As we reported earlier Thursday (Feb. 22), Diane Warren is this year's recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award, the Songwriters Hall of Fame's top honor. Warren joins a long list of Mercer Award recipients that includes Burt Bacharach & Hal David, Paul Simon, Stephen Sondheim, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Dolly Parton and Neil Diamond.
The Mercer Award is for a songwriter or group of songwriters who have already joined the SHOF and whose body of work upholds the high standards set by Mercer, who wrote dozens of hits from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Warren will be the fourth woman to receive the award on her own, following Carole King (2002), Dolly Parton (2007) and Carole Bayer Sager (2019). In addition, three songwriting teams with a female partner have won the honor – Betty Comden & Adolph Green (1991), Alan & Marilyn Bergman (1997) and Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil (2011).
Mercer died in 1976, so you can excuse yourself if you don't know that much about him. Mercer was a leading lyricist of the Great American Songbook era, but his creative heyday extended beyond that era. He won back-to-back Oscars in 1962-63 for his screenplays for Moon River and Days of Wine and Roses. Henry Mancini, who composed both hits, greeted Mercer with one unforgettable line from “Moon River” when they won for “Days of Wine and Roses”, saying “and my huckleberry friend Johnny Mercer”.
Mercer's other most famous songs include “Hooray for Hollywood” (an Oscar perennial), “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” (a classic saloon song that is one of Frank Sinatra's signature hits ), “Summer Wind” (another Sinatra classic from 1966), “Fools Rush In” (which Rick Nelson revived in 1963), “Dream” (one of the most melancholy ballads of World War II), ” I'm an Old Cowhand ( From the Rio Grande)” (Lucy and Ethel sang it in a 1954 episode I love Lucy), “That Old Black Magic” (Louis Prima and Keely Smith's classic version was a winner at the first Grammy Awards) and “I Wanna Be Around” (Tony Bennett's highest-charting Hot 100 hit).
Here are more Mercer songs you probably know: “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate-the-Positive,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Blues in the Night,” “Jeepers, Creepers!”, “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “I Remember You”, “Charade”, “Skylark” and “Too Marvelous for Words”.
Scan these 13 fun facts and learn more about the man for whom the Songwriters Hall of Fame named their top award.
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It received 18 Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song.
Image credit: Bettmann/GI
Only Sammy Cahn has received more Academy Awards (26) in this category. To put this in modern terms, Diane Warren needs four more Oscar nominations to tie with Mercer for second place on the Oscar leaderboard. Mercer achieved at least one nomination in five consecutive decades, from the 1930s to the 1970s.
Henry Mancini composed the music for five of Mercer's 18 nominated songs, more than anyone else. Harold Arlen composed four. Harry Warren (no relation to Diane Warren) and Mercer himself composed two. (Mercer wrote both music and lyrics for “Something's Gotta Give” and “The Facts of Life”). Warren collaborated with Jimmy McHugh, Artie Shaw, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael and Marvin Hamlisch on one nominated song each.
In addition, Mercer and Mancini received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song Dear Lily, a 1970 film starring Julie Andrews. This was on top of their Best Original Song nod for the film's lovely ballad, “Whistling Away the Dark.”
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It won a record four Best Original Song Oscars.
Oscar winners were “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” from The Harvey Girls; “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” by Here comes the groom; “Moon River” by Breakfast at Tiffany's and “Days of Wine and Roses” by Days of wine and roses. To date, no one has won more than four Oscars in this category, and only three people have matched Mercer's tally: Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen and Alan Menken.
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He co-founded Capitol Records.
Mercer co-founded the legendary label in 1942 with Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. The label that brought us Nat King Cole, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Band, Bob Seger and more is still going strong 81 years later.
In addition, Mercer was one of the label's top artists in the 1940s and early 1950s, with 23 hits Advertising signpop song charts of the era.
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He was a successful recording artist.
His most famous recording as an artist is “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate-the-Positive,” which featured the Pied Pipers and Paul Weston and his Orchestra. Mercer co-wrote the upbeat anthem, the “Don't Worry, Be Happy” of his era, with Harold Arlen for the film Here come the waves. It earned Mercer his eighth Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. The 1945 recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and the National Recording Registry in 2014.
His other top recordings as an artist include “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” (inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010), “On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe” and “Personality”. Mercer didn't write the Oscar-winning “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” but he knew a good song when he heard one.
