This week for Sometimes a Song we are revisiting an American songwriter I’ve written about a couple of times already, the uniquely talented Hoagy Carmichael. You can read more about Hoagy in a piece I wrote recently about his song (with lyrics by Mitch Parrish), “Up a Lazy River.” I mentioned in that essay another Carmichael and Parrish number, “Stardust,” a song which many consider to be a jazz standard of the highest magnitude. In its close to 100-year lifetime “Stardust” has been recorded commercially over 1,500 times, with no sign yet of its fading in popularity.
Hoagy Carmichael recorded his own vocal of “Stardust” in 1929, but he reportedly had the idea for the tune as early as 1924, in college, where he had organized a band called, “Carmichael’s Collegians” to play in and around Indiana University. He had already recorded an instrumental version of the song for Gennett Records in 1927, before moving to New York to work for Mills Music in Tin Pan Alley. By 1929 the song was being featured regularly at the original Cotton Club, and by 1936 “Stardust” was so popular that RCA Records brought out a single with a recording by Tommy Dorsey’s band on one side and Benny Goodman’s on the other — both as instrumentals. Dorsey recorded the song again in 1942 with lyrics sung his young band singer, Frank Sinatra. For an idea of how very popular “Stardust” stayed for its first three decades, in 1965 when Mills Music was sold, 77% of the company’s royalties income came from the sale of only 114 songs, with “Stardust” firmly in first place as as their best seller.
Once again, choosing a version for you has been nigh on to impossible. I’ve listened to the song so many times that I have stardust in my eyes and in my ears. I’d love to read in the comments what your own favorite versions of the tune are. But for now let’s listen to the RCA instrumental swing version by Benny Goodman from 1936, and a sweet vocal with string accompaniment and “verse” lead in by Nat King Cole from 1956. Enjoy.
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Do I have to choose a version? Nat King Cole, Willie Nelson, and especially Mel Torme’s version. Some say he was the “Velvet Fog” but his voice and his inflection was perfect for Stardust.
One relevant memory: I was in London several years ago and I passed by a street saxophonist. I put £5 in his case for Stardust. I can still hear it.
Just proves that a good song stands the test of time.