The Great American Songbook—the 20th-century’s canon of favorites—is replete with songs celebrating life, romance, and high society. But one esteemed songwriter gained renown for “home-and-hearth” songs that dealt with simpler themes like the longing for home, moonlit rivers, and a nightingale’s song.
Hoagland Howard Carmichael (1899–1981) of Bloomington, Indiana, came from different family and musical roots than notable songwriters like George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Oscar Hammerstein. The latter were first- and second-generation immigrants from Eastern Europe who grew up with the diverse sounds and urban bustle of New York City. Carmichael grew up in a small Midwestern town surrounded by towering forests, golden wheat fields, and cloudless blue skies.
