Free Jazz Standard Sheet Music Downloads

"Sonny Boy" is a sentimental hit song from 1928, with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by B.G. DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Al Jolson. Featured in the early sound film The Singing Fool, where Jolson sang it to a young child, the song became the first film song to sell over a million copies of sheet music, records, and piano rolls combined.

The tune follows a 32-bar AABA form, typically in G major. According to the famous anecdote, the songwriting team of DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson deliberately wrote the most saccharine ballad they could imagine, hoping Jolson would reject it — instead, he embraced it wholeheartedly. The melody is built on sustained tones and gentle intervals, designed for maximum vocal expressiveness and emotional impact.

Jolson's 1928 recording held the number one position for twelve consecutive weeks. While not a standard fixture at modern jazz jam sessions, the song was widely recorded by early jazz vocalists and swing bands, and it remains a significant artifact of the Jazz Age and the dawn of talking pictures.