Lazybones

Hoagy Carmichael (1899–1981);  Johnny Mercer (1909–1976)

For details about Johnny Mercer, see “I Remember You”, my 1942 song. Carmichael is another of my all-time heroes. He has a son, Hoagy Bix, who was born in 1938, the same year as me.  The younger Hoagy was named for Bix Beiderbecke, a legendary cornet player and a close friend of the elder Hoagy. Beiderbecke was a severe alcoholic, who died at the age of 28. He was portrayed as a romantic hero in the novel “Young Man With A Horn”, which was made into a film with Kirk Douglas playing Beiderbecke. Also starring in the film were Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, and Carmichael himself.

American composer and author Alec 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 20^th century. Many tasteless fools said he had a terrible voice and couldn’t sing. Carmichael described his voice as “Sounding the way a shaggy dog looks…I have Wabash [a river in Indiana] fog and sycamore twigs in my throat”. I adore his singing voice. “Buttermilk Sky” remains one of my all-time favorites. His best-known song is “Stardust”, but  he also wrote and recorded “Hong Kong Blues”, “Georgia On My Mind”, and “Old Rocking Chair’s Got Me”. Besides “Lazybones”, Carmichael and Mercer wrote another all-time favorite, “Skylark”.

Let me add another strange detail, which regards the magnificent guitar part Charlie Hunter plays on this track. Charlie is the son of Robert Paterson Hunter, who introduced me to folk music, bluegrass, and the five-string banjo in 1956. That Rob Hunter is not to be confused with the magnificent Robert Hunter of Grateful Dead fame. Had I not met Helen Mitchell in San Francisco in the summer of 1959, I never would have followed her to New York the following October. Had I not done so, Rob would not have moved to New York also, and would not have gotten married to the mother of, eventually, Charlie. I know of eight people who would not have been born if I hadn’t come to New York when I did, including three of Michael Hurley’s five offspring. And this track wouldn’t have been graced with Charlie’s magnificent guitar part. Thank you, Helen! And Charlie, too!