After starting off his recording career for Victor in 1911,
Jolson switched to Columbia two years later, and that's where these recordings begin, a 24-track single-disc set that truly lives up to its title. Here's the young and irreverent
Jolson of the Winter Garden, doing novelties like "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers" and "Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday On Saturday Night," and finding and recording signature songs like "Swanee," "Avalon," "Toot Toot Tootsie (Goodbye)," and "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody." If Jolie truly was the Moses of modern popular culture, then this set goes a very long way toward capturing the essence of why that's so.