Johnny Mercer Sings “Personality”

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Another giant of American popular music that came out of the Big Band/Swing era is Johnny Mercer. Mercer first achieved notoriety and success as a lyricist on collaboration with Hoagy Carmichael, who at the time had already some measure of success with the song “Star Dust”. The two spent a year working on the song “Lazy Bones”, which became an instant hit after its first radio broadcast.

In 1935 Mercer went off to Hollywood to try his hand at writing songs for the movies. He scored his first hit with the song “I’m an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande” which was featured in the 1936 movie “Rhythm on the Range”. The song was sung by Mercer’s good buddy Big Crosby. He followed up later that same year with the hit “Goody, Goody”.

In 1937, Mercer was working at Warner Bros and partnered with Richard Whiting wrote his standard, Too Marvelous for Words” followed by “Hooray for Hollywood”.

After the sudden death of Richard Whiting, Mercer joined forces with Harry Warren producing hits “Jeepers Creepers”, which earned Mercer his first Oscar for Best Song, followed in 1938 with “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby”.

When things slowed down at Warner Bros, Mercer decided it was time to revive his singing career. He joined Bing Crosby’s informal minstrel shows put on by the “Westwood Marching and Chowder Club” recording a duet “Mr. Crosby and Mr. Mercer” which became a hit in 1938.

In 1939, Mercer wrote lyrics to a song written by Ziggy Elman a member of Benny Goodman’s band. The song was recorded by Bing Crosby and Count Basie, but it was the version recorded by Goodman that became a number 1 hit. The recording featured Martha Tilton on vocals and memorable trumpet solo by Elman. Years later, the title of this song was inscribed on Mercer’s tombstone. The song was also featured on the Goodman biopic “The Benny Goodman Story” with none other than Steve Allen portraying Goodman.

Ooh, “What is the song?” I thought you would never ask. It was the one and only “And The Angels Sing”.

Over the course of his career Mercer wrote over 1500 songs and had over 100 hits and also managed to accumulate four Academy Awards for best song.

As good as he was in writing song he was also as skillful in singing them. During the 1940 Mercer had a string of hits including the one your about to hear. So sit back and enjoy the vocal styling of one the the shining stars of American pop music standards Mr. Johnny Mercer sings “Personality”.

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[tags]Johnny Mercer, Personality, traditional pop standards, popular american songs, traditional pop music, american popular music, capitol records[/tags]

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