[Dixielandjazz] Stardust Written By Lucky Roberts?

[Bill Haesler]

Robert Ringwald wrote:
>This from another email list. Comments?<

Dear Bob,
That Jon Hendricks claim was made in an All-About-Jazz interview provided by Greg Akkerman and published on March 27, 2012: 
   http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=41719
Unfortunately, there are no facts provided to back it up.
It is also new to me.
You may recall that this subject was discussed on the DJML (23-25 July 2005) with a thread called "Verses" the "Stardust" involving Fred Spencer, David Littlefield, you, me, Charlie Hull and Hal Vickery. 
This is reply quite long, so those listmates not really interested should <delete> now.
8>)

On 23 July 2005 I wrote in a PS to a reply in the "Verses" thread: "The hidden trigger at the back of me ole brainbox tells me that there is an article in an IAJRC Journal, The Mississippi Rag, or perhaps Downbeat, which makes a claim for an earlier composer for "Stardust'.  Something along the lines of "I wrote Stardust" says............ Another disgruntled punter?
I will see if I can locate it.

To which Charlie Hull replied:
"I believe it was in James Lincoln Collier's "Louis Armstrong" that I read about Hoagy and some musicians being at a recording session and Redmond commenting that the song, allegedly theretofore without a verse, needed one; and that he commenced to write the one credited to Carmichael."

I replied;
"James Lincoln Collier does indeed say, in brackets -"It should be noted that the wonderful verse,which so beautifully reflects the main theme, was not written by Carmichael, but by Don Redman." (Page 246 Pan Books paperback edition. 1985.)
No mention though of where his information came from.
Your story may point to an early origin, perhaps picked up by Mr Collier."

Hal Vickery responded with:
"I found an excerpt from the book "Stardust Melodies" that purports to refute the Redman story on the Random House web site.  The book is a "biography of twelve of America's most popular songs" and was written by Will Friedwald.
Here are the relevant paragraphs:
"It has also been widely reported (by Alec Wilder, among others) that the verse was added only later, at about the time Mitchell Parish wrote his famous lyric. But the verse is there on the 1927 premiere recording by Hoagy and pals. Just listen: the disc opens with a guitar intro (the instrument was just beginning to be widely heard in the new age of electrical recordings; banjos had dominated in the acoustic era) before the trumpet takes the now famous verse, which can be heard on virtually all the early 'jazz' versions of the tune. The apocryphal story of the verse being written later on was to work against Carmichael: for years a rumor persisted that the verse wasn't written by Carmichael at all but by Don Redman, a composer and arranger who worked for Carmichael's publisher, Irving Mills. As with
the persistent gossip that Fats Waller actually wrote some of Jimmy McHugh's songs, there's nothing to back it up.
"Although Redman didn't write the verse, that pioneering jazz orchestrator (also saxophonist, bandleader, and novelty vocalist) does play an important role in the career of "Star Dust." Redman, who had spent the earlier part of the twenties as musical director for Fletcher Henderson's band, was by then the leader of McKinney's Cotton Pickers. The McKinney's band, based in Detroit, seems to have been the first to record "Star Dust" after Carmichael, working under the pseudonym of "The Chocolate Dandies." (This was in October of 1928, nearly a year after Carmichael had recorded the entire song, verse included.) Carmichael brought his own chart to Detroit and met with Redman, who, according to Sudhalter, "filled it out and corrected the voicings," although he left it in Carmichael's key, D major.
"Apart from the evidence of the verse existing on the original Gennett recording, there's the evidence of one's own ears. A single hearing of its melody, which is even more meandering and ruminative than the chorus's, should be enough to convince anyone that the verse is by the same hand that penned the central chorus melody. The chord changes in the verse are slightly more conventional than they are in the chorus, as we'll see, but the melody of the verse is either the work of the same mind-it uses the same kind of range and intervals - or the mind of a darn clever forger."
The really relevant portion seems to be the parenthetical statement in the second paragraph.

