Hoagy Carmichael Room

The Hoagy Carmichael Room, designed as a memorial to Indiana's famous songwriter and performing artist, contains a representative sample of the large collection of memorabilia donated by the Carmichael family to Indiana University. The collection includes sound recordings, music manuscripts, photographs, lyric sheets, correspondence, scrapbooks, paintings, and other personal effects, and represents the largest holding of materials pertaining to Hoagy Carmichael available anywhere in the world. It is located in Morrison Hall Room 006 and is part of the Archives of Traditional Music.

Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, and graduated from the Indiana University (IU) School of Law. He composed his enduring pop standard, "Star Dust," in Bloomington, and the story of its creation has become an integral part of local history. According to his auto biography "The Stardust Road,"

"It was a hot night, sweet with the death of summer and the hint and promise of fall. A waiting night, a night marking time, the end of a season. The stars were bright, close to me, and the North Star hung low over the trees.

I sat down on the 'spooning wall' at the edge of the campus and all the things that the town and the university and the friends I had flooded through my mind. Beautiful Kate (Cameron), the campus queen... and Dorothy Kelly. But not one girl - all the girls - young and lovely. Was Dorothy the loveliest? Yes. The sweetest? Perhaps. But most of them had gone their ways. Gone as I'd gone mine...."

Carmichael then looked at the sky, whistled the tune, and quickly ran to find a piano and solidify the melody. That was in 1927. It would be years before Mitchell Parrish added lyrics to the song (1929) and another year (1930) before Isham Jones recorded the song with a slower tempo and made it a lasting hit.

Carmichael valued his association with the community, and as a result, he and his heirs have contributed to Indiana University many materials pertaining to Carmichael's career. In fact, the Hoagy Carmichael Collection at IU's Archives of Traditional Music offers the largest grouping of materials pertaining to Carmichael's life available anywhere. Complementing this collection are Carmichael's manuscripts and sheet music at the Lilly Library, IU's principal special collections repository, as well as materials at the IU Archives.

The Hoagy Carmichael Room is designed like a large living room and provides an intimate space for a wide range of activities, including receptions, classes, symposia, lectures, and performances. The most frequent use of the room is for the Archives-sponsored Noon Concert and Lecture Series. The series gives audiences an opportunity to hear live music from various ethnic traditions, as well as folk, jazz, popular, and classical music, and music-related lectures. 

Hoagy Carmichael Room, Indiana University Bloomington. Accessed June 24th 2021. https://libraries.indiana.edu/hoagy-carmichael-room.

Hasse, John Edward. Brief Biography, The Hoagy Carmichael Collection. May 18th 2017. Accessed June 24th 2021. http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/hoagy/research/bio/.

Web Site Overview, The Hoagy Carmichael Collection. May 18th 2017. Accessed June 24th 2021. http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/hoagy/intro/about/index.html.

Barbour, John. 'Stardust' The Story Behind the Song of the Century, Greensboro News & Record. November 15th 1991. Accessed June 24th 2021. https://greensboro.com/stardust-the-story-behind-the-song-of-the-century/article_856e9b55-abbf-56e8-8d0c-e93efded0409.html.