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Hoagy Carmichael

If Cole Porter and George Gershwin penned the soundtrack of the city, then Hoagy Carmichael was the voice of America's heartland. His best-known songs are now American standards: "Stardust," "Georgia on My Mind," "Heart and Soul".... Carmichael's career lasted four decades, and he penned hundreds of songs.

Born Hoagland Howard Carmichael in Bloomington, Indiana, he grew up in very modest circumstances. His mother played piano for dances at local fraternity parties and at "silent" movies. Hoagy would tag along. Like a sponge, he absorbed music from his mother, from the visiting circuses, and from the black families and churches in his neighborhood. Ragtime was in the air, and his mother mastered the “Maple Leaf Rag” and other popular tunes of the day.

In 1916, his family moved to Indianapolis. There, Hoagland came under the influence of an African-American pianist named Reginald DuValle, who gave him a great piece of advice: "Never play anything that ain't right," he admonished the young pianist. "You may not make a lot of money, but you'll never get hostile with yourself." DuValle gave Carmichael pointers about playing hot ragtime and the emerging style of jazz. Carmichael sought out cheap pianos in restaurants, night spots, and brothels where he was allowed to sit in.

Back in Bloomington in 1919, Carmichael booked the Louisville-based band of Louie Jordan (not the later jump- blues singer), and this experience spurred Carmichael into becoming a self-described "jazz maniac." He also listened to records avidly. He made a trip to Chicago, where he heard Louis Armstrong-a musician who would influence him (and with whom he would record later).

After completing high school, Carmichael entered Indiana University. He reveled in a growing passion for jazz, and started his own group, Carmichael's Collegians, which developed a reputation not only on campus, but in the region, as they traveled through Indiana and Ohio to entertain young dancers.

In the spring of 1924, Bix Beiderbecke, a young cornetist out of Davenport, Iowa, came to Indiana University. Carmichael booked him to play a series of ten fraternity dances, and the two became fast friends. It was for Beiderbecke that Carmichael wrote his first piece, titling it “Free Wheeling.” Beiderbecke took it with him to Richmond, Indiana, home of the early record company, Gennett Records, and waxed it with his seven-piece band, The Wolverines. It was now retitled “Riverboat Shuffle.”

Carmichael himself got a chance to record at Gennett studios, in 1927. One of the numbers he recorded on Halloween, 1927, was an up-tempo wordless original called “Star Dust.” Meanwhile, Carmichael managed to secure his Bachelor's degree in 1925 and a law degree in 1926, both at Indiana University. After completing his law degree he briefly hung out a shingle in West Palm Beach, Florida, but after happening on a recording of his song “Washboard Blues,” he gave up law for good in favor of music.

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Anatomy of a Standard

"Georgia On My Mind" by Hoagy Carmichael

Read ""Georgia On My Mind" by Hoagy Carmichael" reviewed by Tish Oney


Great American Songbook composer, Hoagy Carmichael, (1899-1981) penned many more standards besides the timeless “Stardust" and “Georgia On My Mind..." He also is credited with writing “The Nearness of You," “Heart and Soul," “Skylark," and “I Get Along Without You Very Well," to mention a few more classics. Carmichael starred in a couple of films as a pianist-actor, making his permanent mark in that medium as well as in recorded music and in the writing of American standards. The enduring ...

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Video / DVD

Hoagy Sings Carmichael

Hoagy Sings Carmichael

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Hoagy Sings Carmichael has been called many things. I used to refer to the album as a recording by an aging songwriter singing his own songs in the shower. Others have likened Carmichael's voice to something on a fence you throw shoes at to get it to stop. Or a saloon-song album sung by swinging doors that need oiling. All funny and unfair. Carmichael's voice on the album may sound rusty and off-kilter, but he's still the guy who wrote ...

