Maceo Pinkard

The songwriter who made "Sweet Georgia Brown" a popular standard for decades after its composition, Maceo Pinkard was born in Bluefield, WV, in 1897. He graduated from the Bluefield Colored Institute in 1914 and wrote his first major song ("I'm Goin' Back Home") one year later. Introduced by Ben Bernie & His Orchestra soon after it was composed in 1925, "Sweet Georgia Brown" -- written by Pinkard, Bernie, and Ken Casey -- nevertheless became most popular after the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team began using it as an anthem. Among Pinkard's other compositions were "Sugar, That Sugar Baby of Mine" and "Them There Eyes," the latter introduced in 1930 by Gus Arnheim, but most popular through an association with Billie Holiday ten years later. Maceo Pinkard died in 1962. ~ John Bush