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As we reported earlier on Thursday (Feb. 22), Diane Warren is that this 12 months’s recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award, the highest honor given by the Songwriters Corridor of Fame. Warren joins an extended record of Mercer Award recipients which incorporates Burt Bacharach & Hal David, Paul Simon, Stephen Sondheim, Billy Joel, Stevie Marvel, Smokey Robinson, Dolly Parton and Neil Diamond.
The Mercer Award is reserved for a songwriter or songwriting workforce who has already been inducted into the SHOF and whose physique of labor upholds the excessive requirements set by Mercer, wrote dozens of hits from the Nineteen Thirties by means of the Nineteen Sixties.
Warren would be the fourth girl to obtain the award on her personal, following Carole King (2002), Dolly Parton (2007) and Carole Bayer Sager (2019). As well as, three songwriting groups with a feminine associate have received the honour – Betty Comden & Adolph Inexperienced (1991), Alan & Marilyn Bergman (1997), and Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil (2011).
Mercer died in 1976, so that you will be excused for those who don’t know all that a lot about him. Mercer was a high lyricist of the Nice American Songbook period, however his inventive peak prolonged past that period. He received back-to-back Oscars in 1962-63 for co-writing “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses.” Henry Mancini, who composed each of these hits, saluted Mercer with a memorable phrase from “Moon River” once they received for “Days of Wine and Roses,” saying “and my huckleberry pal, Johnny Mercer.”
Mercer’s different most well-known songs embrace “Hooray for Hollywood” (a perennial on the Oscars), “One for My Child (And One Extra for the Highway)” (a traditional saloon music that’s considered one of Frank Sinatra’s signature hits), “Summer season Wind” (one other Sinatra traditional from 1966), “Fools Rush In” (which Rick Nelson revived in 1963), “Dream” (some of the melancholy ballads of the World Warfare II years), “I’m an Outdated Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)” (Lucy and Ethel sang it on a 1954 episode of I Love Lucy), “That Outdated Black Magic” (Louis Prima & Keely Smith’s traditional model was a winner on the first Grammy Awards) and “I Wanna Be Round” (Tony Bennett’s highest-charting Sizzling 100 hit).
Listed below are extra Mercer songs you most likely know: “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate-the-Optimistic,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Blues within the Night time,” “Jeepers, Creepers!,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “I Keep in mind You,” “Charade,” “Skylark” and “Too Marvelous for Phrases.”
Scan these 12 Enjoyable Information and be taught extra in regards to the man for whom the Songwriters Corridor of Fame named their high award.
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He obtained 18 Oscar nominations for greatest unique music.
Picture Credit score: Bettmann/GI Solely Sammy Cahn has obtained extra Oscar nods (26) on this class. To place this in up to date phrases, Diane Warren wants three extra Oscar nominations to tug right into a tie with Mercer for second place on the Oscar leaderboard. Mercer achieved at the very least one nomination in 5 consecutive many years, from the ’30s to the ’70s.
Henry Mancini composed the music for 5 of Mercer’s 18 nominated songs, greater than anybody else. Harold Arlen composed 4. Harry Warren (no relation to Diane Warren) and Mercer himself composed two.
As well as, Mercer and Mancini obtained an Oscar nomination for greatest unique music rating for Darling Lili, a 1970 movie starring Julie Andrews. This was on high of their nod for greatest unique music for the movie’s pretty ballad, “Whistling Away the Darkish.”
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He received a record-tying 4 Oscars for greatest unique music.
His Oscar winners have been “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” from The Harvey Women; “Within the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Night” from Right here Comes the Groom; “Moon River” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and “Days of Wine and Roses” from the movie of the identical identify. To at the present time, nobody has received greater than 4 Oscars on this class, and solely three folks have matched Mercer’s tally: Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen and Alan Menken.
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He co-founded Capitol Data.
Mercer co-founded the legendary label in 1942 with Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. The label that introduced us Nat King Cole, The Seaside Boys, The Beatles, The Band, Bob Seger and plenty of extra continues to be going robust eight many years later.
Furthermore, Mercer was one of many label’s high artists within the ’40s and early ’50s, with 23 hits on Billboard’s pop songs charts of the period.
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He was a profitable recording artist.
His most well-known recording as an artist is “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate-the-Optimistic,” which featured The Pied Pipers and Paul Weston and his orchestra. Mercer co-wrote the positive-thinking anthem, which was the “Don’t Fear, Be Completely satisfied” of its day, with Harold Arlen for the movie Right here Come the Waves. It introduced Mercer his eighth Oscar nomination for greatest unique music. His 1945 recording was inducted into the Grammy Corridor of Fame in 1998 and the Nationwide Recording Registry in 2014.
