The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer

Download The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0307265196
Total Pages : 489 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (72 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer by : Johnny Mercer

Download or read book The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer written by Johnny Mercer and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2009-10-20 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seventh volume in Knopf’s critically acclaimed Complete Lyrics series, published in Johnny Mercer’s centennial year, contains the texts to more than 1,200 of his lyrics, several hundred of them published here for the first time. Johnny Mercer’s early songs became staples of the big band era and were regularly featured in the musicals of early Hollywood. With his collaborators, who included Richard A. Whiting, Harry Warren, Hoagy Carmichael, Jerome Kern, and Harold Arlen, he wrote the lyrics to some of the most famous standards, among them, “Too Marvelous for Words,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “Skylark,” “I’m Old-Fashioned,” and “That Old Black Magic.” During a career of more than four decades, Mercer was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song an astonishing eighteen times, and won four: for his lyrics to “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” (music by Warren), “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” (music by Carmichael), and “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses” (music for both by Henry Mancini). You’ve probably fallen in love with more than a few of Mercer’s songs–his words have never gone out of fashion–and with this superb collection, it’s easy to see that his lyrics elevated popular song into art.

Skylark

Download Skylark PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1466819235
Total Pages : 623 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Skylark by : Philip Furia

Download or read book Skylark written by Philip Furia and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2004-12-09 with total page 623 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skylark is the story of the tormented but glorious life and career of Johnny Mercer, and the first biography of this enormously popular and influential lyricist. Raised in Savannah, Mercer brought a quintessentially southern style to both his life in New York and to his lyrics, which often evoked the landscapes and mood of his youth ("Moon River", "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening"). Mercer also absorbed the music of southern blacks--the lullabies his nurse sang to him as a baby and the spirituals that poured out of Savannah's churches-and that cool smooth lyrical style informed some of his greatest songs, such as "That Old Black Magic". Part of a golden guild whose members included Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, Mercer took Hollywood by storm in the midst of the Great Depression. Putting words to some of the most famous tunes of the time, he wrote one hit after another, from "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" to "Jeepers Creepers" and "Hooray for Hollywood." But it was also in Hollywood that Mercer's dark underside emerged. Sober, he was a kind, generous and at times even noble southern gentleman; when he drank, Mercer tore into friends and strangers alike with vicious abuse. Mercer's wife Ginger, whom he'd bested Bing Crosby to win, suffered the cruelest attacks; Mercer would even improvise cutting lyrics about her at parties. During World War II, Mercer served as Americas's troubadour, turning out such uplifting songs as "My Shining Hour" and "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive." He also helped create Capitol Records, the first major West Coast recording company, where he discovered many talented singers, including Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. During this period, he also began an intense affair with Judy Garland, which rekindled time and again for the rest of their lives. Although they never found happiness together, Garland became Mercer's muse and inspired some of his most sensuous and heartbreaking lyrics: "Blues in the Night," "One for My Baby," and "Come Rain or Come Shine." Mercer amassed a catalog of over a thousand songs and during some years had a song in the Top Ten every week of the year--the songwriting equivalent of Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak--but was plagued by a sense of failure and bitterness over the big Broadway hit that seemed forever out of reach. Based on scores of interviews with friends, family and colleagues, and drawing extensively on Johnny Mercer's letters, papers and his unpublished autobiography, Skylark is an important book about one of the great and dramatic characters in 20th century popular music.

Johnny Mercer

Download Johnny Mercer PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820333301
Total Pages : 568 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Johnny Mercer by : Glenn T. Eskew

Download or read book Johnny Mercer written by Glenn T. Eskew and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2013-11-15 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Herndon “Johnny” Mercer (1909–76) remained in the forefront of American popular music from the 1930s through the 1960s, writing over a thousand songs, collaborating with all the great popular composers and jazz musicians of his day, working in Hollywood and on Broadway, and as cofounder of Capitol Records, helping to promote the careers of Nat “King” Cole, Margaret Whiting, Peggy Lee, and many other singers. Mercer’s songs—sung by Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, and scores of other performers—are canonical parts of the great American songbook. Four of his songs received Academy Awards: “Moon River,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe,” and “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening.” Mercer standards such as “Hooray for Hollywood” and “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” remain in the popular imagination. Exhaustively researched, Glenn T. Eskew’s biography improves upon earlier popular treatments of the Savannah, Georgia–born songwriter to produce a sophisticated, insightful, evenhanded examination of one of America’s most popular and successful chart-toppers. Johnny Mercer: Southern Songwriter for the World provides a compelling chronological narrative that places Mercer within a larger framework of diaspora entertainers who spread a southern multiracial culture across the nation and around the world. Eskew contends that Mercer and much of his music remained rooted in his native South, being deeply influenced by the folk music of coastal Georgia and the blues and jazz recordings made by black and white musicians. At Capitol Records, Mercer helped redirect American popular music by commodifying these formerly distinctive regional sounds into popular music. When rock ’n’ roll diminished opportunities at home, Mercer looked abroad, collaborating with international composers to create transnational songs. At heart, Eskew says, Mercer was a jazz musician rather than a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, and the interpenetration of jazz and popular song that he created expressed elements of his southern heritage that made his work distinctive and consistently kept his music before an approving audience.

