Today in Music (1925): “Yes Sir! That’s My Baby” hit #1

Yes Sir! That’s My Baby Gene Austin & Billy Carpenter

Writer(s): Walter Donaldson (music), Gus Kahn (words) (see lyrics here) First Charted: August 1, 1925 Peak: 17 PM, 14 GA, 18 SM, 4 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 (sheet music) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.05 video, 0.03 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “Yes Sir! That’s My Baby” was a collaboration between lyricist Gus Kahn and composer Walter Donaldson, who also had hits with “My Buddy” and “Carolina in the Morning.” The song was written for Eddie Cantor. Kahn was at Cantor’s house, playing with a wind-up toy pig that belonged to Cantor’s daughter and improvising lyrics as the toy “toddled around the room.” TY2 It became “a standard and a favorite of jazz bands.” DJ The song charted five times in 1925 with vocal versions by Gene Austin (#1), Blossom Seeley (#2), and Ace Brigode (#10), PM-615 as well as instrumental versions by Ben Bernie (#5) and the and Coon-Sanders Orchestra (#11). PM-615 Ricky Nelson charted with the song in 1960 (#34 BB) and the Baja Marimba Band did so in 1968 (#93 CB, 87 HR). It was the first chart-topper for the “sweet-voiced” TY2 Austin, who would reach #1 nine times in his career, most notably with “My Blue Heaven,” a five-million seller that spent 13 weeks at the pinnacle. Austin was born in 1900 in Gainsville, Texas. He started in vaudeville and “his amiable vocal and piano style launched him on radio and records” PM-38 and a career as “the most popular singer of the late 1920s.” PM-38 The “fast paced mid-1920s jazz song” SM “Yes Sir! That’s My Baby” was very different than the “soft ballad crooning style” SM of Gene Austin’s first solo hit, “Yearning (Just for You).” Billy Yuke Carpenter is credited on the recording for “ukulele and jazz effects, the like of which had not been heard on a number one single before.” SM He was born William Arnold Costello in 1898 in Providence, Rhode Island. While he became “a noted ukulele player…his singing was what made this record stand out from the crowd. He made his voice sound like a musical instrument and sang in a style that at the time was called effing but later became known as scat.” SM Resources: DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 219. SM Sharon Mawer Charts (1900-1968) TY2 Don Tyler (2007). Hit Songs, 1900-1955. McFarland & Company, Inc.: Jefferson, North Carolina. Page 142. PM Joel Whitburn (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954. Record Research, Inc: Menomonee Falls, WI. Pages 38-39, 615. Related Links: First posted 12/26/2025.