Sweet Georgia Brown: A Song History

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"Sweet Georgia Brown" was published in New York in 1925 by Jerome H. Remick & Co., with Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard and Kenneth Casey named as its writers.[1] One copy, which includes a ukulele arrangement, bills it as a "Charleston Swing Song" introduced by Nora Kelly, whose photograph is on the cover.[2] Other copies carry different faces: Mississippi State University's shows Irving Edwards,[1] and the Detroit Historical Society's shows Ray Stillwell.[3] Pinkard, a native of Bluefield, West Virginia, born in 1897, led a band of his own on the road and later opened a theatrical agency in Omaha; after he settled in New York, his first hit, "Mammy o' Mine," followed in 1919.[4]

A small brown mahogany ukulele with a round sound hole, standing upright against a gray background

Nicòla Turturro, Ukulele, mahogany and rosewood, ca. 1928. An American ukulele made about 1928, shown because one copy of the sheet music came with a ukulele arrangement; it has no connection to the song.

Bernie led his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra through an instrumental arrangement of the tune by Arthur Lange in New York on 19 March 1925, and the take was issued on Vocalion 15002 and on several other labels under names such as the Sunny South Dance Orchestra.[5] Ethel Waters sang it with the Ebony Four for Columbia on 13 May 1925, released on Columbia 379-D,[6] and the next day the California Ramblers recorded a fox trot version for the same company.[7]

Freeman "Brother Bones" Davis, an Alabama-born bones player and whistler, had an unexpected hit with the song in 1949 on the young Tempo Records label; the Harlem Globetrotters adopted his recording as their theme, and the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2025.[8] A company history of the Globetrotters dates the song's status as the team's official theme to 1952.[9] Broadway audiences heard it again in 1976, when it was part of Bubbling Brown Sugar.[4] Dulcimer players can find it in Dana Gruber's Speakeasy And Tin Pan Alley Tunes For Chromatic Dulcimer, a Fingers Of Steel download whose period songs are written out as solos for chromatic dulcimer in DAD tuning.[10]

Our book that contains the song "Sweet Georgia Brown"

Sources

  1. Mississippi State University Libraries, Charles H. Templeton, Sr. Sheet Music Collection: "Sweet Georgia Brown".
  2. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, History Harvest: "'Sweet Georgia Brown' sheet music".
  3. Detroit Historical Society: "Music, Sheet - Sweet Georgia Brown".
  4. e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia: "Maceo Pinkard".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Brunswick matrix 573W-576W. Sweet Georgia Brown / Ben Bernie ; Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix W140597. Sweet Georgia Brown / Ebony Four ; Ethel Waters".
  7. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix W140603. Sweet Georgia Brown / California Ramblers".
  8. Library of Congress: "National Recording Registry Inducts Sounds of Elton John, Chicago, Broadway's 'Hamilton,' Mary J. Blige, Amy Winehouse, Minecraft and Microsoft".
  9. Reference for Business (Gale): "Harlem Globetrotters International Inc".
  10. Fingers Of Steel: "Dana Gruber, Speakeasy And Tin Pan Alley Tunes For Chromatic Dulcimer".
  11. Image: Nicòla Turturro, Ukulele, mahogany and rosewood, ca. 1928. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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