13 Things You Should Know About Johnny Mercer

Only Sammy Cahn has received more Oscar nods (26) in this category. To put this in contemporary terms, Diane Warren needs four more Oscar nominations to pull into a tie with Mercer for second place on the Oscar leaderboard. Mercer achieved at least one nomination in five consecutive decades, from the ’30s to the ’70s.

Henry Mancini composed the music for five of Mercer’s 18 nominated songs, more than anyone else. Harold Arlen composed four. Harry Warren (no relation to Diane Warren) and Mercer himself composed two. (Mercer wrote both music and lyrics for “Something’s Gotta Give” and “The Facts of Life”). Warren teamed with Jimmy McHugh, Artie Shaw, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael and Marvin Hamlisch on one nominated song each.

In addition, Mercer and Mancini received an Oscar nomination for best original song score for Darling Lili, a 1970 film starring Julie Andrews.  This was on top of their nod for best original song for the film’s lovely ballad, “Whistling Away the Dark.”

Mercer co-founded the legendary label in 1942 with Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. The label that brought us Nat King Cole, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Band, Bob Seger and many more is still going strong 81 years later.

Moreover, Mercer was one of the label’s top artists in the ’40s and early ’50s, with 23 hits on Billboard’s pop songs charts of the era.

His most famous recording as an artist is “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate-the-Positive,” which featured The Pied Pipers and Paul Weston and his orchestra. Mercer co-wrote the positive-thinking anthem, which was the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” of its day, with Harold Arlen for the film Here Come the Waves. It brought Mercer his eighth Oscar nomination for best original song. His 1945 recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and the National Recording Registry in 2014.

His other top recordings as an artist include “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” (inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010), “On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe” and “Personality.” Mercer didn’t write the Oscar-winning “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” but he knew a good song when he heard one.

His long string of hits from 1938-52 also included collabs with some of the top singers of that era, including Bing Crosby (“Small Fry”), Jo Stafford (“Candy”), The King Cole Trio, fronted by Nat King Cole (“Harmony”) and Margaret Whiting (“Baby, It’s Cold Outside).

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Song Book, recorded with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, was the only album in Fitzgerald’s celebrated Song Book series to focus on the work of a lyricist. The album’s opening track, “Too Marvelous for Words,” doubles as an apt description of the album.

Previous editions in the jazz legend’s Song Book series had explored the songs of Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen and Jerome Kern.

Mancini was Mercer’s collaborator on both “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” which won back-to-back Academy Awards in 1962 and 1963. They were the first songwriters to achieve that feat. They were nominated again in 1964 for “Charade,” but their winning streak ended when “Call Me Irresponsible” (from Papa’s Delicate Condition) won instead.

In all the years since, just one other songwriter has had back-to-back best original song winners – Alan Menken, who won in 1992 with “Beauty and the Beast” and 1993 with “A Whole New World (Aladdin’s Theme).”

He achieved the feat in 1963 with “Days of Wine and Roses” (a co-write with Mancini) and “I Wanna Be Around” (on which he shared the credit with one Sadie Vimmerstedt).

And who is Sadie Vimmerstedt, you ask? It’s a great story: Vimmerstedt was a grandmother and beautician in Youngstown, Ohio, who sent Mercer an idea for “I Wanna Be Around” in 1957. She even supplied the opening line (“I want to be around to pick up the pieces, when somebody breaks your heart”). Not knowing where to send her letter, Vimmerstedt simply addressed it to Johnny Mercer…Songwriter…New York, NY. The post office forwarded it to ASCAP, which in turn passed it along to Mercer. Mercer wrote the song and agreed to share one-third of the royalties and credits with Vimmerstedt. Moral of the story: Good ideas can come from anywhere.