Editorial: Fondly remembering Savannah’s songwriter, Johnny Mercer
This is an editorial from the Savannah Morning News and represents the opinion of our editorial board, which is made up of Market Leader Michael Traynor, Executive Editor Susan Catron and Editorial Page Editor Adam Van Brimmer.
In this anxiety-riddled world right now, it would be nice if Johnny Mercer could come home to Savannah to help us accentuate the positive in the wake of the coronavirus tragedy.
America’s beloved songwriter and lyricist who penned 1,400 original songs -- many of which comprise the heart and soul of the 20th-century American songbook -- was born in 1909 in Savannah and spent much of his life here in the Coastal Empire. He was buried in Bonaventure Cemetery after his death in California from brain cancer-related complications in 1976.
In 1995, the Georgia Legislature officially declared April 19 Johnny Mercer Day in honor of Mercer’s “outstanding contributions to the field of music.”
In his immortal lyrics, Savannah’s most legendary songwriter offers advice to get us all through the recent turmoil of growing pandemics, crashing stock markets and social distancing, inviting us all to “accentuate the positive,” “eliminate the negative,” “spread joy up to the maximum” and “bring gloom down to the minimum.”
The cheery lyrics may seem a bit simplistic, but Mercer’s command of language and emotion underscore the fact that our attitude can shape our reality. Look for something to be cheerful about and cheerfulness will probably find you.
An indelible mark
Mercer, who was also the co-founder of Capitol Records, enjoyed immense success through most of his career. His lyrics won four Academy Awards. He wrote some of the most well-known songs of the 20th century, including “Moon River,” “That Old Black Magic,” “Satin Doll,” “Days of Wine and Roses” and “One More for the Road.”
His songs have been sung, covered or played by Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby and Barry Manilow. Savannah’s own pianist Emma Kelly, known as the Lady of 6,000 songs, performed his songs locally for decades.
If it’s called an American standard, it was probably written by Johnny Mercer, Savannah’s huckleberry friend.
In 1980, Mercer was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and posthumously inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2011.
Mercer was a Savannahian through and through. His grandfather served as a colonel in the Confederate Army, and he was a choirboy at Christ Church. He attended Chatham Academy, danced at the DeSoto Hotel on Tybee and hung out at Barbee’s Pavilion on Isle of Hope. He crossed the city’s racial divide, absorbing a wide range of influences that shaped his music and had a lifelong love of jazz. One of his first collaborators was Louis Armstrong.
His father, attorney and real estate investor George Anderson Mercer, Jr., and his mother, Lillian Ciucevich Mercer, lived on East Hall Street and, later, on Gwinnett Street.
Mercer drew upon his sense of place and his love of Savannah to enrich his lyrics, referring to the sounds of crickets, the songs of meadowlarks and the movements of rivers to evoke emotion.
A love of Savannah
In his later years, Mercer often returned to Savannah and even purchased a house on Burnside Island as a retreat from Hollywood and New York, where he spent much of his professional career. Georgia’s legislature renamed the river that flows past Bethesda and down to his home on Burnside Island Moon River in his honor.
Mercer’s presence is still palpable in Savannah. to this day. Visitors can snap selfies next to a life-sized bronze sculpture of the songwriter, created by Susie Chisholm, in Ellis Square. As mentioned in John Berendt’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” guests can toast him with a martini at his grave at Bonaventure Cemetery while sitting on a granite bench inscribed with his immortal lyrics.
Yes, it would be wonderful to have Johnny Mercer home again to encourage us to keep our chin up and to stay steadfast “through the darkness of the light.” As he reminds us in “Moon River,” there’s still “such a lot of world to see.”
Thanks for the memories, Johnny. Savannah remembers you fondly -- on Johnny Mercer day this Sunday and always.
