Writer(s):

Walter Donaldson/
George Whiting

Quotable:

Nine different artists have sent versions of this song up the U.S. pop charts, but Austin’s was the biggest.

First charted:

Charts:

HT: 1 ¹³
HP: --
CB: --
UK: --
AC: --
CW: --
RB: --
AR: --
MR: --
AA: --

Sales (in millions):

sales in U.S. only 5.0
sales in U.K. only - estimated --
sales worldwide - estimated 6.0 *

* includes 1 million in sheet music sales

Airplay (in millions):

Awards:

My Blue Heaven

Gene Austin

Review:

Eddie Cantor introduced this song in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. ^JA Austin and Paul Whiteman both had #1 versions of the song that year; two more top ten versions came the next year. The song was also a notable hit for New Orleans R&B singer and pianist Fats Domino nearly 30 years later when he had a #5 R&B hit and #19 pop hit with it. “The song was revived as a title theme song for a minor musical drama starring Betty Grable and Dan Dailey in 1950, and forty years later for a Steve Martin comedy about a small-time gangster who is relocated as part of a witness protection program.” ^JA

However, Austin’s version is the biggest, selling over 5 million copies, making it one of the ten best sellers of the first half of the century, ^PM the biggest song of 1927, ^WHC and the second biggest non-holiday record seller of the entire pre-1955 era. ^PM

In the wake of the song’s initial success, Gene Austin reportedly bought a yacht which he named ‘My Blue Heaven’. Sales of the song skyrocketed when, on his first trek out, the boat was caught in a hurricane and rumor had it that he’d drowned. ^DS

His tenor voice has been credited as the onset of the crooner revolution. ^DS Blogger Jonathan Bogart called Austin “the stuffiest, squarest popular singer around,” ^DS saying that Austin would serve up “unimaginative…but serviceable” ^DS “standard-issue Tin Pan Alley…fluff.” ^DS For “Heaven,” Austin demonstrated “how deeply jazz had soaked into the collective unconscious of popular entertainment” ^DS with his “wordless warble…in the middle of the song.” ^DS The producers also tacked some fake birdsong on to the last chorus, a hint of the “the future of artificial sound in pop music.” ^DS

Review Source(s):

^DS Don’t Stay Up Too Late (2011). Top 100 Lists
^JA David A. Jasen. (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Pages 38 and 139.
^PM Joel Whitburn (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954. Menomonee Falls, WI; Record Research, Inc. Page 631.
^WHC Joel Whitburn (1999). A Century of Pop Music. Menomonee Falls, WI; Record Research, Inc. Page 42.