1

Performance / Tour

Internationally Renowned Vocalist Dominique Eade Performs Recital Featuring Original Music And Songs By Hoagy Carmichael, Bob Dylan And More

Internationally Renowned Vocalist Dominique Eade  Performs Recital Featuring Original Music And Songs By Hoagy Carmichael, Bob Dylan And More

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications

Internationally renowned vocalist/composer Dominique Eade is joined by pianists Jed Wilson and Ran Blake, oud player Kenan Adnawi and setar player Nima Janmohammadi in a faculty recital melding Eade’s original music with songs by Hoagy Carmichael, Bob Dylan and more. The concert takes place at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 24 at NEC’s Jordan Hall, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston and is free and open to the public. For more information, go to: necmusic or call 617-585-1122. About Dominique Eade Dominique ...

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Interview

Remembering Hoagy Carmichael

Remembering Hoagy Carmichael

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey


126

Radio

Hoagy Carmichael's Music This Week on Riverwalk Jazz

Hoagy Carmichael's Music This Week on Riverwalk Jazz

Source: Don Mopsick

This week, The Jim Cullum Jazz Band welcomes piano legend Dick Hyman and vocalist Stephanie Nakasian for a concert of Hoagy Carmichael's music, recorded live at the historic Filoli Gardens near San Francisco. The program is distributed in the US by Public Radio International, on Sirius/XM sattelite radio and can be streamed on-demand from the Riverwalk Jazz website. Hoagy Carmichael's songs have never fallen out of fashion. In the modern era, they've been widely recorded by artists including Barbra Streisand, ...

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Event

Songs of Hoagy Carmichael, W.C. Handy, Harry Revel/Noble Sissle at 10/13 "Where We Come From"

Songs of Hoagy Carmichael, W.C. Handy, Harry Revel/Noble Sissle at 10/13 "Where We Come From"

Source: Reva Cooper

Kaufman Center and New York Festival of Song (NYFOS, www.nyfos.org) will present Where We Come From on Tuesday October 13, 8 PM at Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center. This concert, which opens NYFOS’s 22nd season, celebrates the festival’s newly formed Artist Council with a musical journey that explores the backgrounds, the birthplaces, and the artistic homes of the cast, a team of highly acclaimed singers, ranging from Russia to Canada, and covering a wide swath of the United States. ...

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Event

Hoagy Carmichael is Muralized in Richmond In

Hoagy Carmichael is Muralized in Richmond In

Source: All About Jazz

Mural of Hoagy Carmichael unveiled in Richmond. A large mural of jazz legend Hoagy Carmichael has been dedicated in Richmond, where the “Stardust" composer first recorded.

About 50 onlookers, including Carmichael's 67-year-old son Randy Carmichael, watched Saturday as the mural on the side of the Readmore building was unveiled in the eastern Indiana city. Carmichael, who died in 1981, first recorded at Gennett Records in Richmond in 1925. Pamela Bliss and her daughter Carly Mattingly Bailey, who painted the mural, ...

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Event

Hoagy Carmichael Songs Celebrated by New York Festival of Song Feb. 5 and 7

Hoagy Carmichael Songs Celebrated by New York Festival of Song Feb. 5 and 7

Source: Reva Cooper

New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) continues its 20th Anniversary season with Harry, Hoagy & Harold, an evening of song featuring the greatest hits and rarities by three American song-writers: Harry Warren, Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Arlen, on Tuesday, February 5 and Thursday, February 7 at 8:00 pm, at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, 57th Street and 7th Avenue.

The program, first presented in the 2000-01 NYFOS season, pays tribute to three of America's leading song writers, who are ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Songbook

Pacific Jazz Records
2005

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Sometimes I Wonder......

Pacific Jazz Records
1999

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The Stardust Road

Pacific Jazz Records
1995

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Stardust, And Much...

Pacific Jazz Records
1989

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Hoagy Sings...

Pacific Jazz Records
1988

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Hoagy Carmichael...

Pacific Jazz Records
1988

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