IT'S JOHNNY MERCER'S 100th BIRTHDAY and Dr. Janos Rukh and I have happily given over the facilities here at our observatory on the far side of the moon in order to present some of the greatest songs by one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century. Savannah, Georgia's favourite son was born on November 18th, 1909 and was one of the most successful and most prolific songwriters of the 20th century. Not only did he write words and music himself but he also collaborated with many MANY top songwriters as well; Mercer probably wrote more big hits with more different people than any other. Johnny also co-founded Capitol Records. Here is just a sampling of many of his greatest standards; many of which feature my favourite versions of the songs.

We start things off with dear Mildred Bailey (one of the patron saints of The Dark Forest radio show) as she performs "LAZY BONES" with the Dorsey Brothers in 1933. "LAZY BONES" has a special family history with me. Long before I was born, when my great aunt Lorraine was but a tiny tot, she would often be given a quarter if she would go sit under the table and sing "LAZY BONES". Now that's ONE way to keep the children at bay! Music is by the great Hoagy Carmichael.

Bobby Darin can be heard here performing "HAVE YOU GOT ANY CASTLES". Most of you will probably know this song mainly because of the self-same titled Looney Tunes cartoon in which books in an overnight bookshop suddenly come to life and run rampant!

"TOO MARVELOUS FOR WORDS" is one of two Mercer songs you will be hearing by the great Nat King Cole. Nat never understood why everybody thought he was such a wonderful singer since he didn't think he had a good voice. Oh Nat, what a crazy thought! The title of this song pretty much describes your singing style!

The very first (of many MANY) Oscar nomination for Johnny Mercer was for "JEEPERS CREEPERS" here performed by the guy who made it famous in the movies: the incomparable Louis Armstrong. Mercer sat in a 30's Henry Fonda movie one day and heard the actor exclaim "Jeeeeee-pers Creeeeeeeee-pers" and a light bulb went off. Mercer wrote the song and described the phrase as a polite way to say "Jeeeee-sus Christ!"

On a bet, Johnny Mercer wrote "AND THE ANGELS SING" along with Ziggy Elman. The song became a huge hit in 1939 for Benny Goodman and His Orchestra.

Mercer collaborated with Rube Bloom on "DAY IN - DAY OUT" which became a jazz standard. Here we have an early 60's live performance by the Divine Sarah Vaughan.

My mama done told me that "BLUES IN THE NIGHT" is one of the best songs a baby vulture can sing. Of course, we got the services of Frank Sinatra instead!

Johnny Mercer wrote "SKYLARK" with Hoagy Carmichael and it became a hit for everyone . . . including Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in 1942.

Next we have "I'M OLD FASHIONED". Here it is performed by the delightful, the delicious and the de-lovely Heather Simmons. It's the title track from her superb 2005 cd.

The already-married Mercer fell deeply in love with the already-married Judy Garland and wrote quite a few songs for her. This is probably the greatest: "I REMEMBER YOU". And here we have it performed by the great Dinah Washington in my favourite version of the song.

When I was a little bitty baby and my mother used to sing me to sleep, there were approximately four songs in her repertoire: "Mockingbird", "Jesus Loves Me", Cole Porter's "True Love" and Johnny Mercer's "UGLY CHILE"!!!! Yes, that's right. Now you know what's wrong with me!!! Johnny Mercer was, in fact, a wildly successful recording artist as well as songwriter and here he is singing the song himself. The record went to Number 22 on the charts in 1944.

Together with Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer wrote what has been called "the greatest alcoholic torch song" ever written: "ONE FOR MY BABY (AND ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD)". Here we have undoubtedly the definitive version by Frank Sinatra.

Mercer's buddy Bing Crosby performs "AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE THE POSITIVE" along with the Andrews Sisters in this huge wartime hit from 1944.

The classic film noir "LAURA" starring Gene Tierney featured the exquisite title music by David Raksin. Quite some time after the movie came out, the studio was bombarded with mail about the music and decided they really needed to get some words for it. Enter Johnny Mercer who lyrically nailed the atmosphere of the movie -- without EVER HAVING SEEN THE FILM!!!

Harold Arlen once again writes the music to Mercer's lyrics on "ANY PLACE I HANG MY HAT IS HOME". Here is my favourite version of the song performed by Rosemary Clooney in the later part of her career.

Joseph Kosma's haunting music for "AUTUMN LEAVES" got the Johnny Mercer lyric treatment. Here we find the more melancholy tone Mercer's songwriting would take during the latter years of his life. And who better than Nat King Cole to interpret it?

On a much more joyously silly note, we find Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael taking us to a party "IN THE COOL, COOL, COOL OF THE EVENING". Mercer has a lot of fun with wordplay here and the song is perfectly performed by another guy who seemed to exist solely to have a lot of fun: Dean Martin.

One of Mercer's lesser-known songs is "EARLY AUTUMN" co-writing with Ralph Burns and Woody Herman. Anita O'Day sings yet another of melancholy Mercer's songs.

Back to fun with wordplay as Johnny Mercer puts the lyric to Paul Lincke's "THE GLOW WORM". This recording by The Mills Brothers was a huge hit.

Everyone from Irving Berling to Cole Porter to . . . well . . . Johnny Mercer fell over themselves trying to get Fred Astaire to introduce their new songs. Besides being the greatest screen dancer who ever lived, Astaire was also rightly considered one of the best song interpreters and was highly in demand to sing a songwriter's new song in one of his movies. Astaire did just that with "SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE".

Yet another songwriter with whom Mercer would have astronomical success was Henry Mancini. In the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Audrey Hepburn sat on her fire escape and sang "MOON RIVER": one of the most hauntingly wistful songs of either composer's career. Andy Williams provides his hit single version.

Following up their Oscar-winning success with "Moon River", Mercer and Mancini provided the title tune for "THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES" here performed by Patti Page (she was all the rage!). Anyone care for a brandy alexander?

After Johnny Mercer's death in 1976, the songwriter's widow found a file of lyrics which Mercer had never put to music. Mrs. Mercer brought them to Barry Manilow and requested that he finish the songs. Undoubtedly the greatest song to come from this posthumous collaboration was "WHEN OCTOBER GOES"; another melancholy Mercer lyric. The song has been covered by Rosemary Clooney, Nancy Wilson, Diane Schuur and others but here is the original version from Barry Manilow's critically acclaimed 1984 album "2:00 AM PARADISE CAFE".

Finally, we're presenting one more song from the Johnny Mercer - Barry Manilow collaboration: the deceptively simple but achingly beautiful "JUST REMEMBER" here performed live by Barry Manilow in 1992.

HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY JOHNNY MERCER!

INAUGURAL POSTING - THE CREATURE LIVES! Hello and welcome to my little experiment. It may thrill you a little and. . .chill you a little. It was my intention to have this be my "all audio" blog but naturally the amount (size) of audio I am able to put up here is minute in the extreme. My inaugural post was going to be an episode of the old radio show SUSPENSE featuring H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" starring Ronald Colman. But of course a 24 minute soundfile was apparently too big. So, until I can somehow manage to either upload sound files at a lower quality so that they won't be too large to post (are you listening, Fink!), I will be posting smaller but by no means lesser audio files, songs and stories that I will be drawing down from the galaxy of Andromeda.