Portrait of Johnny

Download Portrait of Johnny PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 0307489698
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Portrait of Johnny by : Gene Lees

Download or read book Portrait of Johnny written by Gene Lees and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2009-08-19 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate biography of the great songwriter, this is also a deeply affectionate memoir by one of Johnny Mercer’s best friends. “Moon River,” “Laura,” “Skylark,” ”That Old Black Magic,” “One for My Baby,” “Accentuate the Positive,” “Satin Doll,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “Something’s Gotta Give”—the honor roll of Mercer’s songs is endless. Both Oscar Hammerstein II and Alan Jay Lerner called him the greatest lyricist in the English language, and he was perhaps the best-loved and certainly the best-known songwriter of his generation. But Mercer was also a complicated and private man. A scion of an important Savannah family that had lost its fortune, he became a successful Hollywood songwriter (his primary partners included Harold Arlen and Jerome Kern), a hit recording artist, and, as co-founder of Capitol Records, a successful businessman, but he remained forever nostalgic for his idealized childhood (with his “huckleberry friend”). A gentleman, a nasty drunk, funny, tender, melancholic, tormented—Mercer was a man immensely talented yet plagued by self-doubt, much admired and loved but never really understood. In music historian and songwriter Gene Lees, Mercer has his perfect biographer, who deals tactfully but directly with Mercer’s complicated relationships with his domineering mother; his tormenting wife, Ginger; and Judy Garland, who was the great love of his life. Lees’s highly personal examination of Mercer’s life is sensitive as only the work of a friend of many years could be to the conflicts in Mercer’s nature. And it is filled with insights into Mercer’s work that could come only from a fellow lyricist (whose own lyrics were much admired by Mercer). A poignant, candid, revelatory portrait of Johnny.

The Complete Lyrics Of Cole Porter

Download The Complete Lyrics Of Cole Porter PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Da Capo Press
ISBN 13 : 9780306804830
Total Pages : 542 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (48 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Complete Lyrics Of Cole Porter by : Robert Kimball

Download or read book The Complete Lyrics Of Cole Porter written by Robert Kimball and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1992-08-21 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From "Begin the Beguine" to "It's Delovely" to "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and "I Get a Kick Out of You", here are the complete lyrics to the much-loved songs of Cole Porter--800 songs meant to be hummed, sung, danced to, and remembered. "A record of (Porter's) artistic development and of the time in which he flourished".--Rhoda Koenig, New York Magazine.

The Johnny Mercer Centennial Sheet Music Collection

Download The Johnny Mercer Centennial Sheet Music Collection PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Alfred Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9780739074770
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (747 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Johnny Mercer Centennial Sheet Music Collection by : Johnny Mercer

Download or read book The Johnny Mercer Centennial Sheet Music Collection written by Johnny Mercer and published by Alfred Publishing Company. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Standards Piano/Vocal/Guitar

Our Huckleberry Friend

Download Our Huckleberry Friend PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780818403316
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (33 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Our Huckleberry Friend by : Johnny Mercer

Download or read book Our Huckleberry Friend written by Johnny Mercer and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combines Johnny Mercer's popular song lyrics with a survey of his life and a collection of letters, sheet music, photographs, and other memorabilia.

Popular Performer: Mercer

Download Popular Performer: Mercer PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Alfred Music
ISBN 13 : 9781457428388
Total Pages : 48 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (283 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Popular Performer: Mercer by : Johnny Mercer

Download or read book Popular Performer: Mercer written by Johnny Mercer and published by Alfred Music. This book was released on 2007-10-29 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Johnny Mercer is one of the most prolific lyricists in history, having written the words for more than 1,000 songs. He collaborated with many composers, including Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael and Henry Mancini, to name a few. These beautiful arrangements by Melody Bober are perfect piano solos for lessons, recitals, or social gatherings. To show the clever brilliance of Mercer’s craft, the lyrics have been included. Titles: * Blues in the Night * Come Rain or Come Shine * Days of Wine and Roses * The Glow Worm * Hooray for Hollywood * Jeepers Creepers * On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe * Skylark * Summer Wind * You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.

