By Bob Berry

This weekend marks a major anniversary for one of the most beautiful songs in the Great American Songbook.

It was November 14th, 1960 when Ray Charles’ version of Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Stuart Gorrell’s (lyrics) “Georgia On My Mind” hit Number One.

Written in 1930, the song had long since become a standard, but it took the genius-and the soul, of a native son, the son of a sharecropper, to reveal the wistful beauty of an American classic.

There was another big day associated with Ray Charles and “Georgia On My Mind”, March 7, 1979.

That was the day that same son of a sharecropper, a blind black man who had walked with kings, was invited to sing a song he had made his own on the floor of the Georgia General Assembly.

It was the day “Georgia My My Mind” became the official state song of the state of Georgia.

Enjoy Sunday Brunch on Keener.