Jazz Age: George Olsen's Orchestra - Thinking of You, 1926

George Olsen & His Music – Thinking Of You, Fox-Trot (Walter Donaldson /Paul Ash) with Vocal refrain: Fran Frey, Bob Rice & Bob Borger, Victor 1926 (USA) NOTE: Here’s one more “urban loneliness” melancholy tune, composed by one of the most talented American composes of the Jazz Age. I l;ove thisa goy solet mew write a few words about hi.m. Born in Brooklyn (1893) as one of 11 children in a music-loving family, was early in his childhood taught to play piano by hios mother - a classically trained pianist and teacher. As a boy he wrote songs for school productions, worked as a pianist in neighborhood nickelodeons and after a brief episode with the world of finance and Wall Street, Donaldson began his professional music career as a pianist and song writer in Tin Pan Alley. During the 1st WW he was mobilized and his songs entertained troops and also appeared in Vaudevilles in out-of-army performances. One of his legendary songs were in that time “How ‘Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down On The Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree)” and “ My Buddy,”. IN early post-war years he also composed the world-famous hot-dance hits including “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “(What Can I Say) After I Say I’m Sorry,” “At Sundown,” “My Blue Heaven,” “I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight,” “Because My Baby Don’t Mean Maybe Now,” “That Certain Party,” “Don’t Be Angry,” “He’s The Last Word,” “Changes,” “Thinking Of You,” “There Ain’t No Maybe In My Baby’s Eyes”, among hundreds of others. In 1928 he and his close friend, Gus Kahn (with whom he had written “My Buddy,” the first of over 100 songs they would write together) teamed again to write the score for the smash hit Ziegfeld show “Whoopee,” featuring the classics “Makin’ Whoopee,” sung by Eddie Cantor and “Love Me Or Leave Me,” sung by Ruth Etting. For Samuel Goldwyn’s film version of the show they added another classic : “My Baby Just Cares For Me.” He continued, in the following decades, to write some of the world’s best-loved standards including: “Little White Lies,” “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” “Hello Beautiful!,” “T’ain’t No Sin,” “Without That Gal,” “An Ev’ning In Caroline,” “Dancing In The Moonlight,” and many many others. Throughout the years of the 2nd World War he actively participated in the various Allied Resistance Benefits. He opened his Santa Monica home to welcome into his family countless men and women serving in the Armed Forces, who were on leave, for a respite near the beach. He died in 1947, leaving the superb legacy of dozens of songs that have never gone away.