Hoagy Carmichael (1899 - 1981)
Hoagy Carmichael is remembered today as one of
America's great composers of popular songs. Several
of his tunes, like "Star Dust" ,"Georgia on My
Mind" ,"Up The Lazy River", "Lazybones", and
"Skylark" "Heart and Soul" have become standards
which are still widely performed. While studying to be
a lawyer at Indiana University, Hoagy wrote a couple
tunes for a band called Curtis Hitch's Happy
Harmonists. The songs were "Washboard Blues"
and "Boneyard Shuffle" and they were recorded in
1924 for Gennett records with Carmichael on piano.
Through his association with this band he meet Bix
Beiderbecke, who was a member of the Wolverine
Orchestra at that time. The two became close friends
and the Wolverines went on to record Carmichael's
"Riverboat Shuffle". Music publisher Irving Mills heard the Wolverine's record and
wrote Carmichael asking if his company could publish the song, to which Hoagy
agreed. Carmichael, himself lead several other sessions at Gennett, where he
recorded the first version of "Stardust". But Carmichael took a job in Florida as a law
clerk after graduating. While there, he unexpectedly heard a recording of his song,
"Washboard Blues", by Red Nichols and his Five Pennies. He had been unaware that
the song had been re-recorded. It was then that he decided to abandon law and
become a musician. Carmichael returned to Indiana and resumed his music career.
Several of his friends, including Bix, were playing in Paul Whiteman's Orchestra by
this time. Whiteman was familar with some of Carmichael's Gennett recordings and
also went on to record Hoagy's "Washboard Blues" in 1927. Hoagy sings and plays
piano on the track and it holds up as one of the Whiteman Orchestra's best
performances. In 1930 Isham Jones had a huge hit with a ballad version of Stardust.
By 1935 Hoagy was working in Hollywood as a songwriter and he also became a
character actor, appearing in 14 films. In 1941 he had a number one hit with his own
song "Huggin' & Chalkin'". In 1951 he won an Oscar for his song "In the Cool Cool
Cool of the Evening" that was performed by Bing Crosby in Paramount's "Here
Comes the Groom". In the 1960s he composed two orchestral works, "Brown County
In Autumn" and "Johnny Appleseed" which where unsuccessful. He never resumed
his song writing career after the failure of these two works.
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