Mabel Mercer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mabel Mercer (born February 3, 1900 in Burton-upon-Trent , Staffordshire , England , † April 20, 1984 in Pittsfield (Massachusetts) ) was a British variety singer and interpreter of the Great American Songbook , who performed in Europe and America with the Sizes of their subject occurred.

biography

Mabel Mercer was the daughter of the white Welsh music hall dancer Gertrude Doak and the black jazz musician Warren Mercer, who died before she was born. She grew up with her maternal grandparents and began performing in vaudeville shows at the age of 14 . Her uncle and aunt, who were also in show business, took her in a play called "The Five Romanies," in which they appeared as gypsies. At the beginning of the First World War , she traveled through Europe with a friend. In 1926 she appeared in London in the revue Lew Leslie's Blackbirds . In 1928 she was a member of the black choir in the London production of the musical Show Boat . In the 1930s she was engaged in the famous Chez Bricktop in Paris , where she also began to sing and inspired, among others, Ernest Hemingway , Gertrude Stein , F. Scott Fitzgerald and Cole Porter .

When the Second World War broke out , she went to New York , where she appeared in the best clubs in town, such as the Harlem clubs "Le Ruban Bleu" in 1941. In 1942, she worked for seven years at Tony's Club , and in 1949 in the Byline Room . In 1955, when the new Byline Room opened, it had established itself in the New York cabaret scene. She also made records, toured the United States, and appeared on television. In the late 1960s she gave two legendary concerts with Bobby Short in New York , both of which were released on record: Mabel Mercer & Bobby Short at Town Hall (1968) and Mabel Mercer & Bobby Short Second Town Hall Concert (1969). In the late 1960s, with the advent of discos and the end of nightclubs, Mabel Mercer's star fell; she still had occasional appearances at the Cafe Carlyle and the Downstairs at the Upstairs . She bought a farm near New York with a lottery win and largely withdrew from show business. In 1971 she gave her first concerts in her home country England after 41 years. From 1970 Jimmy Lyon was her accompanist on the piano. In 1978 she performed in front of a sold-out house in San Francisco on the occasion of her 78th birthday .

Mabel Mercer is considered one of the great interpreters of contemporary popular song. In particular, she devoted herself to the work of Cole Porter , Bart Howard and Alec Wilder , with whom she was friends. Her best-known songs from the Great American Songbook include titles like While We're Young , Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye , Some Other Time or Blame It on My Youth , which later also became jazz standards . Nevertheless, Mercer is not considered an actual jazz singer, even if she has occasionally performed with jazz musicians, such as the Eddie South orchestra . One of her admirers was Frank Sinatra , who described her as his artistic role model.

Awards

For her life's work, Mabel Mercer received the first "Award for Merit" from "Stereo Review Magazine". This award was renamed the "Mabel Mercer Award" in 1984. In 1981, "An American Cabaret" was held in honor of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan gave Mercer the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the highest civilian honor in the United States, at the White House . She was also awarded two honorary doctorates, from Berklee College of Music and from the New England Conservatory of Music . In 1985 the Mabel Mercer Foundation was established with the aim of maintaining the memory of Mabel Mercer and supporting artists.

literature

  • Ken Bloom: The American Songbook - The Singers, the Songwriters, and the Songs - 100 Years of American Popular Music - The Stories of the Creators and Performers . New York City, Black Dog & Leventhal, 2005.

Web links