Hitch's Happy Harmonists

Hitch’s Happy Harmonists – Led by Curtis Hitch from Princeton, Indiana, Hitch’s Happy Harmonists was a popular Southern Indiana dance band from 1922 to 1927. In addition to playing extensively around Evansville on the Ohio River, the Happy Harmonists played several gigs at Indiana University, where they crossed paths with the Wolverines. In fact, the Happy Harmonists shared the same eight-piece instrumentation as the Wolverines and emulated their hot jazz style. Furthermore, Hitch’s talented cornettist Fred Rollison tried to join the Wolverines when Bix Beiderbecke left the group. Another important contact was Hoagy Carmichael, whose “Washboard Blues” and “Boneyard Shuffle” the band recorded at Richmond’s Gennett Studios in 1925. Not known as a great pianist, Hitch asked Carmichael to sit in and play with the band for those recordings. That was quite a new experience for the young Carmichael, who had to play an unprepared solo on “Washboard Blues” in order to bring it up to the standard three-minute side. The Happy Harmonists, on the other hand, had already recorded seven sides at Gennett between 1923 and 1925. Among them were several original tunes written collaboratively by Hitch, Rollison, and other band members. One such tune was “Baptistown Crawl” (recorded in 1924), whose title refers to the Black district of Evansville.