Hoagland Howard "Hoagy" Carmichael (November 22 1899 - December 27 1981) was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for writing "Stardust" (1927), which has been called the most-recorded American song ever written.

Carmichael was born in Bloomington, Indiana. He attended Indiana University at Bloomington. He originally studied law while playing music on the side, but then decided to devote his energies to music.

Carmichael joined ASCAP in 1931. Aside from Stardust, he wrote "Riverboat Shuffle", "Rockin' Chair", "Washboard Blues", "Heart & Soul", "New Orleans", and "Georgia on My Mind"; he also collaborated with Sidney Arodin on the standard "Up a Lazy River". Carmichael was one of the first 10 songwriters inducted into the USA's Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1969.

Hoagy Carmichael appeared as an actor in at least 14 motion pictures (most notably the Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall classic To Have and Have Not, and Young Man with a Horn ), often singing and playing the piano on his own compositions. Carmichael wrote two autobiographies: "The Stardust Road" (1946) and "Sometimes I Wonder" (1965).

He died of a heart attack in Rancho Mirage, California. He is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Bloomington.

External links

• Hoagy Carmichael on RedHotJazz.com
• Official site on Hoagy.com
• The Hoagy Carmichael Room, Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University