Asv Living Era
2000
Banjo Eyes
About This Album
Eddie Cantor progressed during his long career successively through vaudeville, Broadway, film, radio, and television, with some overlap. Cantor's work in the recording studio should be understood as a complementary adjunct to his efforts in his main areas of performing rather than an equal part of that career. His biographer, Herbert G. Goldman, lists recording sessions stretching from 1917 to 1960, and Pop Memories, Joel Whitburn's book of chart recreations, lists 24 hits for him between 1917 and 1950, including three, "Margie," "No, No, Nora," and "If You Knew Susie," that peaked at number one. But this is deceptive. Cantor first went into a commercial recording studio shortly after his transition from vaudeville to Broadway in order to produce a disc version of two songs he was singing in the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic, and that set a pattern for his recorded work. At a time when records didn't sell all that well, his recordings tended to shadow his stage, film, and radio triumphs, not to serve as an independent source of expression.

In its usual manner, ASV/Living Era, the British archival label, has created a survey of his recording career in Makin' Whoopee with "Banjo Eyes" by doing digital transfers of 78 rpm records and then taking, in the words of a sleeve note, "endless care.
Track List (try tracks 2,4,6,12,13 and 24)

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