Theatre Register

Johnny Mercer

Shows · Johnny Mercer

ComposerLyricist 1909–1976

John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. He is best known as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, but he also composed music and was a popular singer who recorded his own as well as others' songs from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. Mercer's songs were among the most successful hits of the time, including "Moon River", "Days of Wine and Roses", "Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood". He wrote the lyrics to more than 1,500 songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received n…

Also credited on7 works

Dream
Li’l Abner
St. Louis Woman
Top Banana
Fosse
Swing!
42nd Street

These come off the person record, which names a work and not a production. So we can say this name is attached to the work and we cannot say which staging, or in what capacity. For a composer or a writer that is the whole career we hold; there is no cast list to find them in.

In the literature8 passages

  • Lyricist (1971): An Evening with Johnny Mercer, Alan Jay Lerner and Sammy Cahn Singing Their Own Songs . Contents (Lerner only): “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?,” “Oh Come to the Ball,” and spoken introduction to “On the Street Where You Live.” Book-of-the-Month-Club Records 70–5240 (re-released on DRG 5175 [1977]).ebooks/Block, Geoffrey/Enchanted Evenings_The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber - Geoffrey Block.txt
  • The lyrics of the musical are included in The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer .ebooks/Dietz, Dan/Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals, The - Dan Dietz.txt
  • The lyrics for the used and deleted songs are included in the collection The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer .ebooks/Dietz, Dan/Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals, The - Dan Dietz.txt
  • Kimball, Robert, Barry Day, Miles Kreuger, and Eric Davis, eds. The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.ebooks/Dietz, Dan/Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals, The - Dan Dietz.txt
  • During the Forties and Fifties even lyricists who wrote pop songs had a greater literacy than they do today. Johnny Mercer, who wrote lyrics for movies and Broadway shows, did much of his writing forTin PanAlley.This doesn't mean he did second-rate work. He had enough respect for his listeners that he always maintained the same standards.…ebooks/Engel, Lehman/Words with Music_ Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto - Lehman Engel.txt
  • Lane, Burton, Johnny Green, Johnny Mercer, et al. Everything I Have Is Yours. Original film soundtrack with Marge and Gower Champion. Appears with Summer Stock and I Love Melvin on MCA Classics Soundtracks compact disc, MCAD-5948.ebooks/Gilvey, John Anthony/Before the Parade Passes By_ Gower Champion and the Glorious American Musical - John Anthony Gilvey.txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

What this page does not know

  • What this person played. No cast list we hold records a character against a performer.
  • Any staging. This name appears in no production cast list we hold — 1,877 of 7,139 people are in that position, most of them writers, composers and designers rather than performers.
  • Which of the credits above the roles on this record — composer, lyricist — apply to. The roles sit on the person and never on a credit, so a director who also acted looks the same here as one who did not.

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