The spooning wall, a low limestone wall near the law school, was a favorite meeting spot for lovers.
But as Hoagy Carmichael sat there, he realized just how alone he was.
In 1927, at 28, he had returned to his college campus and his hometown of Bloomington. All his friends were graduated and gone. The girl he loved was gone too. And the campus lacked the vibrancy it seemed to have during his college days.
But then, as legend has it, he decided to stop feeling sorry for himself and started with a tune. A melody popped into the songwriter’s head, and it was so compelling that he ran to his favorite hang out, the Book Nook.
It was closed, but he pounded on the door anyway, and the owner let him in.
Inside, he rushed to the piano to compose what would later, once its tempo was slowed down to a ballad, become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century.
“Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song.”
The song was “Stardust.”
Its melody became wildly popular, making Carmichael famous and rich.
***
His large desk, where he later wrote songs, is pitted with cigarette burns and sits under a bay window.
Nearby is his 1952 Oscar award and a chair with a seat cushion on which his mother embroidered the opening notes of “Stardust.”
On any given day, guests see the desk, the Oscar and the chair, but often all they want is to dance or sing along with the strains of music that pour from a Rock-Ola ’37 jukebox and fills the Hoagy Carmichael Room in Morrison Hall.
Each year, the Archives of Traditional Music, which oversees the room, celebrates Carmichael’s career — as a jazz musician and songwriter who later also became an actor — with a birthday celebration at the archive’s noon concert and lecture series.
The celebration for the Bloomington native’s Nov. 22 birthday is from noon to 1 p.m. Friday and includes performances by local musicians.
***
Before the fame, Carmichael was a townie and a student. He was moody sometimes and a jokester other times. He loved attention, and he avoided Spanish class.
Carmichael was as popular as they come in college. He was an athlete (he played tennis) and an artist (he painted and wrote poetry) as well as song master for and a brother in Kappa Sigma fraternity.
His social circle, called the Bent Eagles, was supposedly the group to be in. The group members pushed boundaries and were informed and influential, living a creative, unorthodox lifestyle.
A photo hanging in the Book Nook, now known as The Gables, depicts Carmichael at the piano with a circle of friends around him. Behind them is a poster of Carmichael’s face, most likely promoting his next performance.
Students regarded the battered upright piano in the corner as Carmichael’s piano. He even charmed the workers of the Book Nook into allowing him to stay after hours to play as they washed dishes. Carmichael was known as a charismatic and humorous performer.
“It was the Kilroy’s of its time,” David Johnson, WFIU jazz host, said, “A Kilroy’s without booze.”
The energy of the prohibition era created a counter-culture where Carmichael could follow his creative impulses and become an unpredicted success.
And people, especially on college campuses in the 1920s, thought hot jazz was exciting, Johnson said.
Hoagy loved to attempt to play the trumpet all around campus.
“Hoagy, shut up!” people would yell.
But he didn’t listen.
Carmichael failed Spanish, not once, but twice, he told IU President Emeritus John Ryan.
The third time Carmichael took the class, the professor called him into her office and told him if he was using Spanish as his required language to graduate, he would never have his bachelor’s degree.
But at the time, students with three years of undergraduate studies could go to law school without graduating, so that’s what Carmichael decided to do, and he avoided passing Spanish.
“He seemed quite proud that he got out of it,” Ryan said.
Carmichael was untouchable, a big man on campus, said Kevin MacDowell, a Bloomington musician known as Kid Kazooey, who will be performing Carmichael’s tunes at the birthday celebration along with a jazz performance from singer Rachel Caswell.
***
MacDowell has a self-proclaimed Carmichael obsession. He remembers “a dark and stormy night” in late October.
Sitting on a bench seat on the upper level of The Gables, he can remember it with a laugh, but at the time it wasn’t so funny.
As a student, he and a few friends were on a search for Carmichael’s grave. Their plan was to walk straight to the back of Rose Hill Cemetery and work their way forward, looking for Carmichael.
But as the group neared the back of the cemetery, crashes of thunder erupted around them. And then they saw it.
“Howard Hoagland Carmichael 1899 – 1981”
MacDowell knew right then he was meant to be obsessed.
“He wrote ‘Heart and Soul.’ That’s like ‘Hot Cross Buns.’ Who hasn’t learned to do that on the piano?” MacDowell asked.
MacDowell said few people know who wrote the song, let alone that it was written by a regular Joe from Bloomington.
***
After graduating from law school in 1926, Carmichael had to find a real job, so he accepted a job as a lawyer in Florida and hated it. He did the bare minimum everyday, just to get by and not be fired.
But as legend goes, Carmichael was sitting at his desk in the law office one day when through the open window he could hear the notes of a familiar song coming from a nearby record store.
But the song seemed more than familiar. He realized it was not just a song he knew, but a song he wrote.
Carmichael sprang from his seat and rushed to the store where he pulled the record off the player to confirm it. The song was “Washboard Blues,” and he was listed as the composer.
“That’s it,” he thought. “I’m a songwriter. I don’t have to be a lawyer. I quit.”
And just like that, he returned home to Bloomington. But without his college crowd, Carmichael remained lost.
“He was hanging around in Bloomington in his mid-20s — one of those guys who graduated but can’t leave the party,” Johnson said.
But Carmichael was in the right place at the right time.
Jazz was brand new, and Gennett Records was in nearby Richmond, Ind., making Bloomington a stop on the jazz circuit along the way to Chicago. Big names of jazz such as Louis Armstrong stopped by, and Carmichael met them.
“He had a talent, and he was in this place and had the opportunity to play with all these people,” said Suzanne Mudge, librarian at the IU Archives of Traditional Music.
***
After living and working near campus, Johnson created a theory.
There are more breakups on campus in the springtime than any other time of year. So when he was driving to pick up his wife one rainy spring night and saw a guy sitting on a bench looking all bummed out, Johnson assumed he had been dumped.
But then he realized it was the statue of Carmichael that sits near Seventh Street and Jordan Avenue.
How appropriate, Johnson thought next. Some things are timeless.
Johnson said Carmichael’s songs, especially “Stardust,” are about longing and are examples of Midwestern life.
The music pulls the listener in and harkens back to the glory days, Johnson said. It forgets the anxiety of being young and asks, “What if things had gone the other way?”
***
Visitors leave pennies and Crown Royal bottles.
Bob Dylan stopped to pay his respects to the man who was a singer/songwriter before the label became popular.
MacDowell said he makes a wish on the pennies he leaves at Carmichael’s grave.
The first time it was a wish for a lifelong career in music.
Now, he said he uses the pennies as a token of gratitude and to offer thanks.
“You the man, Hoagy,” MacDowell said.
