Johnny Mercer

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Self-portrait by Johnny Mercer

John Herndon Mercer (born November 18, 1909 in Savannah , Georgia , † June 25, 1976 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American singer , composer and songwriter . With evergreens like Moon River or One for My Baby (And One More for the Road) , the four-time Oscar winner is one of the most prominent songwriters of the 20th century.

Life

The son of a lawyer and real estate agent from Georgia , who wrote songs as a schoolboy, began his career in the late 1920s in New York , where he initially aspired to a career as a stage actor and also got a few smaller roles, but soon developed his talents as a songwriter, after a piece he wrote was used in the 1930 Broadway musical Garrick Gaieties Of 1930 .

In 1932 Mercer won a talent competition as a singer and was hired by Paul Whiteman for his hugely popular big band. In the following years Mercer duetted with Jack Teagarden and Bing Crosby , sang for Benny Goodman (1938/39) and got his own radio show Johnny Mercer's Music Shop in the early 1940s . More than a dozen of his recordings made it into the top ten on the Billboard charts, four of which made it to number 1.

Johnny Mercer, c. 1947.
Photograph by William P. Gottlieb .

But Mercer had the most lasting success as a songwriter. In rapid succession, he published numerous songs in collaboration with composers such as Harold Arlen , Hoagy Carmichael , Bernie Hanighen , Jerome David Kern , Matty Malneck , Harry Warren and Richard Whiting , and later especially with Henry Mancini , which were in contemporary interpretations by vocalists such as Bing Crosby , Billie Holiday or Rudy Vallée and dominated the charts for years by orchestras such as Glenn Miller or Tommy Dorsey , some of which have become evergreens that are still widely played and made Mercer one of the most prominent authors of the Great American Songbook . He has written almost 1000 songs in the course of his life.

Mercer, who from 1935 also wrote pieces for numerous Hollywood films, won the Oscar four times (for On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe with Harry Warren in 1945, In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening with Hoagy Carmichael in 1951 and Moon River 1961 and Days Of Wine And Roses 1962, both with Henry Mancini), 14 more of his songs were nominated for an Oscar, most recently Life Is What You Make It in 1971. Mercer was also successful with English lyrics for European songs, such as Autumn Leaves ( Les Feuilles Mortes, 1950) , When The World Was Young (Le Chevalier de Paris, 1950) or Summer Wind (Summer Wind, 1965) .

His songs had a particular influence on the repertoire of Frank Sinatra , with whom Mercer was also a close friend for decades and who recorded more than five dozen of his songs and kept them in the program for decades, including the saloon classic One, originally written for Fred Astaire for My Baby and the ballad Come Rain or Come Shine . Mercer wrote one of his last compositions, Empty Tables , especially for Sinatra in 1973.

Together with the composer and film producer Buddy DeSylva and the businessman Glenn Wallichs , Mercer founded the record company Capitol Records in 1942 , of which he became the first president. With artists such as Paul Whiteman , Ella Mae Morse , Stan Kenton , Jo Stafford , Nat King Cole and Margaret Whiting , Capitol was responsible for a sixth of all records sold in the USA in 1946. In 1955, two years after Frank Sinatra joined Capitol, Mercer sold his shares in the record company for millions.

In 1969, Mercer was a co-founder of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and became its first president. Active well into his final months, Mercer died in the summer of 1976 as a result of a brain tumor. Barry Manilow set one of his last texts, When October Goes , to music in the same year.

In 2004 Gene Lees , himself a distinguished composer and jazz musician, published an extensive biography about Johnny Mercer.

In 2006, New Orleans- born pianist Dr. John the album Mercernary , on which he set many of Johnny Mercer's well-known tracks to music .

