Stroll down Indiana Avenue near Sample Gates and you’ll see a historical marker on the sidewalk honoring Bloomington’s most famous son. Hoagy Carmichael is considered one of the most important American composers of the twentieth century. Songs like “Stardust,” “Heart and Soul,” and “Georgia on My Mind” are some of the most influential and enduring tunes in American popular music. Hoagy was born and raised right here in Bloomington and graduated from Indiana University with a law degree, so it is perhaps no surprise that IU’s Hoagy Carmichael Collection represents the largest holding of materials pertaining to Hoagy Carmichael available anywhere in the world. Recently items formerly kept in the Hoagy Carmichael Room in Morrison Hall were moved to the Simon Music Center along with the rest of the Archives of Traditional Music, where you can sit for a spell in the reading room next to Hoagy’s piano. While you’re there you might run into Amy Rose Wilson, a Senior Collections Reference Assistant who would be happy to tell you all about the thousands of items in the collection – music manuscripts, lyric sheets, sound recordings, films and videos, photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks, typescripts, and other memorabilia. We also hear from WFIU jazz director David Brent Johnson, a diehard Hoagy fan. Not in Bloomington? The online archive has more than 800 entries including rare vintage recordings.

CREDIT:
Today’s feature story on the Hoagy Carmichael collection at IU was produced by Ben Winn in partnership with The Media School at Indiana University with archival content from IU’s Archives of Traditional Music. Special thanks to Librarian Emeritus Suzanne Mudge for her guidance on this story.