New Orleans

#63 / April 29 Podcast

If you’d been around in 1932 and had your ears on, you might have thought that songwriter Hoagy Carmichael had already peaked.

Oh, sure, he’d been writing for only for about eight years, but by then he’d already published … well, let’s see… “Stardust” and “Georgia on My Mind,” “Rockin’ Chair” and “Riverboat Shuffle” and “Up a Lazy River.” Those songs right there were enough to warrant a legacy chapter in the Great American Songbook.

So, you’d’ve been forgiven in 1932 for not realizing that our man Hoagy had another half century of great originals to bring us.

Ahead lay … oh, “Lazybones” and “The Nearness of You,” “Heart and Soul” and “Memphis in June,” “Hong Kong Blues,” “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” “Ole Buttermilk Sky,” “In the Still of the Night,” “Skylark.” Add to that all those diamonds in the rough, his lesser known tunes like one of our favorites, “New Orleans.”

Enter “New Orleans”

The song was recorded in December 1932 by Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra with the great Jimmy Rushing on the vocals. It was that seminal organization’s final recording session, and, alas, its up-tempo rendition of the piece failed to achieve success. The song had better luck a bit later when Carmichael released a slower version with Scottish vocalist Ella Logan.

Since then, “New Orleans” has had an odd run. Dixieland trumpeter Al Hirt put it on his “Our Man in New Orleans” album in 1963, then the tune lay dormant for another dozen years, only to be revived by a Canadian rock band called The Stampeders on its 1975 “Steamin” album.

After that, the song was re-done in the 1998 film “Blues Brothers 2000” with the fictitious supergroup The Louisiana Gator Boys.

Our Take on the Tune

Of course, we could do Hoagy Carmichael tunes all night long, and, well, sometimes we pretty much do. Here, from last night’s Floodifying, is our latest run at this curious Carmichael composition. Click here to hear our 2022 take on “New Orleans.”