Significant musical manuscript signed at the head, "The original manuscript of Stardust—1927, Hoagy Carmichael," one page, 9 x 12.5, totaling 33 measures from the popular refrain of Carmichael's classic, the first five with lyrics penciled beneath: "I wonder why I spend the lonely hours dreaming of a song." This early and incomplete rendition differs slightly from the later lyrics by Mitchell Parish ('Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song'); interestingly, the manuscript version notably lacks the word 'Sometimes,' and the corresponding pickup notes have been crossed out in pencil. This omission suggests that while the musical idea was present in 1927 (the date of our manuscript), it wasn't revived until two years later, when it was included in the first published version of January 1929. In fine condition, with splitting to the central horizontal fold.
Carmichael, who had little formal musical training, had to rely on others to write out music for him. About a performance manuscript of Stardust being prepared for the premier recording, Hoagy wrote a musician: 'I've got the recording date all set… and am having a slave right [sic] some orchestrations so the rest of the braves can learn the ballyhoo and pick up the throbs' (Stardust Melody, Sudhalter). The son of a silent film piano accompanist, Hoagy Carmichael learned to play the piano by ear. Putting himself through college by performing with groups like Carmichael's Collegians, the young Hoosier left Indiana after his 1926 graduation from law school and went to Florida in search of a job, but his legal career was short-lived. While in Florida, Carmichael heard Red Nichols' recording of his own song Washboard Blues and he quit the Florida practice, determined to earn a living as a songwriter. There are as many stories about Carmichael's creative endeavors as there are versions of Stardust and, predictably, one of the most repeated stories is how Carmichael came to write his famous tune.
In the BBC program 'Sometimes I Wonder: The Hoagy Carmichael Story,' Carmichael recounts the song's origins as follows: 'Well, I got the idea just walking across the campus one night. I'd just left the college hangout called the Book Nook, and I was going over to my grandmother's house to spend the night. And I started a-whistling and I whistled this opening strain of Stardust, and I knew that I had something very strange and different. And so I knew I was prone to forget things, tunes, and I ran back to the Book Nook, and got the Greek that owned it, Pete Costas, I got him to open up the front door so I could get back in and play the piano for a little bit, and see the melody, that opening strain, just see the notes on the piano so I could visualize them. Then I went home, and I had an old grand piano there in that house that I'd bought, that wouldn't stay in tune, so I worked on the melody and finished the chorus in the next day or two.'
Music historians disagree about when Carmichael completed what ultimately became the first published version of Stardust. Despite the apocryphal nature of Carmichael's story we do know that he and 'his pals' recorded the first version of the song, still wordless, with Gennett Records on Halloween 1927. Of that Stardust recording session, one of the band members, Maury Bennett remembers, 'The first we'd heard of it was the evening before… it was a pretty ragged performance, mainly because there was no adequate preparation or rehearsal. Hoagy hadn't yet written the number down on paper, and it wasn't orchestrated. In fact, I don't think he was too sure himself about how he wanted it played.'
The Library of Congress copyright office received a manuscript leadsheet for Stardust (also not in Hoagy's hand) on January 5, 1928, indicating that during the three months between our manuscript, the October recording, and January's copyright date, Carmichael fleshed out a 'final' version including a verse and chorus. Meanwhile, Carmichael was publishing other songs with the Mills Music Company and in 1929 he moved to New York City where he met Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and the man who would become his song-writing partner, Johnny Mercer, with whom he wrote many hits, including Lazy Bones.
On January 29, 1929, Mills published Stardust as a wordless instrumental and five months later, in May 1929, they printed another version, this time including Mitchell Parish's lyrics. The following May, Isham Jones recorded the song (without lyrics) using a slowed-down tempo that gave it a ballad-like quality. It was the Jones recording that first popularized Stardust and made it into 'one of the most enduring of all pop standards, being recorded more than 1,100 times and reportedly translated into 30 languages…' (New Grove Dictionary of American Music).
Subsequent recordings of Stardust were made by such diverse talents as Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Pat Boone, The Boswell Sisters, John Coltrane, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Willie Nelson, Dizzy Gillespie, Liberace, Artie Shaw, and Sarah Vaughan. In fact, Stardust is probably America's, if not the world's, most recorded song: Hoagy Carmichael's son reported that a Pennsylvania record collector had amassed over 1,800 different versions. 'The Guinness Book of World Records gives the title of most-recorded song to Lennon and McCartney's Yesterday, with 1,600 versions, but the evidence favors Star Dust' (Detroit Free Press, Stryker). It appears that no other early Stardust manuscripts are in the Library of Congress or the University of Indiana (the principal repository of Carmichael's papers). Our manuscript, the rare original of America's most popular tune, is housed in a custom-made presentation folder with slipcase.
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