{"id":1478,"date":"2016-06-25T07:00:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2017-01-01T13:27:58","modified_gmt":"2017-01-01T18:27:58","slug":"georgia-on-my-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgia-on-my-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n_e4aIZ3OTI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The musical education I got from Dave Van Ronk was by no means limited to guitar lessons, or to his own work. By the third or fourth week, he shifted my lesson to the end of the day, and when it finished he would cook dinner, then we\u2019d break out the whiskey, and along with discoursing knowledgeably and at length on an astonishing range of subjects, he would play records \u2013 and not only that, he would loan me records to take back to my room, and listen to over and over, and tape. They may have included some blues or folk records, but I don\u2019t recall any. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1480\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/hoagy2.jpg?resize=291%2C281\" alt=\"hoagy2\" width=\"291\" height=\"281\" \/>The ones I remember were by Groucho Marx, Jerry Colona, and Hoagy Carmichael. Colona was a passing fancy. Marx was wonderful, and I still know all the words to \u201cShow Me a Rose\u201d and \u201cOmaha, Nebraska,\u201d but there\u2019s no point to anyone but Groucho performing that material.<\/p>\n<p>Carmichael, though, was a revelation and has remained one of my favorite singers and a model I keep going back to after forty years of listening. He didn\u2019t have a great voice in formal terms, but he made that a strength: he always sounded like he was talking directly to you, telling a story, while phrasing with a jazz musician\u2019s rhythmic command and reshaping his melodic lines in surprising ways that never interfered with the lyric and always sounded completely relaxed.<\/p>\n<p>For me, he epitomizes that much over-used term \u201csinger-songwriter,\u201d and his version of \u201cGeorgia on My Mind\u201d is typical of what made me fall in love with his work. The lyric is ambiguous, perhaps about the state, perhaps about a girl (Carmichael&#8217;s sister was named Georgia),\u00a0 and it expresses longing for a special someone as easily as a special place, her memory echoing \u201cas sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines.\u201d (On one recording, he addresses that particular line to &#8220;Georgia, my honey.&#8221;) <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1482\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/hoagy-carmichael.jpg?resize=150%2C179\" alt=\"hoagy carmichael\" width=\"150\" height=\"179\" \/>On the record I borrowed from Dave, Carmichael sang this <a href=\"http:\/\/tidido.com\/a35184372157728\/al5601a37be7c622686ace53ed\/t5601a3aae7c622686ace7371\">accompanied only by a piano trio<\/a>, in his understated Indiana murmur, dry and wistful, lonesome and resigned, like he was reminiscing with a friend over a final glass of whiskey before calling it a night &#8212; maybe with Lauren Bacall, in that bar where she worked as his chanteuse in <em>To Have and Have Not<\/em>. (Other versions have full band backing, and they&#8217;re fine, but not what I hear in my head.)<\/p>\n<p>I was lucky that was the way I got to know this song \u2013 I\u2019d heard Billie Holiday\u2019s version before, but as far as I can recall, no others. Sometime later that year I was sitting with Dave in Folk City and the Ray Charles version came on the sound system, and I asked him, \u201cWho&#8217;s that singing?\u201d He looked at me like I was a Martian \u2013 exactly the reaction I would have now if someone asked that question \u2013 and told me. And of course I\u2019ve now heard Ray Charles\u2019s version innumerable times. But if I\u2019d heard him first, I wonder if I would ever have felt like I could sing this, because how can anybody attempt it with that version in their head? I\u2019ve rarely performed it, for exactly that reason \u2013 I figure as soon as I sing the first notes people think of Ray, and compare me to him, and I know where that leaves me. But in my own head I hear Hoagy, and if I\u2019ll never sound as relaxed as he did, it\u2019s at least a reasonable aspiration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The musical education I got from Dave Van Ronk was by no means limited to guitar lessons, or to his own work. By the third or fourth week, he shifted my lesson to the end of the day, and when it finished he would cook dinner, then we\u2019d break out the whiskey, and along with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgia-on-my-mind\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgia-on-my-mind\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The musical education I got from Dave Van Ronk was by no means limited to guitar lessons, or to his own work. By the third or fourth week, he shifted my lesson to the end of the day, and when it finished he would cook dinner, then we\u2019d break out the whiskey, and along with &hellip; Continue reading Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael) &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgia-on-my-mind\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-25T11:00:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-01T18:27:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/hoagy2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgia-on-my-mind\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgia-on-my-mind\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael)\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-25T11:00:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-01T18:27:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgia-on-my-mind\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":604,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgia-on-my-mind\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/05\\\/hoagy2.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgia-on-my-mind\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgia-on-my-mind\\\/\",\"name\":\"Georgia on My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael) - 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