[78-L] Happy 100th, Johnny Mercer

[Cary Ginell]

No harm intended, Randy. Guess we just agree to disagree. I found the program eminently entertaining and not at all irritating. Maybe some newbies will be encouraged to pick up Gene Lees' splendid bio of Mercer, "Portrait of Johnny" that came out a few years ago. 

 

I only wished that they had included "The Sweetheart Tree" from "The Great Race," which Mercer wrote with Henry Mancini. I think that was one of his best songs. 

 

One thing that would have been nice to include as maybe a voiceover (unless there was video taken of this), was a one-man concert Mercer gave in the early 70s that was issued as part of a 3-LP box set from the Book-of-the-Month called "An Evening With." Each LP features a solo performance by a classic American songwriter. Mercer's on one, Sammy Cahn on another and Alan Jay Lerner on the third. You talk about a whirlwind show. Mercer sang parts of 50 of his songs in that hour. I haven't listened to the LP in quite a while, but I'm going to drag it out this weekend and listen to it again.

 

Cary Ginell
 
> Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 18:32:23 -0800
> From: forwardintothepast at yahoo.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Happy 100th, Johnny Mercer
> 
> Cary, I didn't want analysis, I merely wanted Mercer's lyrics to be heard.
> 
> This was cut with such a short attention span that any given song wasn't performed by one artist, it was performed by six or seven, sometimes with jarring key changes along the way. And you're right--everybody was identified, along with the source of the material, which normally I would applaud, but when each shot only lasted six or seven seconds at best it made for a tremendous amount of visual clutter, all of which distracted mightily from appreciating the nuances of Mercer's lyrics. I felt like Johnny was softly trying to sing one of his songs, while a juggler and a circus clown and a guy on a pogo stick were all blocking our view of him.
> 
> This should have been edited with more of an emphasis and respect for Mercer's words. Lyrics are delicate things. 
> 
> I should note that I thought the biographical portions of the show were generally fine, just not organized the way I would have liked. You and I know Mercer's story forward and backward, so if this documentary actually told it forward and backward, we still knew what happened and when. Someone who was just learning about Mercer would be mightily confused, I suspect.
> 
> --Randy
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