霍奇·卡迈克尔

Hoagland Howard Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor, author and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s and 1940s, and was among the first singer-songwriters in the age of mass media to use new communication technologies such as radio broadcasts, television, microphones, and sound recordings (musical records).

Carmichael composed several hundred songs, including 50 that achieved hit record status. He is best known for composing four of the most-recorded American songs of all time: "Stardust" (1927), with lyrics by Mitchell Parish, "Georgia on My Mind" (1930), with lyrics by Stuart Gorrell, "The Nearness of You" (1937), with lyrics by Ned Washington, and "Heart and Soul" (1938), with lyrics by Frank Loesser.

He also collaborated with lyricist-songwriter Johnny Mercer (1909–1976), on "Lazybones" (1933), and later "Skylark" (1941). Carmichael's "Ole Buttermilk Sky" of 1946, was an Academy Award nominee for an Oscar in the following year of March 1947, with the eponymous theme song from the Western film Canyon Passage (1946), starring Dana Andrews, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward and Ward Bond, in which he co-starred as a ukulele and guitar-playing balladeer musician and prospector-miner riding a mule.

Four years later, "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening", with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1951. Carmichael also appeared as a character actor and musical performer in 14 other films, hosted three musical-variety radio programs, performed on television, and wrote two autobiographies or memoirs.

Early life and education

Hoagland Howard ("Hoagy") Carmichael was born on November 22, 1899, in Bloomington, Indiana. He was the first child and only son of Howard Clyde and Lida Mary (Robison) Carmichael. His parents named him after a circus troupe called the "Hoaglands," who had stayed at the Carmichael house during his mother's pregnancy. Howard worked as a horse-drawn taxi driver and later as an electrician, while Lida, a versatile pianist, provided musical accompaniment at nickelodeons and silent movie theaters, and private parties to supplement the family's income. Hoagy had two younger sisters, Georgia and Joanne.

Due to Howard's unstable job history, the family moved frequently. Hoagy spent most of his early years in Bloomington, which served as the county seat of Monroe County and was also a college town, home to the main campus of Indiana University, as well as being near the state capital, Indianapolis. In 1910, when Hoagy was about 11 years old, the family relocated to Missoula, Montana.

Carmichael's mother taught him to sing and play the piano at an early age. Aside from a few piano lessons with Reginald DuValle—an Indianapolis bandleader and accordionist known as "the elder statesman of Indiana jazz"—Carmichael received no formal musical training. He was largely self-taught as a pianist and entirely self-taught as a composer. The Carmichael family returned to Indianapolis in 1916, where Hoagy attended Emmerich Manual High School; however, at the age of 16, he dropped out to help support the family. Three years later, in 1919, Hoagy and his family moved back to Bloomington, where he graduated from Bloomington High School.