His long string of hits from 1938-52 also included collaborations with some of the leading singers of the era, including Bing Crosby (“Small Fry”), Jo Stafford (“Candy”), The King Cole Trio, led by Nat King Cole. (“Harmony”) and Margaret Whiting (“Baby, It's Cold Outside”).
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Ella Fitzgerald recorded an album of his songs in 1964.
Image credit: Fred Hermansky/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via GI
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Song Bookrecorded with Nelson Riddle's orchestra, it was the only album on Fitzgerald's famous album Book of songs series to focus on the work of a songwriter. The album's opening track, “Too wonderful for words” serves as an apt description of the album.
Previous editions in the jazz legend Book of songs The series had explored the songs of Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen and Jerome Kern.
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He recorded an album with Bobby Darin.
Two of a kind (Atco, 1961) received warm reviews. Variety wrote that “Johnny Mercer, who is 27 years older than Bobby Darin, has a vocal style that perfectly complements the young man's piping pyrotechnics. Together they bring an unusual bounce and a delightfully casual flavor to a versatile record production. The mood is cheerful and bright and the repertoire of standard socks appeals to adults and Juves alike.”
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It was a Fanilow.
Mercer was a fan of Barry Manilow, who was hot in 1975 and 1976, the last two years of Mercer's life. Mercer's widow, Ginger, entrusted Manilow with a cache of Mercer lyrics that had never been set to music. Manilow put one of these, “When October Goes” on music for his jazz-infused 1984 album 2:00 AM Paradise Café. The song reached No. 6 on the Hot Adult Contemporary (now called Adult Contemporary). The album went gold.
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He and Henry Mancini were the first songwriters to win back-to-back Oscars.
Mancini collaborated with Mercer on “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” which won back-to-back Academy Awards in 1962 and 1963. They were the first songwriters to accomplish this feat. They were nominated again in 1964 for “Charade”, but their winning streak ended when “Call Me Irresponsible” (from The delicate condition of the pope) won instead.
In all the years since then, only one other songwriter has had back-to-back Best Original Song winners – Alan Menken, who won in 1992 for “Beauty and the Beast” and 1993 for “A Whole New World (Aladdin's Theme) .
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He was the first songwriter to have two songs nominated for Grammy Song of the Year in the same year.
He achieved the feat in 1963 with “Days of Wine and Roses” (co-written with Mancini) and “I Wanna Be Around” (on which he shared credit with a Sadie Vimmerstedt).
And who is Sadie Vimmerstedt, you ask? It's a great story: Vimmerstedt was a grandmother and beautician in Youngstown, Ohio, who sent Mercer an idea for “I want to be around” in 1957. He even supplied the opening line (“I want to be around to pick up the pieces when someone breaks your heart”). Not knowing where to send her letter, Vimmerstedt simply addressed it to Johnny Mercer…Songwriter…New York, New York. He forwarded the mail to ASCAP, who in turn forwarded it to Mercer. Mercer wrote the song and agreed to share one-third of the rights and credits with Vimmerstedt. The moral of the story: Good ideas can come from anywhere.
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He and Mancini were the first songwriters to win two Song of the Year Grammys. To date, no one has won more.
Oscars for 'Moon River' and 'Days of Wine and Roses' followed, also winning Grammys for Song of the Year for both songs. The only other songwriters to have won two Grammys for song of the year are James Horner, Will Jennings, U2, Adele, Christopher Brody Brown, Bruno Mars, Dernst Emile II (D'Mile) and Billie Eilish & Finneas.
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He had a top 20 hit on the Hot 100 two months before he died.
Salsoul Orchestra's disco update “Mandarin,” a Mercer song that was a huge hit for Jimmy Dorsey in 1942, it reached No. 18 on the Hot 100 in April 1976. Mercer died in June. Not a bad way for a great songwriter to go out with a hit on the radio.
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He received a Tony nomination seven years after his death.
Mercer was posthumously credited with original music for writing the lyrics Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, based on the 1954 MGM film. Gene de Paul composed the score. Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn contributed new songs. The show flopped, playing just five performances in July 1982. This was Mercer's only Tony nomination.
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He received the Trustees Award from the Recording Academy in 1987.
The appreciation in that year's Grammy program book read in part: “Although Johnny Mercer succeeded [his] best known as possibly the best lyricist of the 20th century, he was also a distinctive and delightful singer of often clever and always happy rhythmic tunes and one of the smartest and most successful businessmen… He took his responsibilities seriously, but performing slight talents, displaying a light air to the songs, mostly his own, which he recorded or sang on his radio broadcasts.'
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/lists/johnny-mercer-songwriter-facts/
