WALTER DONALDSON BIOGRAPHY

THE MAN

BEHIND THE

MUSIC

One of eleven children in a music-loving family, the songwriting talents of Brooklyn-born Walter Donaldson bloomed under the watch of his classically trained mother, an organist at the local parish. After writing songs for school productions in his boyhood and demonstrating sheet music in five and ten cent stores in his early teens, young Walter took on work as a pianist at a Brighton Beach hotel and local nickelodeons before graduating to a role as a staff pianist at a music publishing firm on Tin Pan Alley. Walter Donaldson had found his calling…

Black and white photo of seven children, four girls and three boys, posed outdoors in front of a wooden fence and plants.
A young boy dressed in a formal suit and bow tie, standing on stairs outside a house with wooden railings and a staircase visible in the background.
Two young boys in vintage clothing pose for a black-and-white photograph, with one boy sitting on a wooden chair and the other standing beside him, in an old photography studio setting.

EARLY YEARS

Donaldson became an officially published songwriter in 1915 at the age of 22, and his first three songs became big hits.

He sold close to 8 million copies of sheet music for: “We’ll Have A Jubilee In My Old Kentucky Home,” “Just Try To Picture Me Back Home In Tennessee,” and “You’ll Never Know That Old Home Town Of Mine,“ the latter two introduced by Al Jolson and renowned vaudevillians Van & Schenck, respectively. The hits kept coming, and his songs became regular features in Vaudeville and other shows. After enlisting in the war effort, Donaldson frequently entertained the troops and often played at War Bond Rallies. At the end of World War I, Donaldson captured the zeitgeist of the times with the uproarious, irreverent “HowYa Gonna Keep ‘Em Down On The Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?),” an enduring ditty introduced at the Victory Parade by Lt. James Reese Europe and the Harlem Hellfighters Regiment and so prescient it became a constant refrain for troops sent overseas during the next World War over two decades later.

Black and white photograph of a crowded New York City street during a celebration, with American flags hanging from buildings and confetti in the air.
Black and white photo of a young soldier wearing a military uniform and a wide-brimmed hat.

From his earliest days as a songwriter up until the time he launched his own publishing company in 1928, Donaldsons' songs would be published by a total of eighteen different music publishers*, and another 1919 composition – this one a ballad published by Irving Berlin – would go on to have an equally enduring legacy as “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘em Down On The Farm.”

First introduced by vaudevillian William Frawley (later known as Fred on I Love Lucy), “My Mammy” caught the ear of Al Jolson, who promptly incorporated the song into his long-running Broadway show, Sinbad, before performing it in the landmark The Jazz Singer, history’s first-ever talkie. Artists throughout the years such as Judy Garland, Eddie Fisher, Jimmy Roselli, Liza Minnelli, Cher and U2 incorporated the song into their sets and recordings.

*In time, all but a handful of songs that Donaldson wrote came under the Donaldson Publishing Co. domain.

A vintage sheet music cover titled 'On the Good Ship Whippoorwill,' showing a stylized illustration of a steamboat on a river at sunset with a small inset photo of three men labeled as the Jewel Trio.
Sheet music cover titled "My Mammy" with a black-and-white portrait of Al Jolson in a suit and bow tie, surrounded by decorative floral designs.
Cover of a book titled "You're A Million Miles From Nowhere" with a painting of a rural scene featuring a dirt path, pumpkins, autumn trees, and a house in the background. The book is marked as an operative edition with words by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young, and music by Walter Donaldson.
A vintage cartoon poster titled "How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree?)" shows a scene with a man in a trench coat and hat reading a newspaper, a tractor, and a crowd of people in front of a barn, with some climbing on the barn and a figure on the roof.
Vintage illustrated cover of a book titled "You'd Never Know That Old Town of Mine" by Dorothy Meuther, featuring a man in a hat and coat with a suitcase in a lively city street scene with bright signs and buildings and an inset photo of Ed Morton.
Vintage poster featuring a woman with curled hair and dark lipstick, framed by an ornate oval border with floral and butterfly designs. Contains the text: 'DON'T CRY FRENCHY DON'T CRY'. credits to Dave Barre and the music by Walter Donaldson.

ROARING

TWENTIES

Already considered a prolific composer by 1920 with some 70 songs to his name after just five years in the business, Donaldson’s output exploded when the clock struck the Roaring Twenties. While continuing to write lyrics himself plus team up with other lyricists like Sam Lewis & Joe Young, Grant Clarke, Howard Johnson, George Whiting, and Billy Rose throughout the Jazz Age, Donaldson began a long and fruitful collaboration with close friend Gus Kahn in 1922. The duo started kicking out an impressive string of hits that included “My Buddy,” ”Carolina In The Morning,” and “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” ultimately pairing up to write the score for the 1928 Ziegfeld smash hit, Whoopee, featuring the classics “Makin’ Whoopee” and “Love Me Or Leave Me.”

