JAZZ
Lyricist Johnny Mercer
Photo courtesy www.johnnymercer.com
2009 marks the Johnny Mercer Centenary, and this week Riverwalk Jazz celebrates as singers Carol Woods, Stephanie Nakasian and Rebecca Kilgore join The Jim Cullum Jazz Band on stage at The Landing in San Antonio. Thanks to the Mercer archive at Georgia State University, Johnny Mercer is heard on the broadcast in a rare interview recorded in 1970 with his old friend, radio host Willis Conover. Mercer talks about his favorite songwriters, what inspired hit songs like "Jeeper Creepers" and "Lazy Bones," and what being a 'Southerner' means to him.
Go to www.riverwalkjazz.org to hear the 1970 Johnny Mercer Willis Conover interview in its entirety.
From his early collaborations in the 1930s with tunesmiths like Hoagy Carmichael to his work with Henry Mancini in the 1960s, Johnny Mercer earned four Academy Awards and nineteen nominations. Philip Furia in The Poets of Tin Pan Alley writes, "What gives Mercer's best songs their distinctive character is their blend of urbanity and earthiness..."
Mercer's ability to pick just the right slangy phrase and combine it with his lyrical sense of poetry made his songs popular with jazz artists from Billie Holiday to Duke Ellington. Mercer wrote "Trav'lin' Light" for Holiday and composed lyrics to Ellington's "Satin Doll." A child of the Jazz Age, Mercer had discovered 'hot jazz' in dorm room listening sessions at his prep school, and wrote some of his most syncopated songs, including "Accentuate the Positive" with Harold Arlen.
Writing other songs, Johnny Mercer seemed to compose his lyrics to the sound of crickets humming on a summer evening or to the rhythm of a distant train. Mercer enjoyed transporting listeners to the lazy days of his carefree childhood in Savannah, Georgia. Of his hit song "Blues in the Night," Mercer said, "it's right out of Savannah, my background, and all the things I heard and experienced when I was a boy."
Unlike most of his songwriting colleagues, Johnny Mercer had a public side to his persona. His boyish charm made him popular on national radio shows, like the Camel Caravan with Benny Goodman, and his own series, Johnny Mercer's Music Shop, where he sang with the band, told jokes and appeared in skits. As a young man, making his way in New York City, Mercer had had his heart set on being a theater actor. Songwriting was a second career choice and he welcomed the opportunity to "ham it up" whenever he could.
Johnny Mercer collaborated with many great composers of American popular song, such as, Harry Warren, Jerome Kern, Richard Whiting, Rube Bloom, Jimmy McHugh, Jimmy Van Heusen and Arthur Schwartz. But some of Mercer's most successful songs came out of the 60s, at a time when many of his contemporaries had been put out of work by the rock and roll revolution. Mercer, however, kept on going, and huge hits emerged from his collaboration with Henry Mancini: "Moon River," "Charade" and "The Days of Wine and Roses."
In his relatively short life—he died at the age of 67—Johnny Mercer achieved far more than his enormously successful career as songwriter. He was a popular singer and radio personality. And as co-founder of Capitol Records, he put stars like Nat 'King' Cole and Peggy Lee on the map. Along the way, he helped launch the Songwriters Hall of Fame. But we remember him for his songs—title after title of Golden Age classics. Many years, Johnny had a hit song in the Top Ten of Your Hit Parade every week of the year. 100 years after he was born, we're still singing his songs.
Text based on script by Margaret Pick
Copyright 2009 Riverwalk Jazz
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