Harry Stewart (October 21, 1908 – May 20, 1956), born Harry Skarbo, was an entertainer, singer, comedian, and songwriter. He was best known for his portrayal of Yogi Yorgesson, a comically exaggerated

Swedish American Swedish Americans ( sv, svenskamerikaner) are Americans of Swedish ancestry. They include the 1.2 million Swedish immigrants during 1865–1915, who formed tight-knit communities, as well as their descendants and more recent immigrants. Today, ...

.Harry Stewart biography
''wisc.edu''. Retrieved: October 12, 2021.

Biography

Harry Edward Skarbo was born in

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Pa ...

, to Hans H. Skarbo (1878–1941) an immigrant from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

, and Elsie (Gilbertson) Skarbo (1882– 1911) who was the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. After the death of his mother, he was adopted by the Stewart family. Growing up in the Proctor District, he attended Washington Grade School and Stadium High School in Tacoma. In 1927, Stewart worked as an announcer, weather reporter, newsman and banjo player on

KVI KVI (570 AM) is a commercial radio station in Seattle, Washington. Owned by Lotus Communications, it airs a conservative talk radio format called "News Talk 570 KVI." Its transmitter is on Vashon Island and its studios and offices are locate ...

, a radio station that had recently started in Tacoma. Stewart developed the character of Yogi Yorgesson while appearing on the

Al Pearce Albert Pearce (July 25, 1898 – June 2, 1961) was an American comedian, singer and banjo player who was a popular personality on several radio networks from 1928 to 1947. Biography After selling insurance door-to-door during the 1920s, Pear ...

radio show from Fall, 1932, to 1937. He then began performing a comedy routine as Yogi in nightclubs. Yogi was originally a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

mystic from

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

, but in time his crystal ball act was abandoned as Yogi was transformed into an

everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...

; Stewart nonetheless deliberately tried to make Yorgesson more intelligent than the stereotype of the naive rubes that other Scandinavian dialect comedians were using. Harry and his wife, Gretchen Ida (Sissell) Ross (1909–1998) moved to Chicago in 1939, where he became a script writer. He kept the Yorgesson character alive, touring occasionally. During World War II, Harry became part of the WBBM production staff in May, 1942. By December Yogi was performing for the station. This, in turn, led to Harry's first published work as a songwriter in 1946, when the King's Jesters recorded his song, "Humphrey, the Sweet Singing Pig," for Vogue Picture Records. Yogi Yorgesson then attracted the attention of a local record company, S&G Records, that was pressing in Los Angeles. His first single, "My Clam Digger Sweetheart"/"I Don't Give a Hoot," was popular enough that

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of not ...

purchased the rights to his recordings. The second Yorgesson release was an early version of "All Pooped Out," which Stewart re-recorded later for Capitol. Once Capitol signed Yogi in October 1949, S&G promoted the singles with ads in trade magazines, and they sold quite well—100,000 copies of the two singles together. Capitol billed their first Yorgesson single, "

I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas" is a 1949 Christmas novelty song and monologue written and performed by Harry Stewart as fictional Swede "Yogi Yorgesson". Stewart was backed by the Johnny Duffy Trio on the song. Synopsis The song is made of two part ...

"/"Yingle Bells," as a Christmas special, and sales took off immediately. Advance orders came from all around the nation, so that Capitol announced that they had a hit on their hands. The song debuted on December 10 at number 24. By the following week, both sides were in the Top Twenty, and the week before Christmas saw both sides of the single in the Top Ten. Right after Christmas, "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas" reached number five, and the single became one of Capitol's permanent hits—being reissued virtually every year. Once Capitol saw that Yogi was going to be a star, they prepared the follow-up release, "The Bees and the Birds"/"Real Gone Galoot." That single was released in January (1950), just as sales of the Christmas single were starting to taper off. As Stewart toured, he found that audiences were beginning to prefer his singing comedy over his earlier crystal-ball act, so he began adding his songs to his live repertoire. Although Stewart made money for Capitol, so that he continued with the label for the rest of his career, he had trouble impressing music critics. Reviews in trade magazines were rarely favorable—being generally unappreciative of Stewart's brand of humor. From 1948 through 1956 Stewart recorded over forty songs as Yogi Yorgesson. Harry was also recognizable, as Yogi, in the Capitol Records promotional film, "Wanna Buy a Record," which starred

Mel Blanc Melvin Jerome Blanc (born Blank ; May 30, 1908July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and radio personality whose career spanned over 60 years. During the Golden Age of Radio, he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for comedy r ...