A collage of vintage sheet music covers from the mid-20th century, featuring artwork and titles of songs such as 'My Buddy,' 'Carolina in the Morning,' 'That Certain Party,' 'Yes Sir! That's My Baby,' 'My Blue Heaven,' 'Where You Get Who,' 'My Ohio Home,' 'Reaching for Someone,' 'Kansas City Kitty,' 'After I Say I Am Sorry,' 'At Sundown,' 'He's The Last Word,' 'Sam, The Old Accordion Man,' 'I Wonder Where My Baby Is To-Night,' 'Changes,' 'Love Me or Leave Me,' and 'Tain't No Sin.' The covers display illustrations of people, often in stylized, colorful, and expressive artwork typical of the era, with some featuring portraits, couples, and animated figures.
A black and white vintage photo of a man and woman dressed formally in evening attire, standing close together and looking in different directions. The man is in a tuxedo with a bow tie, and the woman has curly hair and is holding an envelope or small booklet.

Newlyweds Walter and Dorothy Donaldson at the Hollywood premiere of The Great Ziegfeld, which earned three Oscars, including Best Picture. A former Ziegfeld Girl (stage name: Walda Mansfield), ”Wally” bore the bon vivant two daughters, Sheila and Ellen, who were raised in L.A

HOLLYWOOD

YEARS

At the onset of the Depression in 1929, Walter Donaldson left for Hollywood where Samuel Goldwyn and Florenz Ziegfeld were producing the film version of Whoopee.

He and lyricist Gus Kahn added a couple new songs to the score, including “My Baby Just Cares For Me” which helped make Eddie Cantor a movie star. Whoopee! also launched the film careers of other Hollywood greats Busby Berkeley, Gregg Toland, Alfred Newman, Paulette Goddard, and Betty Grable. For the next 15 years, Donaldson made prominent contributions to a number of studio films, including one (“Did I Remember” from Suzy, starring Cary Grant and Jean Harlow) which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Song in 1936. It was a busy year for Donaldson, who had songs in five other MGM films, including the groundbreaking and wildly successful The Great Ziegfeld.

In addition to his work in motion pictures, the 30s saw evolutions in Donaldson’s music that were likely a result of the move to Hollywood, tragedies big and small (the Great Depression and the death of his own twin brother, Arthur), and also falling in love for the first time in a long, long time – there is evidence to suggest that his last serious relationship ended all the way back in 1922 after his fiancée passed away, a personal loss that served as the inspiration for “My Buddy.” The birth of his two daughters, Sheila and Ellen, also delighted him to no end, and he went to great lengths to shower them both with love, brazenly sending them large bouquets of flowers while they were in class at grade school. All this to say that Donaldson’s music changed considerably out west. A deeply sensitive man, his music and lyrics always reflected the extraordinary times in which he lived and worked, the people and places he loved.

A collage of vintage vinyl record album covers featuring classic artists such as Judy Garland, Zeigfeld, Eddie Cantor, Shearer Montague, Harlow Suzy, Hello Beautiful, Cloud, Walter Donaldson, Little White Lies, Don't Do Anything I Wouldn't Do.

UNKNOWN

TREASURES

In the late 1980s, Donaldson’s ailing widow, Wally, pulled out a small box that had been buried deep in her closet for many decades, handing it to Ellen, who opened it up to discover a handwritten list of previously unknown songs that had lain dormant since they were written in the 30s and 40s, unpublished and unrecorded. The list sparked Ellen’s own quixotic hunt for what would end up being a wealth of original material, prompting jazz great Benny Carter to introduce her to esteemed arranger/conductor Lon Norman, who recorded many of the songs, in part just so that the family could hear them for the first time.

The results opened up a whole new window into Donaldson’s music, filled with increasingly sophisticated song structures and worldly textures, from exotic Latin rhythms to Celtic melodies and Appalachian bluegrass. As Norman made his way through the piles of unknown, mostly handwritten music, he observed, “By seeing how he moves the notes, you understand how he thinks. His musical fingerprints are all over everything…”

A black and white photograph of a man and a child walking through a park with trees. The image has the text 'homecoming...' in orange in the top left corner, and the text 'the lost and found music of walter donaldson 1931 - 1943' in white and orange at the bottom right.
Sepia-toned photograph of a man in vintage clothing, wearing a straw hat and a scarf, standing in front of an old-fashioned car with wire-spoked wheels outdoors.

THE WAR YEARS

Never without his notebook and stubby little pencil, Donaldson continued to write day and night into the mid-40s.

Music was the constant in a world that was filled with uncertainty and suddenly at war again. Throughout the war years Donaldson was active in the USO, often entertaining troops at the Hollywood Canteen and at various Allied Resistance benefits. Always hospitable, known for his material and emotional generosity, he and his family regularly opened their Santa Monica home to servicemen and women who were on leave.

Toward the end of the war, the bon vivant who had always lived life to the fullest was suddenly besieged by health problems – all the fun and good times were finally taking toll. (Of all the ironic song titles he came up with, “Don’t Do Anything I Wouldn’t Do” certainly takes the cake.) Seriously ill and dispirited, Donaldson’s brilliant, colorful career was cut short when he died in 1947 at the age of 54.

A CONTINUING

LEGACY

Stay up-to-date on Donaldson Publishing as they embark on a series of collaborations with contemporary artists and producers on covers, remixes, samples and interpolations of songs written by Walter Donaldson.

For questions, media inquiries or more information, complete the form or contact info@songsofwalterdonaldson.com.