab and I think he had told his Manager "Let the kid have these" because he was now a CD guy. And there were some of these wonderful records, things going back to 1931, 1932, things like Brunswick and Perfect. I never met him again after that but I did have the great joy in seeing him perform a number of times after that over the years, he was just a terrific talent."

Brian Marcus Decker: Can you tell us what are some of your favorite Al Jolson songs and even movies and what significance they have to you?

Rich Conaty: You know it’s funny, I was watching Halleluiah, I’m a Bum the other night, and I really like it. It does seem that it just ends kind of suddenly, but what I thought was really neat about it, I thought Jolson was terrific in it. It looked to me that a good deal of his singing was being done live on camera, which was really neat because it seems so much more human than someone performing to a prerecorded track.

I just found Jolson a very effecting performer on screen. Jumping back to the earliest stuff, I was so happy when, the Vitaphone people were involved in putting together Plantation Act, which is sort of cool seeing Jolson at that stage. And I’m really happy to report that we did a deal with the folks at Warner Home Video, we’re going to be offering when we do the next fundraiser at WFUV, we’re going to be offering to contributors the new DVD release of the Jazz Singer. Which is going to be neat because apparently the most brilliant transfers that have yet been done plus all the supplemental material, all the Vitaphone shorts and everything else, it sounds like it’s going to be a terrific package. And of course, I can’t resist seeing Jolson and Cab Calloway doing I Love To Singa.

As far as the records, I tend to gravitate to the earlier stuff, the acoustic stuff. And I really wish there were more CD’s of good quality transfers of some of those Brunswick’s from around 1924 because there are some wonderful songs. But the sound of the Brunswick’s can be tough and you’ve really got to work at pulling the right sound out of it. But I think that period of Jolson, the Hello, Tucky period of Jolson, I really enjoy hearing Buddy DeSylva on the uke, I dig that sound.

Brian Marcus Decker: You know the story of Buddy DeSylva, he was actually playing the yuke and Jolson saw him and that’s how their relationship started. This is even before that there was anything going on with him as a songwriter with Jolson.

Now Al Jolson appeared in the 1936 classic film The Singing Kid with legendary king of Hi De Ho, Cab Calloway. This Jolson movie delivers not just a great cast with Jolson, but Cab Calloway, our favorite child actress, Sybil Jason. This gem of a movie also features a collection of famous Jolson songs, including Swanee, Rock A Bye, California Here I come, April Showers, and of course the energetic Jolson and Cab Calloway duet of I Love To Singa, written by the songwriting team of Arlen and Harburg.

I’d also like to recognize that this is 2007, and it is also the centennial celebration year for Cab Calloway who was born on December 25, 1907. Cab, in his amazing glory, conquered every branch of show business from Harlem to Hollywood with his own infectious musical style that was just amazing. This legendary king, Cab Calloway, was an energetic scatting and jiving and jazz singer, he was a talented actor, dancer, composer, and band leader for one of the most popular African American jump and hop swing bands.

It seemed more than just a coincidence that you have more than just a personal and professional connection to Cab Calloway. First off, as you mentioned before, Cab did appear in the 1932 film The Big Broadcast with George Burns, Gracie Allen and Bing Crosby. The film, of course, has become an inspiration for your radio show for over 30 years. I’d also like to know that Cab appeared in three of my favorite Betty Boop animated cartoons from 1932 and 1933 including Snow White, The Old Man of the Mountain, and of course, Minnie the Moocher. Calloway is actually featured in two of the Betty Boop animated shorts, Snow White and The Old Man of the Mountain by the old Fleischer Studios.

Now I’ve read somewhere that you did have an opportunity to interview Cab Calloway before his death untimely in 1994. Can you share with us some of the highlights of that experience?

