SteynOnline

Song of the Week #145
An audio celebration of Johnny Mercer

All this month at SteynOnline we're marking the centenary of one of the most successful and prolific of American songwriters, born November 18th 1909. We'll be observing the anniversary in our traditional Song of the Week format on the next four Mondays, with a bonus Song of the Day in mid-month. But Johnny Mercer wrote so many great songs that, even devoting the whole of November to him, we're only able to pick out one hit per decade from a very long career. So, by way of introduction, here's part one of a special audio podcast edition of Song of the Week, in which I'll introduce the Mercer catalogue with performances of "Moon River", "Jeepers Creepers", "Fools Rush In", "Blues In The Night", "Too Marvelous For Words", "Ac-Cen-Tchu-Ate The Positive", "That Old Black Magic", "Goody Goody", "Hooray For Hollywood", "Skylark" and many more, as sung by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Fred Astaire, k d lang, Louis Armstrong, Rita Hayworth, the Mills Brothers, Rosemary Clooney, Clint Eastwood and many more, including Johnny Mercer himself. You can get the podcast here - and be singing along within seconds. And stay tuned for part two later in the week.

[NOTE: This is the second of our occasional audio editions of Song of the Week, following our centenary observations for Mercer's friend and collaborator, Carl Sigman.]