Johnny Mercer was a romantic. He was a wit. He was a keen observer of the human condition.
He was a native of Savannah, Ga., who infused most of his lyrics with a Southern sensibility. And he wrote or co-wrote more than 1,000 songs.
If you visit johnnymercer.com you ll find a wonderful picture of the legendary lyricist. He s wearing a sweater vest, a tie and a shirt with French cuffs.
He has an impish half-smile and stares off-camera. Before him is a sheet of paper. Next to that is a pack of smokes.
In his left hand is a burning cigarette. In his right is a pen that he holds at an angle to his head, the butt end rested against his right temple. It s as if the photographer caught him during a pause in the creative act.
He s searching for a rhyme. Or a phrase to fit the meter of a song. He s looking for the right language to tell a story.
Many people have heard of Mercer, who died in 1976 at the age of 66. Quite a few might be able to identify him as the man who wrote, with Henry Mancini, Moon River. But Mercer s contributions to pop music are incomparable.
He sometimes wrote the music himself but most often collaborated with composers, including some of the most gifted of the 20th century Harry Warren ( Jeepers Creepers, On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe ), Hoagy Carmichael ( Skylark ), Harold Arlen ( Come Rain or Come Shine, Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive ), Mancini again ( Days of Wine and Roses ), Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn ( Satin Doll ), Michele Legrand ( Once Upon a Summertime ), Jerome Kern ( You Were Never Lovelier ), even Barry Manilow ( When October Goes ). He was very utilitarian, said J. Kent Barnhart, executive director of Quality Hill Playhouse, which opens its season with a revue of Mercer songs.
Usually the composer gave him the music, and then he set the words to it. Very seldom did they work hand in hand at the same time. He would usually start with the hook and fill it out from there but after he got the music.
Mercer wrote for the movies and Broadway as well as the recording industry. He founded Capitol Records in 1942, and in just a few short years led the Los Angeles-based label to a place among the major American record companies. Capitol recorded Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee and Stan Kenton, among others.
And Mercer made plenty of money. According to a 1947 Securities and Exchange Commission filing, he earned more than $92,000 as president of Capitol in the previous year. And that didn t take into account performance and publishing royalties or freelance songwriting fees.
Most Mercer songs today don t sound dated. I think that s tied to his vernacular lyric language, Barnhart said. When you listen to Cole Porter, you are aware that it s 1940.
But One for My Baby is any guy sitting in a bar tonight. It s bizarre how he writes things that are open to interpretation. And no matter who wrote the music he still writes in a very natural, speaking kind of way.
He s never witty for the sake of being witty, like Cole Porter. In Autumn Leaves (with music by Hungarian composer Joseph Kosma, who wrote for French movies), there are only three rhymes in the whole song because he couldn t translate it from the French and make it rhyme. But when you hear the words it just sounds like somebody talking or thinking.
Mercer had an ear for the odd phrase. He would jot down ideas and maybe not use them for a long time, Barnhart said. He heard Henry Fonda say jeepers creepers and thought that was a quaint Midwestern way of expressing something more profane.
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