His different high recordings as an artist embrace “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” (inducted into the Grammy Corridor of Fame in 2010), “On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe” and “Character.” Mercer didn’t write the Oscar-winning “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” however he knew an excellent music when he heard one.
His lengthy string of hits from 1938-52 additionally included collabs with a number of the high singers of that period, together with Bing Crosby (“Small Fry”), Jo Stafford (“Sweet”), The King Cole Trio, fronted by Nat King Cole (“Concord”) and Margaret Whiting (“Child, It’s Chilly Outdoors).
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Ella Fitzgerald recorded an album of his songs in 1964.
Picture Credit score: Fred Hermansky/NBCU Photograph Financial institution/NBCUniversal by way of GI Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Track E book, recorded with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, was the one album in Fitzgerald’s celebrated Track E book collection to concentrate on the work of a lyricist. The album’s opening monitor, “Too Marvelous for Phrases,” doubles as an apt description of the album.
Earlier editions within the jazz legend’s Track E book collection 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 Sort (Atco, 1961) obtained heat critiques. Selection wrote that “Johnny Mercer, who’s 27 years older than Bobby Darin, has bought a vocal verve that excellently enhances the teen’s piping pyrotechnics. Collectively they carry an uncommon bounce and pleasant informal flavour to a quick disc manufacturing. The temper is jovial and vivid and the sock commonplace repertoire has attraction for grownup in addition to juves.”
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He was a Fanilow.
Mercer was a fan of Barry Manilow, who was red-hot in 1975 and 1976, the final two years of Mercer’s life. Mercer’s widow, Ginger, entrusted Manilow with a cache of Mercer’s lyrics that had by no means been set to music. Manilow put considered one of them, “When October Goes,” to music for his 1984 jazz-imbued album 2:00 AM Paradise Café. The music reached No. 6 on Sizzling Grownup Up to date. The album went gold.
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He and Henry Mancini have been the primary songwriters to win back-to-back Oscars.
Mancini was Mercer’s collaborator on each “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” which received back-to-back Academy Awards in 1962 and 1963. They have been the primary songwriters to attain that feat. They have been nominated once more in 1964 for “Charade,” however their profitable streak ended when “Name Me Irresponsible” (written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen) received as a substitute.
In all of the years since, only one different songwriter has had back-to-back greatest unique music winners – Alan Menken, who received in 1992 with “Magnificence and the Beast” and 1993 with “A Entire New World (Aladdin’s Theme).”
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He was the primary songwriter to have two songs up for the music of the 12 months Grammy in the identical 12 months.
He achieved the feat in 1963 with “Days of Wine and Roses” (a co-write with Mancini) and “I Wanna Be Round” (on which he shared the credit score with one Sadie Vimmerstedt).
And who’s Sadie Vimmerstedt, you ask? It’s a terrific story: Vimmerstedt was a grandmother and beautician in Youngstown, Ohio, who despatched Mercer an thought for “I Wanna Be Round” in 1957. She even equipped the opening line (“I wish to be round to choose up the items, when anyone breaks your coronary heart”). Not realizing the place to ship her letter, Vimmerstedt merely addressed it to Johnny Mercer…Songwriter…New York, NY. The publish workplace forwarded it to ASCAP, which in flip handed it alongside to Mercer. Mercer wrote the music and agreed to share one-third of the royalties and credit with Vimmerstedt. Ethical of the story: Good concepts can come from wherever.
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He and Mancini have been the primary songwriters to win two music of the 12 months Grammys.
They adopted their Oscar wins for “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses” by additionally profitable Grammys for music of the 12 months for each songs. The one different songwriters who’ve received two Grammys for music of the 12 months 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 high 20 hit on the Sizzling 100 two months earlier than he died.
The Salsoul Orchestra’s disco replace of “Tangerine,” a Mercer music that was a large hit for Jimmy Dorsey in 1942, peaked at No. 18 on the Sizzling 100 in April 1976. Mercer died that June. Not a nasty manner for a terrific songwriter to exit, with a success music on the radio.
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He obtained a Trustees Award from the Recording Academy in 1987.
The appreciation in that 12 months’s Grammy program guide learn partly: “Although Johnny Mercer achieved [his] biggest fame as most likely the best all-around lyricist of the twentieth century, he was additionally a particular and pleasant singer of usually intelligent and all the time joyous rhythm tunes, and one of many smartest and most profitable businessmen … He took his duties significantly, however his performing abilities calmly, projecting a lighthearted, devil-may-care aura into the songs, principally his personal, that he recorded or sang on his radio reveals.”
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