New Johnny Mercer Biography By Gene Lees

“...the best writer on the topic of jazz in the world today" ~Toronto Sun

Best known as one of the foremost lyricists of the golden age of American popular song--writer of standards including “One for My Baby," “That Old Black Magic," and “Moon River"--Johnny Mercer was also a singer, record-company executive (he founded Capitol Records), and occasional composer. A popular radio personality with a happy-go-lucky persona, he was actually...unhappy, trapped in a loveless marriage (made more miserable by a stormy, long-lasting affair with Judy Garland), and a notoriously nasty drunk.

But also extremely generous, marvelously talented, and unwaveringly dedicated to music and its dominions, Johnny Mercer was one of the most influential people in the music industry of the 20 th Century. His fame as a singer and lyricist alone would have kept him in high social, financial and artistic standing for a full lifetime. But in 1940 he founded Capitol Records, the first label to set up shop on the west coast, and whose early releases sold copies in the millions and made the company and many of its new artists, such as Nat King Cole, tremendous successes almost overnight. Capitol Records now boasts an artist roster that includes The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Garth Brooks, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, The Beastie Boys, and Duran Duran, and an office building that, built in 1959 at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, is a Los Angeles landmark.

Under the glare of the interviewer's spotlight, Mercer once said, “A man's personal life should be his own unless, like some, he prefers to parade it in public for vanity or profit. I couldn't share my private ecstasies with anyone except the person who helped create them, no more than I would annoy anyone with my personal griefs. Memory to me is a secret treasure trove more exciting than any blue yonder--and just about the only privacy we have left." Forsaking this sentiment to hauntingly beautiful effect, in his award-winning biography, Portrait of Johnny, longtime Mercer friend Gene Lees provides a starkly honest and thorough portrait of this legendary southern man who hailed from a well-heeled Savannah family; availed himself of a nascent and blooming Hollywood; worked with some of the giants of his day, including, among many others, Benny Goodman, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Fred Astaire, Louis Armstrong, and Hoagy Carmichael; and whose passionate and adulterous love affair with Judy Garland was one of the great unspoken (but often witnessed) secrets of his time. Hal Leonard is delighted to announce publication of the trade paperback release of the ASCAP--Deems Taylor Award-winning biography Portrait of Johnny: The Life of John Herndon Mercer.

About the Author:
Gene Lees has written extensively on jazz history, and his biography subjects include Woody Herman, Oscar Peterson, and Lerner and Loewe. He is a lyricist and songwriter whose songs have been recorded by such artists as Frank Sinatra, Carmen McRae, and Tony Bennett, a four-time winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Journalists Association. Lees writes and publishes Jazzletter and lives in Ojai, California.

Softcover; $18.95