Dean and Me_ A Love Story - Jerry Lewis [98]
“‘Rock-a-Bye,’” he said.
Thank you, God. You’ve given me what I needed. “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody” was one of Al Jolson’s signature numbers, his showstopper, and my dad, who built his act around his Jolson impersonation, sang it all the time. I not only knew it by heart, but my key was close enough to Judy’s that when the conductor hit the downbeat, I was ready to go.
I had so much adrenaline pumping through me that I barely thought about the fact that I hadn’t sung on stage in twenty-five years. My previous solo had been “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” at the President Hotel in Swan Lake, New York, in 1931—at which time, as you’ll recall, I was five years old.
Now I was thirty. I got down on one knee, just the way Jolson had, just the way my dad had, and sang with no mugging, no funny business. When I was done, the place exploded. I walked off the stage knowing I could make it on my own.
What happened next is a perfect illustration of the rule that when it comes to good luck, the best kind is the kind you make yourself. The reaction to my singing had been so strong that two weeks later, thinking Why not?, I went to Capitol and asked them if they’d be interested in cutting an album of me singing standards, straight.
Was that bold of me? Egotistical? Sure it was. Capitol certainly thought so. They were friendly and polite, but brief and to the point: No, thank you.
So I took out my checkbook. I hired the conductor-arranger Buddy Bregman, paid for a forty-five-piece orchestra, and rented the same Capitol studio where Dean and I had recorded “The Money Song” in 1948. What a difference eight years can make. This time around, I recorded four demo disks—including “Rock-a-Bye” and another Jolson standard, “Sitting on Top of the World.” The result sounded pretty damn good to me, and I took it to Capitol.
Again: Thanks, but no thanks.
Now, another man might have folded his tent, but I’ve always been a stubborn bastard. I shlepped my demos to the other record labels in town, and the people at Decca liked what they heard. If I recorded a half-dozen or so more songs, they told me, they would put out an album of me singing straight.
In September I recorded eight more songs, and in November, Jerry Lewis Just Sings, along with a single of “Rock-a-Bye,” was in the stores.
I never expected what happened next: Both the album and the single hit the Billboard charts. The single rose as high as No. 10 and remained near the top for almost four months, eventually selling a million and a half copies. The album hit No. 3 on the LP charts.
Along with all the other hats I wore, I was now officially a singer.
I have no idea what was going through Dean’s mind then, but I know this couldn’t have been easy for him. Not one of his albums had ever made the charts, and only two of his singles, “That’s Amore” and “Memories Are Made of This,” had done as well as “Rock-a-Bye.” His most recent hit single, “Watching the World Go By,” had only reached No. 83. Certain would-be humorists in the entertainment business had nicknamed my album “Music to Get Even with Dean Martin By.”
I wasn’t trying to get even. At the time, I thought I was just getting on with my life. The Delicate Delinquent, with Darren McGavin playing the cop role that Dean had refused, had wrapped in October, and I thought it was terrific. NBC and I were firming up an agreement for my first solo TV special in January. And on the strength of my surprise appearance at the Frontier, I suddenly had a lot of club dates lined up.
I won’t kid you—the breakup was still much on my mind. I missed Dean like hell. But action is a great pain reliever: When you’ve got a lot going on, there’s only so much time you can devote to introspection. The public, however, still didn’t want to let go. And so when Look magazine came and interviewed me in January, I tried to