California Here I Come

I just came back from California and the experience made me want to look for some sort of California sheet music cover for the blog. I came up with a classic, California Here I Come was a standard released in 1924 for the musical Bombo which starred Al Jolson (never my favorite singer). The song itself outlived the musical, finding a recurring place in Warner Brother's cartoons and I Love Lucy as well as being proposed as the state song of California (a proposal that failed in 1951). The musical Bombo is described by that all-knowing reference source, Wikipedia as follows:

"Bombo is a Broadway musical with a book by Harry Atteridge, lyrics by Harry Atteridge, and music by Sigmund Romberg.


Produced by Lee Shubert and J. J. Shubert, the Broadway production, staged by J. C. Huffman, opened on October 6, 1921 at the Jolson Theatre, where it ran for 219 performances. The cast included Al Jolson and Janet Adair.


The musical has a thin story designed to showcase Al Jolson, who was at the height of his popularity. Songs were added by several composers during the run of the show so that, by the end of the run, there were more songs by composers other than Romberg than by him. The success of the musical on Broadway led to a national tour"

Some people are into vanity publishing to support their egos, I guess when you carry as much musical sand as Jolson you do vanity Broadway productions! Then again, stating that a musical has a thin plot line is a little bit like complaining go-go dancers do nothing but gyrate (I sense certain members of my family are in the process of creating effigies of me for the burning right now)! From another online source we get a view into how the production went.

"California, Here I Come, was introduced to audiences in Al Jolson's highly successful show Bombo. In the first two weeks of its Los Angeles run the production grossed $75,200. Jolson canceled the Riverside and San Bernardino performances when he found the advance ticket receipts disappointing. The next night, instead of performing, Jolson was seen rooting at the fights in Vernon. When the Riverside Loring Theater manager learned Jolson feigned laryngitis to get out of his contract, he convinced the Santa Barbara sheriff to garnish $4,100 in box office sales when "Bombo" played there."

The reviews seem mixed! Regardless, we move on to the cover art.

It's – cliché at best. Jolson negotiated a price of $5000 for including his name and face on the cover of the sheet music and that's about all that's on the cover. A few oranges tossed in for color along with an indistinct convent-looking building that might be Capistrano. This particular piece is a member of the family of sheet music that depended on name recognition for sales, thus about all that stands out is Jolson, Jolson, and Jolson. Sad since the song was popular and endures long past Jolson's fame.