Song Swarm: Georgia On My Mind
Georgia On My Mind is most commonly associated with Ray Charles. It appears on every tribute album to Ray, and Willie Nelson (who recorded the song in 1978) sang it at his funeral. But Georgia was a standard long before Ray Charles made it his own.
It was written by Hoagy Carmichael and lyricist Stuart Gorrell in 1930. The story goes that the Georgia of the title was originally intended to refer to Hoagy’s sister, but realising that Gorell’s words could apply also to the southern US state, the writers were happy to keep things ambiguous. The plan worked: the song was a massive hit especially in the South, and since 1979 it has been the state song of Georgia (a better choice than the tourist-unfriendly Rainy Night In Georgia, the loser-comes-home Midnight Train To Georgia, or the infrastructure-deficient The Lights Went Out In Georgia). When Georgia adopted the song, two years before Hoagy’s death, it was Ray Charles who performed it at ceremony in Atlanta
Carmichael’s version features jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke on cornet. Beiderbecke, a huge star at the time, died a few months later at 28, but Carmichael went on to enjoy a long career, and is perhaps even better known for Stardust and Heart And Soul than he is for Georgia, which he nonetheless re-recorded a few times. Frankie Trumbauer (who according to Carmichael’s 1965 memoirs suggested that he write a song about the southern state, thereby contradicting the much better story above) scored a hit with the song in 1931, as did Mildred Bailey.
Ray Charles, who was born in Georgia but grew up in Florida, recorded his version in 1960, reportedly at the advice of his driver who had heard Ray sing it to himself in the car. It was an instant hit, topping the US charts. The song did not do as well in Britain where it troubled the charts only once when Ray Charles’ version reached the undizzying heights of #24.
The present song swarm provides just a cross-section of covers. There obviously are the early vocal versions (Gene Krupa’s take with Anita O’Day on the vocals is the best of those, though some might prefer Billie Holiday’s), instrumental jazz (very different versions by Artie Shaw, Django Reinhardt, Fats Waller, Jack Teagarden, and Grover Washington Jr with Eric Gale on guitar), country (Brenda Lee – with a spoken bit – Jerry Reed, Ronnie Sullivan, Jerry Lee Lewis), soul (The Manhattans), rock (The Uniques), folk (Tim Hardin, Anya Marina), those versions that built on Ray Charles’ template (Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones, Stevie Winwood, Maceo Parker, whose version which features James Brown’s old saxophonist himself on great vocals), and even a cappella (The Society of Orpheus and Bacchus from Yale University). And there is a rather odd live take by Led Zeppelin from 1973.
Forced to choose a favourite, other than Ray’s, I’d be torn between Lou Rawls’ jazzy 1963 take and that by the late South African musician Robbie Jansen. The latter choice might be clouded by having heard Jansen sing it live; the recorded version doesn’t do justice to his live performances of the song.
One version is a medley: New Orleans musician Eddie Snoozer Quinn plays Georgia On My Mind and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, another standard that would become a signature tune for a later act. The song was recorded in 1948 by Snoozer’s friend and long-time collaborator Johnny Wiggs, shortly before Snoozer died of tuberculosis.
So, here are 48 versions of Georgia On My Mind. Which ones do you like best?
