Johnny Mercer

Today was one of those “this is why I live in New York” experiences. Tuesdays mean another gathering of my lunch group, the Dutch Treat Club, at the National Arts Club. Our membership is made up of people who make their living in the arts, and some are quite high profile. Each week we have a cabaret performance, followed by a speaker. Today’s focus was on Johnny Mercer, one of my favorite songwriters, whose centennial was Nov. 18.

Starting us off were singers Barbara Fasano and her husband, Eric Comstock, who also played piano. Eric shared a quote from Frank Sinatra, a man he admitted wasn’t known as an eloquent speaker, but who got it right with this one: “A Johnny Mercer lyric is all the wit you wish you had and all the love you lost.” They blessed us with a couple of Mercer hits, “I Thought About You” and “This Time the Dream’s on Me” and two non-Mercer numbers, Gershwin’s “Isn’t It a Pity?” and Sondheim’s “Love is Going Around.”

Then our very own Robert Kimball assumed the podium to talk about his new book, The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer. Bob is a musical theatre historian and critic, not to mention a Yale Law School graduate and former member of the Lindsay administration, who has written six previous books about famous lyricists, including ones on Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. He says this one’s his last, and no wonder. What a lot of material! Mercer wrote more than 1,200 lyrics with 230 collaborators before he died of a brain tumor in 1976 at the age of 67. His songs were nominated for 18 Academy Awards and won four of them.

Just hearing about this remarkable life would have been entertainment enough, but we were treated to live performances by our president, the cabaret superstar KT Sullivan. At Bob’s mention of a song, KT launched into a few lyrics from her table nearby. Then, to spice things up, composer Jon Weber leapt to the piano to provide accompaniment and the show really got rolling. Soon we were singing along, wrapping it up with Broadway veteran Tammy Grimes leading us in Moon River, one of my absolute, all-time favorite songs by any writer. If it wasn’t so much fun I probably would have started crying because that song really gets to me “Two drifters, off to see the world. There’s such a lot of world to see. We’re after the same rainbow’s end, waiting round the bend, my huckleberry friend, moon river and me.”

It just doesn’t get much better than that on a cold Tuesday afternoon -- a delicious three-course meal, fabulous entertainment, plenty of wine and good company, in a gorgeous historic mansion in Gramercy Park in the greatest city on the face of the earth. To sing some lyrics Johnny Mercer didn’t write, “I love New York . . .”

Andrea Marcovicci

I always love it when Andrea Marcovicci sings for our Tuesday luncheon group at the National Arts Club. I’ve been a huge fan of hers since I was in high school and she was Betsy on the now long-defunct soap “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.”

She performed selections from her current engagement, “Skylark: Marcovicci Sings Mercer,” at the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room, a fitting tribute to conclude this year’s centennial celebration of that great songwriter’s birth. Marcovicci spent a year and a half studying his life and work. Her interpretations, along with her striking good looks and sparkling personality, lit up the room. As Variety has said, she is “the epitome of elegance and showbiz savvy.”

In a nod to our afternoon’s speaker who had preceded her, William D. Cohan talking about his best-selling book House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, she led off with Carolyn Leigh’s “If You’re Young at Heart.” “Fairy tales can come true . . .” was a ironic comment on the greedy visions of the executives responsible for the financial crisis that began with the collapses of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

Then she stepped out into the audience to sing “Something’s Gotta Give” and it is was on to Mercer. Andrea also shared anecdotes about the man who collaborated with most of the geniuses of his time. “It was said he would write a song with the first person who showed up in the morning,” she said with a laugh.

She didn’t just sing and tell stories, though. She allowed us to sing along -- as if she could have stopped us -- to “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” and she concluded with a song Mercer didn’t write but which was one with which he had a connection, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” The song is forever associated with Judy Garland, who sang it in “Meet Me in St. Louis” and who had a long-running affair with Mercer.

Johnny Mercer is one of my most loved songwriters. If you’ve ever been to Savannah, Mercer’s hometown, you know why he wrote the songs he did. It is a romantic town, in a gothic sort of way, and spawned the man who would go on to win four Academy Awards and receive 18 nominations. My favorite of the winners, and one of my all-time favorite songs, is “Moon River.” I love watching my all-time favorite actress, Audrey Hepburn, sing it in one of my favorite movies, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” sitting in the window beside her fire escape, with gorgeous George Peppard looking down on her. The movie’s producers had wanted to cut the song, which Mercer wrote with Henry Mancini, but Audrey said, “Over my dead body,” and the song stayed in and won the Oscar for best song.

