The Unlikely Story of "How Georgia on My Mind" Came To Be

On this episode of Our American Stories, Lee Habeeb tells the story of how "Georgia On My Mind" came to be, and how it became a song the world would come to know and love. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next. One
of our favorite types of stories about artistic imagination, about
creating something from nothing. This is the story of a
song you all know, but don't know how it came
to be. Some believe it's a song about a girl.

(00:36):
Others believe it's a song about a place, a state,
the Peachtree State. The two men who wrote the music
and lyrics, Ogi Carmichael and Stuart Garrell, can't answer that question.
They died a long time ago. But the story of
how the song Georgia on My Mind came to be

(00:57):
and a song that the world would come to know,
is a quintessentially American story. Hogy Carmichael was born in Bloomington, Indiana,
in eighteen ninety nine. His father he took on whatever
jobs he could to help pay the bills, first as
a horse drawn taxi driver and later as an electrician.

(01:21):
His mom played piano for a living. Throughout his youth,
his family struggled to make ends meet. The defining event
in his early life sprang from tragedy. In nineteen eighteen,
the Spanish flew ravaged the country, and his baby sister, Joanna,
was not spared. Her death was something Carmichael would never forget,

(01:44):
and it would fuel his ambition. Here's a quote from Carmichael.
We couldn't afford a good doctor or a good attention,
and that's when I vowed I would never again be
broke in my life. He graduated from Indiana University and
its law school, and soon began to practice law in Indianapolis.

(02:07):
But his real interest is real talent, and where he'd
end up making his living was in the world of entertainment. Music, specifically,
coming up with the melodies to some of Tin Pan
Alley's greatest hits was his particular and peculiar genius. Carmichael
attributed his melodic gift to his roots in jazz and

(02:29):
his love of jazz pianists, which he got from his mother,
who loved to play ragtime. I listened to them constantly,
he told anyone who would listen. As a teenager, he
spent long hours in a black neighborhood called Bucktown, or
outstanding jazz players often convened. American composer and author Alec

(02:54):
Wilder described Carmichael as the most talented, inventive, sophisticated, and
jazz oriented of all the great craftsmen of pop songs
in the first half of the twentieth century, few people
ever write one standard, but Carmichael wrote a bunch starred us,
the Nearness of You, Skylark in the cool, cool Cool

(03:17):
of the evening, and of course, his most well known composition,
Georgia on My Mind. Gorel, the song's lyricist, was born
in Knox, Indiana, and went to college with Carmichael. The
two became friends, and after hearing his pal play a
new melody at a party, Garrel pulled an all nighter

(03:39):
and ended up with the lyrics for the song. Gorel
would go on to become a banker. He never wrote
another lyric in his life. Completed in nineteen thirty, the
song was initially covered by a number of artists, including
Louis Armstrong and Hogy Carmichael himself. Here's Carmichael singing his

(03:59):
version of his song, Georgia, Georgia the whole day through
Just an old sweet song, Keep Georgia on My Mind.

(04:21):
The song failed to find an audience when it was released,
Carmichael's version or anyone else's, and it lingered for decades
in his back catalog. By the nineteen fifties, Carmichael's career
began to fade with the ascent of rock and roll
and rhythm and blues. It would take Ray Charles to
bring the song back to life. The rising thirty year

(04:44):
old star had just left Atlantic Records. He wanted more independence,
more artistic control of his music, and higher royalties. Most
of all, he wanted his music to reach more people.
He wanted mainstream audiences and mainstream acceptance of his music
at a time when albums were starting to outsell single

(05:07):
The Genius Hits the Road was his first record for
his new label, ABC Paramount. It was a twelve track
themed album released in nineteen sixty based on places in
the United States. Georgia on My Mind was tucked between
Basin Street blues, the main street of Storyville in New

(05:28):
Orleans Red Light District, and Alabama bound. The song's lush
orchestration he had fifty five string players in on the session,
was unlike anything Charles had recorded before. Some critics thought
it was a mistake. Others thought he was selling out.
The public disagreed. The song reached number one on Billboard's

(05:49):
Pop Album chart in November of nineteen sixty and he
won his first of four Grammys that year, two for
Georgia on My Mind. Charles would go on to win
fifteen more Grammys in his life. He would also go
on to break more musical barriers, including modern sounds in
country and Western music his nineteen sixty two masterpiece. Other

(06:12):
hits by Charles include I Can't Stop Loving You, Hit
the Road Jack and Seven Spanish Angels, Who's duet with
Willie Nelson, which would rise to number one on the
country charts. But it's Georgia on my Mind that is
his most memorable recording. In two thousand and three, Rolling
Stone named the song the forty fourth greatest of all time.

(06:36):
Was the song about an old love or a man
longing for home? We'll never know? But Charles had his
own opinion. In his nineteen seventy eight autobiography Brother Ray,
he told the world that neither a woman nor a
state was on his mind when he recorded the song.
I never known a lady named Georgia, and I wasn't

(06:57):
dreaming a no state even though I was born there.
It was just a beautiful, romantic melody that wouldn't stop
george on My Mind from becoming the official state song
in nineteen seventy nine when Georgia Governor George Busby signed
it into law. It's a quintessentially American story, the story

(07:20):
of Georgia on My Mind. Two white men from the
Midwest wrote a song that a brilliant, blind black man
they never knew or met, would bring to life so
many years later. There was no talk of cultural appropriation,
either by Charles or by Carmichael. They were doing what
musical artists do in America and have done from the

(07:41):
beginning of time, borrowing from any and all forms of
music and making it their own. And thanks to the
miracle of intellectual property rights, artists in America are not
merely protected against the theft of their work, but also
incentivized to share it with others an across race, class, culture,
and timeline. The Charles cover of Georgia on My Mind

(08:05):
changed the lives of the writers and the singer forever,
making all of them a small fortune, and the song
also made the world a better and more beautiful place.
There were many other covers of the song, and by
some great artists from every musical genre. Eddie Arnold, Billy Holliday,
Bing Crosby, Michael Bolton, Michael Boublay, Ella Fitzgerald, Leon Russell,

(08:29):
Jackie Wilson, Jerry Garcia, Coldplay and the Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones,
James Brown and the Zach Brown Band. But one version
stands out from all the rest. At the time of
his death at seventy three on June tenth, two thousand
and four, Ray Charles averaged two hundred concerts a year.

(08:49):
Georgia on My Mind was always the crowd favor the
story of Georgia on My Mind, how it came to
be here on our American stories. Mm hmmm. Judges, no peace,

(09:14):
sad fact, just an old, sweet song keeps judges on
my