The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals

Download The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538102773
Total Pages : 712 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (381 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals by : Dan Dietz

Download or read book The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals written by Dan Dietz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the stock market crash of October 1929, thousands of theatregoers still flocked to the Great White Way throughout the country’s darkest years. In keeping with the Depression and the events leading up to World War II, 1930s Broadway was distinguished by numerous political revues and musicals, including three by George Gershwin (Strike Up the Band, Of Thee I Sing, and Let ’Em Eat Cake). The decade also saw the last musicals by Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Vincent Youmans; found Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in full flower; and introduced both Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen’s music to Broadway. In The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every musical that opened on Broadway from 1930 through 1939. This book discusses the era’s major successes, notorious failures, and musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway tryouts. It includes such shows as Anything Goes, As Thousands Cheer, Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, The Cradle Will Rock, The Green Pastures, Hellzapoppin, Hot Mikado, Porgy and Bess, Roberta, and various editions of Ziegfeld Follies. Each entry contains the following information: Plot summary Cast members Names of all important personnel, including writers, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors Opening and closing dates Number of performances Critical commentary Musical numbers and the performers who introduced the songs Production data, including information about tryouts Source material Details about London and other foreign productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including a discography, filmography, and list of published scripts, as well as lists of black-themed and Jewish-themed productions. This comprehensive book contains a wealth of information and provides a comprehensive view of each show. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in musical theatre history.

The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals

Download The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 144224528X
Total Pages : 610 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals by : Dan Dietz

Download or read book The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals written by Dan Dietz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debut of Oklahoma! in 1943 ushered in the modern era of Broadway musicals and was followed by a number of successes that have become beloved classics. Shows produced on Broadway during this decade include Annie Get Your Gun, Brigadoon, Carousel, Finian’s Rainbow, Pal Joey, On the Town, and South Pacific. Among the major performers of the decade were Alfred Drake, Gene Kelly, Mary Martin, and Ethel Merman, while other talents who contributed to shows include Irving Berlin, Gower Champion, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Agnes de Mille, Lorenz Hart, Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, Cole Porter, Jerome Robbins, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein II. In The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines every musical and revue that opened on Broadway during the 1940s. In addition to providing details on every hit and flop, this book includes revivals and one-man and one-woman shows. Each entry contains the following information: Opening and closing dates Plot summary Cast members Number of performances Names of all important personnel, including writers, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors Musical numbers and the names of performers who introduced the songs Production data, including information about tryouts Source material Critical commentary Details about London and other foreign productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, such as a discography, film versions, published scripts, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and non-musical productions that utilized songs, dances, or background music. A treasure trove of information, The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals provides readers with a complete view of each show. This significant resource will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in musical theatre history.

A Haven For Songs

Download A Haven For Songs PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : epubli
ISBN 13 : 3754157043
Total Pages : 117 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (541 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Haven For Songs by : Martin Wimmer

Download or read book A Haven For Songs written by Martin Wimmer and published by epubli. This book was released on 2021-08-27 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With A Haven For Songs: Connecting The Dots About Americana Music, selected works of novelist, lyricist and music critic Martin Wimmer are available in the USA for the first time. Martin Wimmer explains his personal relationship with the art of magicians such as Townes Van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Blaze Foley, Woody Guthrie, John Prine, Bob Dylan, and Johnny Mercer. These artists, among many others mentioned in the book, are the glue that holds together time, love, history, space, and identity. Join Wimmer on a trip down musical-memory lane as he recounts his adventures at the 30A Songwriter Festival in Florida, the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, and New York City. Finally, experience Wimmer's perspective on the Cajun music of Louisiana, Hawaiian Slack Key, the Paisley Underground scene in California, Americana in Europe, and how each of these music scenes are tied to the "Country & Folk" music we know and love today.

Johnny Mercer

Download Johnny Mercer PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cherokee Publishing Company (GA)
ISBN 13 : 9780877973751
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (737 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Johnny Mercer by : Johnny Mercer

Download or read book Johnny Mercer written by Johnny Mercer and published by Cherokee Publishing Company (GA). This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an overview of the career of songwriter Johnny Mercer, with photographs, song lyrics, a listing of the songs he wrote for theatrical productions, a discography, personal letters, and other memorabilia.