It’s funny how I spotted Andrea Marcovicci and became mesmerized by her as a junior in high school. She was one of only two fictional heroes I’ve ever had, and surprisingly both were television characters. The first was Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie on That Girl. Both Ann and Betsy appealed to the independent little feminist in me. Thomas’s role was historic in that it marked the first time a female TV character had ever lived alone and had a career. Before that women had always been somebody’s wife, mother or daughter. I knew right then that’s what I wanted. I had never been interested in getting married and having children.

Unlike Ann, Betsy didn’t live alone -- she lived with her boyfriend, Joe. I thought, “Oh, I wouldn’t mind that.” Betsy was a social worker, someone with a passion to help people. That also appealed to me, so much so that I started requesting college catalogues with an eye on majoring in social work. I think it’s interesting that the characters I was drawn to at such an early age were both strong, independent career women who were unconventional for their time. I guess that’s how I grew up to be a strong, independent, unconventional career woman myself. Thanks Ann and Betsy!

That Old Mercer Magic!

The year of celebrations for Johnny Mercer’s centennial may be over, but luckily the joy continues with JaLaLa’s release of the new CD, That Old Mercer Magic!, with its bold and sassy interpretations of Mercer classics.

Backed by a dynamic group of musicians, Lauren Kinhan, Laurel Massé and Janis Siegel (together forming JaLaLa) infuse the songs with swing and jazz renditions, styles Massé and Siegel perfected in their decades with Manhattan Transfer and Kinhan through New York Voices.

Listening to their harmonies of great songs like “Ac-cent-u-ate the Positive” and “Dream” makes me think this must have been what it was like to listen to the Hit Parade in the 1940s. I also love the playful scat of “Jeepers Creepers.” And each singer gets to shine in solos -- Massé is reflective and moving in of one of my all-time favorite songs, “Moon River.”

Most of the 12 selections were familiar to me, but some were nice new discoveries. The complete listing includes: “Spring Spring Spring,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” “My Shining Hour,” “I’m Old Fashioned,” “Ridin’ on the Moon,” “Moon Country, “Have You Got Any Castles, Baby,” “Too Marvelous for Words” and “The Dance of Life.”

Michelle LeBlanc's New CD Brings Sultry Jazz Interpretations to Classic Love Songs

Much to my delight, Michelle LeBlanc has just released her long-awaited new CD, I Remember You, 11 standard love songs given new life through her characteristic sultry and evocative jazz interpretations. With her rich voice and dynamic band, LeBlanc’s recording calls to mind the intimate world of sophisticated nightspots. It’s sexy and it’s joyful, and a welcome follow-up to her first CD, Now or Never.

Many of the selections were familiar to me, starting with with Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To.” Others were new, such as “But Beautiful,” Johnny Burke and Johnny Van Heusen’s 1947 song sung with a dreamy romanticism: Love is funny or it's sad,/ Or it's quiet or it's mad;/ It's a good thing or it's bad, /But beautiful! /Beautiful to take a chance /And if you fall, you fall; /And I'm thinking I wouldn't mind at all.

I also like the wistful “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” the soulfulness of “The Masquerade Is Over” and “Never Will I Marry,” the sense of longing in “That Old Feeling” and the title track, which is nostalgic but with an upbeat tempo.

LeBlanc’s working band is featured on “I Remember You,” and includes Tom Kohl, piano and arrangements; Bill Crow, bass; Joe Stelluti, sax, flute and clarinet; David Jones, drums; and special guest John Arrucci, hand percussion. The arrangements for “Preacher Boy” and “That Old Feeling’” were created by jazz composer and arranger Michael Abene. 

LeBlanc has been a popular personality in jazz clubs, on concert stages and for private events for more than two decades, and is especially well-known in New York’s Hudson Valley.  In New York City, she has performed at The Rainbow Room with The Cab Calloway Orchestra, at The Friars Club, at Town Hall for the Mabel Mercer Cabaret Foundation Showcase and at Riverside Chapel.

She has been performing the songs of “I Remember You” in concerts in upstate New York. I hope it won’t be too long before she brings one down to NYC.