. Not content to remain in his niche, he released a political single called "I'm Gonna Vote Republican." The other side was "I'm Gonna Vote for a Democrat." He also hit later that year, 1952, with a concept record called his Family Album. By this time, Yogi's first Capitol single was still the tenth-best-selling overall by the company; only three singles that had come out after "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas" had outsold it. Beginning in 1953 he adopted other comic personas for some of his releases:

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

(Harry Kari), country bumpkin (Claude Hopper) and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

(Klaus Hammerschmidt).''The Capitol Label Discography'' by Michel Ruppli; William R Daniels; Ed Novitsky, (Almere, The Netherlands: Names & Numbers, 2007). His first single as Harry Kari was a parody of " Yes, Sir, That's My Baby." The record received a terrible review in the March 14, 1953, issue of Billboard stating the record "is supposed to be a comical version of the oldie. It isn't." The following week's paper showed the record as selling in several markets around the country. According to one disc jockey who had to play the record, it was one of the biggest hits of the time but at the same time "one of the most horrible records (he had) ever heard." After that record sold well, prompting several follow-up releases.

Death

Harry Stewart was killed in an automobile accident in 1956 while returning to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

from an appearance in

Ely, Nevada Ely (, ) is the largest city and county seat of White Pine County, Nevada, United States. Ely was founded as a stagecoach station along the Pony Express and Central Overland Route. In 1906 copper was discovered. Ely's mining boom came later tha ...

. He was survived by his wife Gretchen, a son, and a stepdaughter. His widow later married comedic actor Jim Edward Jordan.

Legacy

In 1949

released "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas" and "Yingle Bells," a single by Yogi Yorgesson with the Johnny Duffy Trio. This record was the most popular of Stewart's career, selling over one million copies and earning a

gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

. The two songs have for many years been holiday favorites on the

Dr. Demento Barret Eugene Hansen (born April 2, 1941), known professionally as Dr. Demento, is an American radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograp ...

show.

Stan Boreson Stan Boreson (May 5, 1925 – January 27, 2017), the "King of Scandinavian Humor," was a Norwegian-American comedian, accordionist and singer from Everett, Washington. Boreson was an early local TV star in the Seattle area, with a career that includ ...

and Doug Setterberg recorded eighteen songs written by Harry Stewart and thereby introduced Yogi Yorgesson to a new generation of fans. Five of his songs appeared on their album ''Honey / Little Green Apples'' (1969) and another five on ''Yust Go Nuts at Christmas'' (1971). Boreson also recorded the 1980 tribute album ''Yust Tinkin' Of Yogi'' with eleven more songs by Stewart. More than a half century after his death, Stewart's recordings are still sold by vintage music stores and online retailers. They can also be found at video-sharing websites and other digital archives, and "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas" remains in regular

recurrent rotation In broadcasting, rotation is the repeated airing of a limited playlist of songs on a radio station or satellite radio channel, or music videos on a TV network. They are usually in a different order each time. However, they are not completely sh ...

on radio stations during the Christmas season.Yogi Yorgesson
''youtube.com''. Retrieved November 14, 2013.

Selected discography

*1952 ''Yogi Yorgesson's Family Album'' LP *1953 ''The Trials and Tribulations of Yogi Yorgesson'' EP *1954 ''Yingle Bells'' EP *1957 ''Comedy Caravan'' LP *1961 ''The Great Comedy Hits of Harry Stewart'' LP *1991 ''Have Yourself A Crazy Little Christmas'' CD *2009 ''Comedy Caravan'' (iTunes)

References

External links

Harry Stewart (1950–1962)
*
Stan Boreson (The Yogi Yorgesson Connection)
at

HistoryLink HistoryLink is an online encyclopedia of Washington state history. The site has more than 8,100 entries and attracts 5,000 daily visitors. It has 500 biographies and more than 14,000 images. The non-profit historical organization History Ink prod ...

Streaming audio at the Internet Archive
Slim Jim sings Harry Stewart songs

Vintage Scandinavian-American humor

Yogi Yorgesson, Harry Kari and Klaus Hammerschmidt
Images
Harry Stewart

Family AlbumTrials and Tribulations EPYingle Bells EPGreat Comedy Hits''I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas''
;Videos * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stewart, Harry 1908 births 1956 deaths 20th-century American comedians American comedy musicians 20th-century American singers American novelty song performers Capitol Records artists Stereotypes of white people Ethnic humour American parodists Parody musicians Road incident deaths in Nevada Singers from Tacoma, Washington American people of Norwegian descent 20th-century American male singers