TRACKLISTING
1930 Hoagy Carmichael • 1931 Frankie Trumbauer Orchestra • 1931 Louis Armstrong • 1931 Mildred Bailey • 1931 Washboard Rhythm Kings • 1936 Django Reinhardt • 1941 Artie Shaw • 1941 Billie Holiday • 1941 Fats Waller • 1941 Gene Krupa feat Anita O’Day • 1948 Snoozer Quinn & Johnny Wiggs • 1949 Frankie Laine • 1952 Jack Teagarden Orchestra • 1955 Dean Martin • 1958 Danny Guglielmi • 1960 Ray Charles • 1961 Brenda Lee • 1961 Ella Fitzgerald • 1962 Ronnie Sullivan • 1963 Lou Rawls • 1963 Oscar Peterson Trio • 1963 The Righteous Brothers • 1964 Les Double Six • 1965 Matt Monro • 1966 The Uniques • 1969 Jerry Reed • 1970 The Manhattans • 1971 Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer & Boots Randolph • 1971 Tim Hardin • 1972 Grover Washington Jr. • 1972 Mauro Sérgio (Georgia, Meu Amor) • 1973 Led Zeppelin • 1974 Herb Ellis & Joe Pass • 1977 Jerry Lee Lewis • 1978 Mina • 1978 Willie Nelson • 1986 Stanley Jordan • 1993 Shirley Horn • 2000 Robbie Jansen • 2002 V Morrison • 2004 Marc Broussard • 2005 Alicia Keys & Jamie Foxx • 2005 Anya Marina • 2006 Tom Jones • 2007 Maceo Parker • 2008 Eric Clapton & Stevie Winwood • 2009 Hugh Laurie (from House) • 2010 The SOBs
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Motown regularly produced the same songs by different artists. In summer 1967, the Temptations recorded For Once In My Life, and included their take — like all the others, read as a ballad — in their live repertoire. At about the same time Stevie Wonder, still a teenager, gave it an exuberant, uptempo treatment. Gordy didn’t like Stevie’s versions and declined to release it. When, at the bidding of Billie Jean Brown, head of Motown’s Quality Control Department (!), it was released as a single (and title song of Stevie’s new LP) in late 1968, it became a massive hit, peaking at #2 (topping the charts was another Motown hit Gordy had previously vetoed, Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through The Grapevine).
When Toploader had a UK top 10 hit with Dancing In The Moonlight in 2000, the question of who originally recorded the song became a popular piece of trivia. Most self-appointed quiz masters got it wrong. Dancing In The Moonlight was written by Sherman Kelly of the not very successful American band Boffalongo, which recorded the song in 1970. Sherman’s brother Wells was the drummer for King Harvest (named after the song by The Band), and introduced the song to his group, which recorded it in 1972 and had their one big hit with it.
The lyrics of this song have recovered pertinence in the aftermath of greedy capitalist bastards selling the world economy down the toilet. The economy was not in a great state in the early ’80s, so money was pretty tight then.
Georgia On My Mind was a standard long before Ray Charles recorded it, but when he did, he made the song his own. It was written by Hoagy Carmichael and lyricist Stuart Gorrell in 1930. The Georgia of the title was originally intended to refer to Hoagy’s sister, but realising that the words could apply also to the southern US state, Carmichael and Gorrell were happy to keep things ambiguous. The plan worked: the song was a massive hit especially in the South, and since 1979 it has been the state song of Georgia (a better choice than the tourist-unfriendly Rainy Night In Georgia, the loser-comes-home Midnight Train To Georgia, or the infrastructure-deficient The Lights Went Out In Georgia).
Ray Charles, who was born in Georgia but grew up in Florida, recorded his version in 1960, reportedly at the advice of his driver who had heard Ray sing it to himself in the car. It was an instant hit, topping the US charts, and became something of a signature tune for Ray. When Georgia adopted the song, two years before Hoagy’s death, it was Ray Charles who performed it at ceremony in Atlanta. Willie Nelson sang Georgia On My Mind at Ray’s funeral.
Louisiana-born “swamp rocker” Tony Joe White was only19 when he wrote Rainy Night In Georgia in 1962. He didn’t release the song until seven later, and even then it was his Polk Salad Annie which grabbed all the attention (covered to good effect by Elvis). At the same time, deep-voiced soul veteran Brook Benton was looking for a hit to launch his comeback on an Atlantic subsidiary, Cottillion Records. The legendary Jerry Wexler alerted Benton to White’s song, and the singer scored a massive 1970 hit with his version, produced by the great Arif Mardin.
Rainy Night In Georgia has been recorded many times (ex-Temptations singer David Ruffin put down a version at about the same time as Benton did; it was not released until 2004), as soul and as country songs. Ray Charles (1972) put his own blues spin on it, taking the tune to unexpected places. But my favourite version is that from 1981 by Randy Crawford, one of soul’s finest but least appreciated singers, whose clear and warm voice captures the resigned spirit of the lyrics exquisitely.
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