I replied: 
"Dear Hal,
Looks like you've nailed it, with the quotes from Will Friedwald's "Stardust Melodies". The prior-composition claim I was trying to recall earlier is included on the Amazon site as part of its publicity for Richard Sudhalter's book
'Stardust Melody' (2002). (The similarity for the book titles is a bit confusing, unfortunately. Both were published, independently, in April 2002. I do not have either of them yet.) [I do now.]
Here is the Amazon site quote:

'Who really wrote Star Dust?', August 19, 2002
Hoagy Carmichael's college roommate, Hank Wells, claimed all his life that Hoagy, consciously or subconsciously, stole Star Dust from him. People in his home- town of Lake Bluff, Ill., said that this "broke his heart." Wells visited back and forth with the parents of a friend of mine, and she personally heard him tell this story. He played piano at her wedding. I have read Hoagy's own words about Star Dust quoted in a book and they are cryptic. He does indeed imply that the song came out of nowhere into his mind.
Two facts: (a) What if a man wrote one great song that was unusual and never wrote another? Why is that?
(b) Why could one man write such a great song and then never equal or exceed it in his long writing career. Why?
Only one set of facts fits that scenario. Hank Wells, heartbroken, never wrote again. Hoagy couldn't write anything so good on his own.
Ccarf. "

This appears to be the basis of the article I had recalled, but which I have
yet to locate in my files.
This afternoon. I have also been looking at other books, including the following, and find that the 'story' of who was involved, and when, has become a mess.
1.  'American Popular Song'. Alec Wilder. 1972. Who mentions a 1929 composition date and claims that the verse was added when Parish wrote the lyrics.
2.  'You Must Remember This...' by Mark White. 1983. Rehash of other known information plus a story involving Harry Hostetter.
3.  'Tin Pan Alley' by David A Jason. 1988. Mentions that Mills Music published [and presumably copyrighted] "Stardust" as an instrumental number in Jan 1929. Parish added the lyrics in May 1929, but it did not become popular until Isham Jones recorded it, as a 'dreamy ballad', in May 1930.
4.  'Poets of Tin Pan Alley' by Philip Furia. 1990. Who states that it was composed in 1927 and that Hoagy's University of Indiana classmate Stu Gorrell named it "Star Dust" (two words). However he perpetuates the story that Carmichael added the verse when Irving Mills called Mitchell Parish in to write the words. [Not true as we know that the verse is contained in the first Carmichael & His Pals recording on 31 Oct 1927.] Mr Furia claims that it became a hit when Cab Calloway introduced it at the Cotton Club in 1929.
[Calloway's recording of the song was not made until 12 Oct 1931.]
5.  'Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy.' by Rick Kennedy. 1994. A long and interesting account of the tune on pages 129-132, including some quotes from Carmichael's 1965 book 'Sometimes I Wonder' implying that Hoagy did not really know where the tune came from!

Hal then replied:
"The section quoted in the Random House page addresses Carmichael's story of its composition, and the author concludes that Carmichael was working on the song as early as 1926 when he was in Florida trying to establish himself as a lawyer.
I tend to discount stories of people who say songs were stolen from them, particularly songs as complex as Star Dust. Carmichael had already published tunes. Riverboat Shuffle was recorded as early as 1924 that I know of.  
One thing I noticed about the Hank Wells story is that people say they heard him tell the story, but there is no one who says that they (or their parents or grandparents or whatever) actually heard Wells actually play the tune at the piano. Was there anyone at Indiana University who heard it? Why didn't Wells sue Carmichael? When did Wells first tell the story? All kinds of questions come to mind.  
And it's not exactly like Carmichael never wrote a great song after that, despite the conclusion reached in your quote.  Hoagy wrote Skylark, Georgia on My Mind, and a number of other songs that may not "meet or exceed" Star Dust but certainly aren't chopped liver!  He was certainly a prolific writer.  Check out the site <www.hoagy.com> , a site his son Hoagy B. Carmichael put together, which lists in alphabetical order everything that Carmichael published. Interestingly enough this gives the copyright date of "Stardust" as January 5, 1928.  Perhaps the 1929 copyright date was the date Carmichael assigned the copyright to Mills."

Sorry that you asked, Bob?
Very kind regards,
Bill.