Sudhalter draws on Carmichael’s private papers and new interviews with family, friends, and colleagues to examine the composer’s career from college days in Indiana to America’s bandstands and finally to Hollywood.

Nearly a dozen of Hoagy Carmichael’s compositions went on to become jazz standards, including “Star Dust,” one of most recorded popular songs in history. Sudhalter’s biography is definitive and engaging, and it covers Carmichael’s life and times, as well as his music, in terms that a lay person can understand. The general index includes songs and compositions.

Richard M. Sudhalter is a jazz trumpeter, critic, broadcaster, and Grammy-winning historian. He is the author of Lost Chords and the co-author of Bix: Man and Legend.