Rich Conaty: Sure. You mentioned the Fleischer stuff, I think it was at Carnegie Hall; Calloway did something that I thought was absolutely fearless. They showed a clip from one of the cartoons and I think it was Saint James Infirmary, and they went from him performing on the screen in, I guess, 1931. And he came out and he continued singing the song. And we’re talking 50 years later, and man, he sounded so good. He was of unbelievable talent. I forget how it exactly happened; I think I was contacted by Cab’s Manager, a guy named Stan Scottland, who suggested doing an interview with Cab at his home in White Plains. And the only ground rules were I couldn’t ask him how he got started because I assumed he thought that that was taught in school or something, so you couldn’t ask him how he got started, and you had to make sure you worked in the fact that you thought Stormy Weather was the greatest musical ever made. So I was okay, I didn’t feel hampered by those ground rules.

I went up to his home and I brought the copy of The Big Broadcast sheet music; Cab Calloway was the first person that I ever met that owned a CD player and he was so excited about it. When I came in I think he was listening, might have been listening to Barbra Streisand and then he put on a Wynton Marsalis classical CD, and then we did the interview. I think once he found that I was okay, that I knew about his career, he became very much at ease and we did interview, he did talk about how he got started and I think he talked about his sister Blanche. And I thought, well great, I got a picture with him, thought that was it, and he invited me into his den, his wife brought in some snacks and he had this scotch called Swing, which he said he had discovered when he was doing a lot of dates on cruise ships. And it had a rounded bottle, so the bottle couldn’t fall over when the seas got choppy.

So I sat there with Cab and we had snacks and had scotch and he wouldn’t let me have scotch and water, rocks were okay but he didn’t want me adding any water to the Swing. And we sat there listening to a Quincy Jones big band CD from the ‘50’s, because he was still just so taken with the sound of CD’s.

So this is all after the interview, the tapes had stopped rolling, and I spent the rest of the afternoon getting drunk with the King of Hi De Ho. And I’ll never regret it. And a week or so later, I got a package of 78’s from Cab and I think he had told his Manager "Let the kid have these" because he was now a CD guy. And there were some of these wonderful records, things going back to 1931, 1932, things like Brunswick and Perfect. I never met him again after that but I did have the great joy in seeing him perform a number of times after that over the years, he was just a terrific talent.

Jolson Blog: The Big Broadcast Interview with Rich Conaty Part VI: January 27, 2008

Jolson and Friends Blog Required Reading List

No Applause--Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous (Paperback) by Trav S.D.

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

My Fifteen Minutes: An Autobiography of a Child Star of the Golden Era of Hollywood (Paperback) by Sybil Jason

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

When Jolson Was King: (Paperback) by Richard Grudens

Richard Grudens has written an entertaining and informative (must read) book for anyone interested in the legendary, Al Jolson "The World's Greatest Entertainer".

"The book contains many facets of Jolson' career including those around him, his competition, employers, and comments from those he inspired enough to form their own careers, the issue of minstrel, blackface performers, fabled stories of the famed Friar's Club, a chapter of the infamous Shubert Brothers, and chapters covering Jolson's experiences in film, radio and his extensive USO travels. Covered too are vignettes of the theatres in which Jolson performed, and of those great theatrical competitors like the Barrymore's and where they were voicing their talents while Jolson was pulling them in at the Winter Garden, and a full feature on Jolson's films from the first talkie, The Jazz Singer to his famed bio-pics The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again." - Richard Grudens

Click here to shop and buy this book from Amazon

Changes to Jolson and Friends Blog

In the upcoming months I am looking to continue to evolve the Jolson and Friends Blog and wanted preview some upcoming changes. I am continuing to promote the sale of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Houdini, History of Baseball and several other unique Limited Edition T-shirt designs (featured above) and matching gift cards (all with free U.S. shipping). The sales from these items help offset the cost of maintaining this blog. Your continued support is greatly appreciated and besides they are great T-shirts.

Due to the time intensive nature of ongoing research, content development, production and maintaining and the Blog, the next blog update will happen on January 27, 2008.

I am starting to work on several future Jolson and Friends projects including:

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