Customer Reviews

The Hoagy Carmichael Songbook

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Left and right hand piano parts, guitar chords, and lyrics. 3 page biography with some photographs. Arrangements slightly simpler as compared to an earlier publication we have from Mills Music.

There is not likely to be a finer journey through the American Heartland during the early part of the 20th century than a musical journey, and with Hoagy the journey is a very familiar one. Ragtime and the cool licks of Bix are "in"; so is the quiet life of traveling "Up the Lazy River"--and entrenched racism in some of the songs now so very out of date. What follows are Hoagy's years during the early days of television, a new medium to extend the life of a "better" past that somehow lost sight of the Great Depression and two World Wars. At time even these harsh realities can be forgotten by the timelessness and uniqueness of "Stardust," a Hoagy song likely to outlive the accomplishments of just about any other 20th century composer. So hats off to Hoagy! This book is worth reading.