Sweet Georgia Brown

“Sweet Georgia Brown” is a jazz standard composed in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard, with lyrics by Kenneth Casey.

Reportedly, Bernie came up with the concept for the song’s lyrics – although he is not the credited lyricist – after meeting Dr. George Thaddeus Brown in New York City. Dr. Brown, a longtime member of the Georgia House of Representatives, told Bernie about his daughter, Georgia Brown, and how subsequent to her birth on August 11, 1911, the Georgia General Assembly had issued a declaration that she was to be named Georgia after the state. This anecdote would be directly referenced by the song’s lyric: “Georgia claimed her – Georgia named her”.

The song uses a harmonic progression very similar to that of Harry Warren’s 1922 hit Rose of the Rio Grande. Both songs use a descending circle of fifths pattern (VI7 – II7 – V7 – I) for their 16-bar “A” sections, and then have a second 16-bar “B” section that largely repeats the same pattern, though each song differs in the harmonic progressions of the final eight bars of their respective B sections. One of the lyric lines in “Sweet Georgia Brown (“Georgia claimed her, Georgia named her”) also echoes the rhyme scheme of a line in “Rose of the Rio Grande” (“You claim it, I’ll name it”).

The tune was first recorded on March 19, 1925, by bandleader Bernie, resulting in five weeks at number one for Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra.

One of the most popular versions of “Sweet Georgia Brown” was recorded in 1949 by Brother Bones and His Shadows. Three years later, it was adopted as the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” – John Cage