Issue Date: September 11, 1996
City: New York, NY
Quantity: 23,025,000
Printed By: Ashton-Potter (USA) Ltd
Printing Method: Lithographed
Perforations: 11 x11.1
Color: Multicolored

 

Self-taught pianist, composer, singer, and actor Hoagland Howard Carmichael composed many of the most popular songs of the Big Band Era. While earning a degree in law at Indiana University, Carmichael met jazz musicians, including Bix Beiderbecke, and soon decided to become a composer. His first composition, “River Boat Shuffle,” was recorded by Beiderbecke and the Wolverines in 1924, and became a jazz classic.

 

Due to their superior melodic structure and harmonic composition, Carmichael’s songs attracted the attention of many great musicians, including Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden. Among his most popular works are “Rockin’ Chair,” “Lazy River,” and “Georgia on My Mind,” which was adopted as the state song of Georgia. His most successful song, “Stardust,” is the most recorded song ever.

 

Carmichael began working in Hollywood as a writer and then as a character actor, often portraying a folksy pianist. In Hollywood he wrote the hit songs “Hong Kong Blues,” “Two Sleepy People,” and “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” for which he won an Academy Award in 1951. Carmichael continued to write songs and perform as an actor into the 1970s.