Hallways: The Songs of Carol Hall

This is a treasure of a new CD, an interesting selection of love songs -- ranging from warm, to humorous to rueful -- gospel, and country-lite, sung by terrific singers and backed up by fabulous musicians.

As usual, having covered show business for so long, I know some of the singers featured. My favorite selection is “Do You Know What I Mean?” It’s sung powerfully by Carol Woods, whom I don’t know, but backed up by Broadway Inspirational Voices, the gospel choir I first encountered when I interviewed founder and director Michael McElroy for my book Working on the Inside. I love BIV, both in concert and their CDs. We were blessed one year to have them sing at Broadway Blessing. The song they sing here is about keeping faith in the midst of uncertainty:

“Some people say
That the glory of God
Is a sky that’s sprinkled with stars
All twinkled up with stars
Or a moon that’s risin’ bright
Yes, I know what they mean. . .

But I say the glory of God
Is just one human person
Facing the unknown
Feelin’ all alone
But singin’ Hallelujah
Do you know what I mean?
Yes, I say the glory of God
Is just one human person
Hungry to believe
Grateful to receive
And singin’ Hallelujah
Do you know what I mean?”

I also was touched by the soulful lyrics of “The Two Lonely People,” which offers gorgeous music by Bill Evans, piano solo/arrangement by Hubert “Tex” Arnold, and is hauntingly sung by Laurel Massé, another singer who has blessed my life. Laurel, one of our new members at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, sang with the Broadway Blessing Choir last year. (Her solo CD, “Feather & Bone,” is fabulous.)

Another Broadway Blessing singer, going back a decade, is Scott Coulter who sings “War on Christmas Day,” a moving song about soldiers and sailors at war. Singing with him are Tim Di Pasqua and Tom Andersen; the music is by Robert Burke.

The CD closes with Hall singing “My Circle of Friends,” a lovely tribute to friendship. The other selections, also entertaining and different, are “Hard Candy Christmas,” performed by Hall and Susannah Blinkoff; “It’s Only A Broken Heart,” performed by Sally Mayes; “Dublin In The Rain,” performed by Farah Alvin, with music by Hubert “Tex” Arnold; “Change In Me,” performed by Johnny Rodgers; “This Is My Birthday,” performed by Halland Rick Jensen; “Tattooed Boy In Memphis,” performed by Amanda McBroom; “Hungry For You,” performed by Lesley Gore, accompanied by Wendy Lane Bailey, Massé and Hall, with music by Lesley Gore; “Jenny Rebecca,” performed by Bobby Gosh; “Nana,” performed by Hall, with lyrics by Carol Hall and Jane Hall); and “I’ll Imagine You A Song,” performed by Steven Lutvak, with music by Steven Lutvak.

Kris Kristofferson had this to say about her work: “Carol Hall is a beautiful surprise. One of the lucky experiences that comes along when you’re past expecting anything new under the sun. She is one of the best writers I’ve ever heard. Her songs are beautiful and unmistakably her own, with the paradoxical unpredictability and haunting familiarity of real and creative imagination. Sauce for the soul.”

The first person ever to record one of Hall’s songs was the young Barbra Streisand. Subsequently, her songs were performed by Tony Bennett, Barbara Cook, Margaret Whiting, Julie Wilson, Chita Rivera, Michael Feinstein, Mabel Mercer, Amanda McBroom, Lari White, Olivia Newton-John, Maureen McGovern, RuPaul, Miriam Makeba, David Campbell, Frederica von Stade, Kermit the Frog, Big Bird and many others.

Hall is one of the few songwriters to have a hit Broadway show. Her classic musical, The BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS, entertained Broadway audiences for almost five years, received a Grammy nomination for its cast album, and became a popular film starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. Dolly’s recording of Carol’s song “Hard Candy Christmas” won an ASCAP Most Performed Country Song Award, and the film generated an Acadmy Award nomination for Charles Durning, singing “The Sidestep” as the slippery Governor of Texas. A recent national tour of WHOREHOUSE starring Ann-Margret enjoyed a run of more than a year and a half.

As if that’s not enough, Hall also does a lot of writing for children. Her “It’s All Right To Cry,” and “Parents Are People” continue to be favorites of generations of children. Recently she created the score to the theatrical version of the popular children's series MAX AND RUBY. Four tours of the show are presently playing across the country, after a successful debut opening Off-Broadway in December.

You may order Hallways here.