Who recorded it first
Georgia on My Mind
Not a Ray Charles original — a 1930 Hoagy Carmichael single on Victor
Ray Charles’s 1960 recording is so completely identified with the song — and with the state — that most listeners assume he originated it, and many assume he wrote it. He did neither. “Georgia on My Mind” was written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Stuart Gorrell (lyrics), and Carmichael made the first recording of it himself in New York on 15 September 1930, issued by Victor on a 10-inch 78. That session is famous for a second reason: it was the last one the cornetist Bix Beiderbecke ever played.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Issued by Victor as a 10-inch shellac 78rpm single, catalogue number 23013, backed with another Carmichael number, “One Night in Havana.” Credited to Hoagy Carmichael and His Orchestra, with Carmichael himself taking the vocal — a two-sided disc, not an album track.
Charted The 1930 Victor 78 was not a hit. The song’s first chart appearance came instead with Frankie Trumbauer’s 1931 version, which reached No. 10 with Art Jarrett on the vocal — a placing some accounts wrongly assign to Carmichael’s own record (jazzstandards.com ↗). Its standing was built afterwards: the song spread through other bandleaders’ recordings across the 1930s and 1940s, and in 2014 the Grammy Hall of Fame inducted this 1930 RCA Victor recording on its own merits — a separate induction from the one Ray Charles’s version received in 1993.
How the 1930 date checks out
Wikipedia’s article on the song states plainly that Carmichael first recorded it, with Bix Beiderbecke on cornet, in New York City on 15 September 1930 — Georgia on My Mind ↗.
The same date is corroborated independently from Beiderbecke’s side of the story: his biography records that his final recording session, in New York on 15 September 1930, produced the original recording of Carmichael’s new song — Bix Beiderbecke ↗.
The physical release is catalogued as Victor 23013, a US 10-inch shellac 78 from 1930 pairing “Georgia (On My Mind)” with “One Night in Havana” — Discogs release 27234804 ↗.
A public radio feature marking the anniversary of the session makes the correction explicitly, noting that Carmichael and Gorrell were Indiana men writing about a state neither had visited, and that Ray Charles — whose 1960 version everyone knows — did not write it — WGCU, Song of the Day for September 15 ↗.
Wikipedia: Georgia on My Mind — original recording and later versionsKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
Who actually made the record
This is a question about chronology, not quality. Nobody disputes that the version people carry in their heads is Ray Charles’s — the point is that it arrived deep into the song’s life, not at the start of it.
Ray Charles
His 1960 ABC-Paramount recording topped the Hot 100, won two Grammys — Best Vocal Performance Single Record or Track, Male and Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist — and was named Georgia’s official state song in 1979 with Charles performing it at the state capitol. Between the hit, the state and the fact that he was born in Albany, Georgia, most listeners take the song to be his — and a good many assume he wrote it.
Hoagy Carmichael and His Orchestra
Carmichael recorded it in New York on 15 September 1930, singing it himself, with Bix Beiderbecke on cornet. Victor issued it on a 10-inch 78, catalogue 23013, backed with “One Night in Havana.” No recording earlier than this one is documented, and the session is separately famous as Beiderbecke’s last.
Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell
Carmichael wrote the music, Gorrell the lyric, both in 1930. Neither man was from Georgia. Charles was the performer, not the author — a distinction the song’s adoption as a state anthem has done a great deal to blur.
Ray Charles made it Georgia’s song. Hoagy Carmichael made the first record of it, in 1930.
Context
Why the cover swallowed the original
The interesting question is not who was first — that is settled — but why the 1930 record vanished so completely behind the 1960 one. Part of the answer is that Carmichael’s version was never really a hit. It was a jazz side, one of many the song produced as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Mildred Bailey, Fats Waller, Django Reinhardt and Ethel Waters all took it up in turn. By the time Ray Charles reached it, the song had been common property for decades and belonged to no particular recording.
The other part of the answer is the state. Carmichael’s own memoir credits the saxophonist Frank Trumbauer with pointing him at Georgia as a subject in the first place, on the theory that nobody ever lost money writing about the South — and Carmichael and Gorrell, both Indiana men, obliged. Whether the song meant the state or Carmichael’s sister, who was also called Georgia, stayed genuinely ambiguous for years. Ray Charles settled it. He was born in Albany, Georgia, in September 1930 — the same month the first record was cut — and after his version the song could only be about the place. Georgia’s legislature made that official in 1979.
The full chronology
- 1930 — Hoagy Carmichael writes the music; Stuart Gorrell, his friend from Indiana University, writes the lyric overnight after hearing the melody at a party.
- 15 September 1930 — Carmichael records it in New York fronting his own orchestra, with Bix Beiderbecke on cornet. It is the last recording session Beiderbecke ever plays; he dies the following August.
- 1930 — Victor issues the record as a 10-inch shellac 78, catalogue number 23013, backed with “One Night in Havana.”
- Through the 1930s and 1940s — the song becomes a jazz staple and then a pop standard, recorded by Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Mildred Bailey, Fats Waller, Django Reinhardt and Ethel Waters, among others.
- 1960 — Ray Charles records it for The Genius Hits the Road, his first album for ABC-Paramount, released in September. The single, backed with “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” goes to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- 1961 — at the 3rd Annual Grammy Awards, the Charles recording wins Best Vocal Performance Single Record or Track, Male and Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist. It is nominated for Record of the Year but loses to Percy Faith’s “Theme from A Summer Place.”
- 1979 — the Georgia General Assembly designates it the official state song, and invites Charles to perform it at the state capitol.
- 1993 and 2014 — the Grammy Hall of Fame inducts the song twice over: first the 1960 ABC-Paramount recording by Charles, and later the 1930 RCA Victor recording by Carmichael and His Orchestra.
A song can be first recorded by one man and permanently annexed by another.