Writer didn't bank on success of Georgia state song

Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

- Vladimir Nabokov

What was Stuart Gorrell thinking?

In the early days of the Depression, the New York banker turned to a different profession - writing song lyrics.

He wasn't very prolific.

Over the past few weeks, I've been jumping around the Internet trying to find something by this largely unknown man and found just one song.

Only one.

About a place he never visited.

Still, the song made the top 10 in 1931 when a jazz saxophone player named Frankie Trumbauer made it a hit - but that was probably for the melody, not the words - and Stuart Gorrell didn't write the melody. An Indiana musician with the unique name of Hoagland did.

Over the next three decades, a number of other musicians picked up the song.

And one of them struck paydirt in 1960. He recorded it at the suggestion of his chauffeur, who noticed he often sang it on trips.

Then the song written by Stuart Gorrell became famous all over again.

So did the man who wrote the music, Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael. He retained the rights, and would end his days playing golf in retirement in Palm Springs.

The singer who sang the song needed a chauffeur because he was blind, not that that ever stopped Ray Charles, who loved to sing a song named after the state in which he was born.

It's all something to think about Saturday, when the Peach State celebrates its annual birthday and Georgia is on our minds.

Ray Charles died last year, a revered and popular American icon.

Hoagy Carmichael not only gets credit for Georgia on My Mind, but also added Stardust to the American jukebox.

And Stuart Gorrell, whose words provide our state song with an image that "comes as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines," remains the answer to one of Georgia's most obscure trivia questions

TODAY'S JOKE: A passenger in a taxi tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him something. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove over the curb and stopped just inches from a large plate-glass window.

For a few moments everything was silent in the cab. Then the driver said: "Please, don't ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me."

The passenger, who was also frightened, apologized and said he didn't realize that a tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much, to which the driver replied: "I'm sorry, it's really not your fault at all. Today is my first day driving a cab. I have been driving a hearse for the past 25 years."

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bill.kirby@augustachronicle.com.