Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer

by Philip Furia

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 "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.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2003

About the author

Philip Furia was an American author and English literature professor. His books focus on the lyricists of the Tin Pan Alley era.

Reviews

[Kim Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Being an a artist myself, I love it when biographers can actually speak about an artist's process. Mercer's genius in writing lyrics was not an easy task.... the fact that he made it look so simple is a testament to that genius. The back story of his love and loss with Judy Garland is rich-- and certainly explains the emotional lyrics of his most notable songs. I loved this book on so many levels.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnny Mercer was a Southern gentleman. He probably wouldn't have wanted his dirty laundry aired; however, the author does a great job of presenting many sides of this multi-faceted entertainer. I never realized the person who wrote "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive" and "Glow Worm" also wrote "One for My Baby" and "Moon River". I never knew he was such a Jekyll and Hyde, especially when he was drinking. And I never knew that apparently Judy Garland was the lost love of his life. Judy really doesn't come out looking very well in this book.

Even though he wrote so many incredible songs, the success of a Broadway hit eluded him, and this seemed to weigh on him as a great failure. He had such success with his popular songs and with some of his movie songs. For Pete's sake, he won multiple Oscars. He is well-remembered, even today, when so many lyricists are not. So why be so devastated by the lack of a Broadway hit??

While he certainly had his faults, he also had many great qualities. Look at the sense of humor and word play evident in his lyrics. Look at his determination to pay the debt his father incurred when Johnny was still a boy. Johnny was funny, generous, and talented.

I really enjoyed this book and wish there were biographies available of other "forgotten" songwriters/lyricists, i.e. Harry Warren, Roger Edens, Ira Gershwin, etc.

[Judith]

Mr. Mercer was a key figure in the best-selling book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and "Skylark" was published shortly thereafter. Because of these factors I purchased a copy upon the biography's publication. It is a very well-written book; Mr. Mercer apparently knew and worked with many people in the entertainment business of his times and the anecdotes are on occasion first-person and thus invaluable to today's reader.

He was long involved with Judy Garland, but he was married and stayed that way.

Mr. Mercer was a drinker and did not handle it well; the book is candid about this.

There were several attempts to produce a musical comedy/drama on Broadway but they did not succeed. The anecdotes about creating "Saratoga" are priceless. Mr. Mercer wrote the lyrics and Harold Arlen the music. ("Saratoga" was an ambitious attempt to make a musical out of Edna Ferber's novel "Saratoga Trunk"). Mr. Mercer wrote countless songs for motion pictures with great success; not so with Broadway musicals. "Skylark" provides theories as to why.

An excellent biography.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confession: I skipped the middle section of the book, so take this review with a grain of salt. The author did a ton of research and fans of Moon River, Jeepers Creepers or others of his more than 1000 songs might well love the detail about who he worked with on each, how it was received by the public, what inspired it, etc., but the detail was too much for me.

However, having visited Mercer's hometown of Savannah this spring and his grave at Bonaventure Cemetery, I thoroughly enjoyed the sections about his growing up years and his continued attachment to Savannah.

If you're a real Mercer fan, you might absolutely love this book.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnny Mercer was a more complicated individual than I had imagined. Suppose that is true for most of us, but felt a kinship with him because of his love for Savannah. I don't think this book really gets to the very bottom of that story, but it certainly added to my understanding. Definitely worth the time investment I made in reading this one. And learned a few things about Nick Mamalakis along the way!

[Balloon Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

He was the nicest guy on earth except when he was rip roaring drunk, which unfortunately was most of the time. Well written, but disappointing to learn about the man.

[Straker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and well written, sympathetic to the subject while not glossing over his faults. 4.5 stars.

[Donna Jo Atwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Johnny Mercer's lyrics were well known from the popular Moon River to Summer Wind and countless others.
The man himself was a wreck. He drank heavily, was a womanizer, and had a tendency to be exceptional rude to even his best friends--and people still loved him.
GoodReads Summer Challenge Task 25.6 Biography of songwriter

[Marissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Johnny Mercer is one of my favorite lyricists, so the anecdotes were enjoyable as most of them were from Johnny's unpublished papers. It seemed like it was pieced together, but the subject matter was what interested me.