His most famous songs as a songwriter (selection)

Text and music by Johnny Mercer
  • 1930: Out of Breath and Scared to Death of You
  • 1936: I'm An Old Cowhand
  • 1936: Lost
  • 1939: You Grow Sweeter as the Years Go By
  • 1942: Strip Polka
  • 1944: GI Jive
  • 1944: Dream (Mercer's signature tune)
  • 1955: Something's Gotta Give (for Daddy Langbein , Oscar-nominated)
  • 1957: Bernardine
  • 1960: The Facts of Life (from Such an Affair , Oscar-nominated)
  • 1973: Empty Tables
With music by Harold Arlen
With music by Hoagy Carmichael
  • 1933: Lazybones
  • 1934: Moon Country
  • 1939: Ooh! What you said
  • 1939: The Rhumba Jumps
  • 1943: Skylark
  • 1943: The Old Music Master
  • 1951: In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening (Oscar winner)
With music by Bernard Hanighen
  • 1934: Here Come the British (Bang! Bang!)
  • 1934: When a Woman Loves a Man (with Gordon Jenkins )
  • 1935: Dixieland Band
  • 1937: Bob White (Watcha Gonna Swing Tonight?)
  • 1937: Weekend of a Private Secretary
With music by Gordon Jenkins
  • 1934: You Have Taken My Heart
  • 1934: When a Woman Loves a Man (with Bernard Hanighen )
  • 1934: PS I Love You
With music by Jerome David Kern
With music by Matty Malneck
  • 1934: Pardon My Southern Accent
  • 1934: If I Had a Million Dollars
  • 1935: Eeny Meeny Miney Mo
  • 1935: If You Were Mine
  • 1936: Goody Goody
With music by Henry Mancini
  • 1961: Moon River (Oscar winner)
  • 1962: Days of Wine and Roses (Oscar winner)
  • 1963: Charade (Oscar-nominated)
  • 1964: It Had Better Be Tonight - Meglio Stasera
  • 1965: The Sweetheart Tree (Oscar-nominated)
  • 1970: Whistling Away the Dark (Oscar-nominated)
With music by Jimmy McHugh
  • 1940: I'd Know You Anywhere (Oscar-nominated)
  • 1940: Bad Humor Man
  • 1940: You've Got Me This Way
With music by Harry Warren
With music by Richard Whiting
  • 1937: Too Marvelous for Words
  • 1937: Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?
  • 1937: I'll Dream Tonight
  • 1938: Hooray for Hollywood
With others

His most famous own recordings (selection)

  • 1939: Mr Gallagher And Mr Shean ( Decca )
  • 1939: Small Fry (Decca)
  • 1943: I Lost My Sugar In Salt Lake City ( Capitol )
  • 1944: GIJive (Capitol)
  • 1944: San Fernando Valley (Capitol)
  • 1945: Candy (Capitol, with Jo Stafford & The Pied Pipers)
  • 1945: I'm Gonna See My Baby (Capitol)
  • 1945: Surprise Party (Capitol)
  • 1946: Personality (Capitol)
  • 1946: My Sugar Is So Refined (Capitol)
  • 1946: Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (Capitol)
  • 1946: A Gal in Calico (Capitol)
  • 1947: Winter Wonderland (Capitol)
  • 1947: Huggin 'And A-Chalkin (Capitol)
  • 1947: I Do Do Do Like You (Capitol)
  • 1947: Sugar Blues (Capitol)
  • 1947: Save The Bones For Henry Jones (Capitol, with Nat King Cole )
  • 1947: Harmony (Capitol, with Nat King Cole)
  • 1949: Baby It's Cold Outside (Capitol, with Margaret Whiting )

literature

  • Gene Lees: Portrait Of Johnny: The Life of John Herndon Mercer. Pantheon, New York City 2004, ISBN 0-375-42060-6 .
  • Philip Furia: Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer. St. Martin's Griffin, New York City 2004, ISBN 0-312-33099-5 .

DVD

  • Johnny Mercer - The Dream's On Me (2007, directed by Bruce Ricker )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mercer, Johnny
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mercer, John Herndon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer, composer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Savannah , Georgia
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1976
Place of death Los Angeles , California