The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin

Download The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780306808562
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (85 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin by : Ira Gershwin

Download or read book The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin written by Ira Gershwin and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Man I Love, I Got Rhythm, A Foggy Day, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, Nice Work If You Can Get It, They All Laughed, 'S Wonderful, The Man That Got Away ... make a list of Ira Gershwin's songs, and the names themselvse sound a familiar melody. The most literate and word-loving of our great lyricists, Ira Gershwin described his writing as simple, colloquial, rhymed conversational lines. Yet these simple lines were so irresistibly witty and enticing that dozens of them have made their way into the musical vernacular of the 20th century, the common memory of a song-loving culture.

Moon River

Download Moon River PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780192746399
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (463 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Moon River by :

Download or read book Moon River written by and published by . This book was released on 2018-08 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follow a little girl on a magical journey along the Moon River. It flows from her bedroom and out into the big wide world just waiting to be discovered. She's soon to be joined by other children who are all excited to be exploring the beautiful world together. There is such a lot of world tosee!Moon River is a song composed by Henry Mancini with Lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It recieved an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its performance by Audrey Hepburn in the iconic movie Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).

Reading Lyrics

Download Reading Lyrics PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 0375400818
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (754 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Reading Lyrics by : Robert Gottlieb

Download or read book Reading Lyrics written by Robert Gottlieb and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2000-11-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive anthology bringing together more than one thousand of the best American and English song lyrics of the twentieth century; an extraordinary celebration of a unique art form and an indispensable reference work and history that celebrates one of the twentieth century’s most enduring and cherished legacies. Reading Lyrics begins with the first masters of the colloquial phrase, including George M. Cohan (“Give My Regards to Broadway”), P. G. Wodehouse (“Till the Clouds Roll By”), and Irving Berlin, whose versatility and career span the period from “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” to “Annie Get Your Gun” and beyond. The Broadway musical emerges as a distinct dramatic form in the 1920s and 1930s, its evolution propelled by a trio of lyricists—Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, and Lorenz Hart—whose explorations of the psychological and emotional nuances of falling in and out of love have lost none of their wit and sophistication. Their songs, including “Night and Day,” “The Man I Love,” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” have become standards performed and recorded by generation after generation of singers. The lure of Broadway and Hollywood and the performing genius of such artists as Al Jolson, Fred Astaire, Ethel Waters, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and Ethel Merman inspired a remarkable array of talented writers, including Dorothy Fields (“A Fine Romance,” “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love”), Frank Loesser (“Guys and Dolls”), Oscar Hammerstein II (from the groundbreaking “Show Boat” of 1927 through his extraordinary collaboration with Richard Rodgers), Johnny Mercer, Yip Harburg, Andy Razaf, Noël Coward, and Stephen Sondheim. Reading Lyrics also celebrates the work of dozens of superb craftsmen whose songs remain known, but who today are themselves less known—writers like Haven Gillespie (whose “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” may be the most widely recorded song of its era); Herman Hupfeld (not only the composer/lyricist of “As Time Goes By” but also of “Are You Makin’ Any Money?” and “When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba”); the great light versifier Ogden Nash (“Speak Low,” “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” and, yes, “The Sea-Gull and the Ea-Gull”); Don Raye (“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Mister Five by Five,” and, of course, “Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet”); Bobby Troup (“Route 66”); Billy Strayhorn (not only for the omnipresent “Lush Life” but for “Something to Live For” and “A Lonely Coed”); Peggy Lee (not only a superb singer but also an original and appealing lyricist); and the unique Dave Frishberg (“I’m Hip,” “Peel Me a Grape,” “Van Lingo Mungo”). The lyricists are presented chronologically, each introduced by a succinct biography and the incisive commentary of Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball.

Freshwater Isopods (Asellidae) of North America

Download Freshwater Isopods (Asellidae) of North America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781076437167
Total Pages : 54 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (371 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Freshwater Isopods (Asellidae) of North America by : United States Environmental Protect Epa

Download or read book Freshwater Isopods (Asellidae) of North America written by United States Environmental Protect Epa and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freshwater Isopods (Asellidae) of North America

Skylark

Download Skylark PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781437951899
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (518 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Skylark by : Philip Furia

Download or read book Skylark written by Philip Furia and published by . This book was released on 2008-09-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Johnny Mercer was an enormously popular and influential lyricist. Raised in Savannah, GA, Mercer brought Southern style and the influence of everything from black spirituals to lullabies to his lyrics. Part of a golden guild whose members included Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, Mercer took Hollywood by storm in the midst of the Depression. He wrote one hit after another (¿Moon River,¿ ¿Hooray for Hollywood¿, ¿That Old Black Magic,¿ ¿Come Rain or Come Shine¿). He helped found Capitol Records, where he discovered many singers, incl. Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. He also began an intense affair with Judy Garland, who inspired some of his most heartbreaking lyrics. ¿An important book about one of the great characters in 20th-century popular music.¿ Illus.