Hoagy Carmichael
Hoagy Carmichael (born November 22, 1899 in Bloomington , Indiana , † December 27, 1981 in Rancho Mirage , California ; actually Hoagland Howard Carmichael ) was an American composer , pianist , actor and singer .
Life
Carmichael grew up in poor circumstances. His father was a worker and kept moving with the family across the Midwest looking for work . But the center of the family remained Bloomington, where the piano stood his mother Lida, who made additional money by playing in cinemas and at university dance balls. In his own words, ragtime was his lullaby. Carmichael studied law at Indiana University Bloomington from 1920 , but also played in his own band (Carmichaels Collegians) - the jazz fever had gripped him since he came to Indianapolis in 1919 , where the family had moved in 1916, the Louie Jordan Band had heard. In 1916 the pianist Reginald DuValle taught him to improvise. A turning point came when he heard Bix Beiderbecke in 1922 , who encouraged him to compose himself and became a close friend. He graduated from law in 1926 and worked briefly as a lawyer in West Palm Beach , Florida .
After moderate success with Washboard blues (played by the Whiteman Orchestra in 1927) and Riverboat shuffle (initially called Freewheeling by Carmichael ), which he wrote for Beiderbecke, he tried his luck in New York in 1929 , but initially had to work as a small bond seller for Wall Street - Keep brokers afloat.
The breakthrough came in 1930 when jazz greats such as Duke Ellington , Louis Armstrong and the Dorsey Brothers took up the Georgia on My Mind , Lazy River and Rockin 'Chair standards he composed (and of course his Stardust, which was first recorded with his band in October 1927 ). In the 1930s, Carmichael himself became a star with the new medium of radio and numerous recordings for the then leading label Victor. He teamed up with lyricist Johnny Mercer , and they both had a big hit with Lazy Bones in 1933 .
In 1936 he went to Hollywood , where he also appeared in films such as to have and not to have (1942; with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart , Carmichael as the piano player, with songs such as How little we know, Hong Kong blues ) and The best years of our lives (1946) . With his composition Two Sleepy People, which Bob Hope and Shirley Ross sang in the musical Thanks for the Memory , he achieved a chart success in 1938 in a duo with Ella Logan, which Bob Crosby and Fats Waller immediately repeated. In 1946, he had three hits in the Top Four and received his own radio show, and that year he appeared in the dramatic western Fire on the Horizon , where the song he and Jack Brooks wrote, Ole Buttermilk Sky, received an Oscar nomination. In 1951 he won an Oscar with Mercer for In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening . Also in 1951 he had his only hit in Great Britain with the title My Resistance Is Low, which reached number 1 on the singles chart. With The Saturday night review he had his own TV show. In 1959/60 he played "Jonesy" in the western TV series At the foot of the blue mountains .
He continued to write songs, published a children's song book (Hoagy Carmichael Music Shop) in 1971 , played golf, and collected coins . In 1981 he died after a heart attack at Eisenhower Medical Center at Rancho Mirage.
From 1936 to 1955 he was married to Ruth Meinardi, with whom he had two sons.
Others
With Mercer he also tried his hand at musicals in 1939. Walk with Music was not a great success.
In 1950 he also played in the film biography of his friend Bix Beiderbecke, who died in 1931, with Young Man With a Horn .
Ian Fleming described the character he invented of secret agent James Bond as looking like Hoagy Carmichael.
Compositions (selection)
- Stardust , 1927 (text by Mitchell Parish )
- Rockin 'Chair , 1929
- Georgia on My Mind , 1930
- Up the Lazy River , 1931
- Lazy Bones , 1933
- Heart and Soul , 1938
- The Nearness of You , 1938
- Skylark , 1942
- I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes) , 1939
- Hong Kong Blues , 6th place in August 1945 (USA)
- Ole Buttermilk Sky , 2nd place in October 1946 (USA)
- Huggin 'and Chalkin' , No. 1 in November 1946 (USA)
- In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening , 1951
Discography (selection)
- Hoagy sings Carmichael , 1956 (with Art Pepper )
- The classical Hoagy Carmichael 1988 (Ed. By Smithsonian Institution, Indiana Historical Society)
Filmography (selection)
- 1937: Topper - The blonde ghost (Topper)
- 1944: Have and Have Not (To Have and Have Not)
- 1945: Johnny Angel
- 1946: The Best Years of Our Lives (The Best Years of Our Lives)
- 1946: Fire on the Horizon (Canyon Passage)
- 1949: Stranded Youth (Johnny Holiday)
- 1950: The man of her dreams (Young Man with a Horn)
- 1952: The Las Vegas Story
- 1952: Marriage by the dozen (Belles on Their Toes)
- 1955: The Avenger of Silbersee (Timberjack)
- 1959–1960: At the foot of the blue mountains ( Laramie ; TV series, 31 episodes)
- 1972: Owen Marshall - Defense Attorney ( Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law ; TV series, 1 episode)
literature
- Hoagy Carmichael: The Stardust road , 1946 (autobiography), reissued by da Capo Press in 1999 with the second part Sometimes I wonder (1965)
Individual evidence
- ^ Günter Ehnert (Ed.): Hit Records. British Chart Singles 1950-1965. Taurus Press, Hamburg 1988, p. 24
- ^ Ben Macintyre, For Your Eyes Only, London 2008, p. 67.
Web links
- Hoagy Carmichael website
- Hoagy Carmichael in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Biography of Hasse
- Recordings from Carmichael's Collegians
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Carmichael, Hoagy |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Carmichael, Hoagland Howard (real name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American composer, pianist, actor and singer |
DATE OF BIRTH | November 22, 1899 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Bloomington , Indiana |
DATE OF DEATH | December 27, 1981 |
Place of death | Rancho Mirage , California |