Hitch's Happy Harmonists band members: Fred [Draves] on sax and clarinet, Curtis A. Hitch (1897-1988) on piano, Dewey Lee Neal (1898-1954) on sax, tenor, and bass, Maurice B. May (1901-1957) on banjo, and Earl McDowell on drums. According to Evansville at the Bend in the River, "The 1920s atmosphere was steeped in jazz, and many bands popped up in Evansville. [This band] performed regularly in Evansville and often on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington. The band assured itself a niche in musical history when it became the first to record the works of a young Bloomington composer named Hoagy Carmichael."