AMG Review of You Made Me Love You: His First Recordings, 1911-1916

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All Music Guide

In 1997, Stash Records presented Al Jolson's earliest works in a lavishly decorated, 24-track album of historic recordings made during the years 1911-1916. Jolie's oldest records have been reissued in a number of different editions by various labels. While Naxos Nostalgia is good for the master takes and main titles, few have gone about the task with as much intricacy as Stash; in fact only Pearl, with its exhaustively complete chronology, offers a more thorough retrospective. Listening to anyone recorded in 1911 can be a profoundly rewarding experience. These sides predate the introduction of the electrically powered microphone, and various instrumentalists provide marvelously arcane accompaniments for the man who like Enrico Caruso worked wonders to popularize and establish the medium of phonograph records. 1911 was the year that Jolson hit the big time by performing at the Winter Garden on Broadway; by December of that year he was recording for Victor. The tracks are laid out in approximate order of creation, beginning with the catchy "Rum Tum Tiddle" and its flipside, "That Haunting Melody." There are double takes of "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers," and the weirdly provocative "When the Grown Up Ladies Act Like Babies"; real connoisseurs will greatly appreciate Jolson's handling of the pseudo-Hawaiian novelty "Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula" (later to become a Dixieland jazz standard) and that overarching triumph of early Tin Pan Alley doubletalk, "Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go (With Friday on Saturday Night)?" This was a distant cousin to "What Did Romie-O Juliet (When He Climbed Her Balcony)?" and "Who Takes Care of the Caretaker's Daughter When the Caretaker's Busy Taking Care?"