Johnny Mercer Birthday Celebration - Day Six

Today's entry is a simple one. It consists of my three favorite Mercer songs: Midnight Sun, Early Autumn, and Laura. Many, many artists have covered them over the last half century. Lately, they've been revived by the new crop of jazz and pop vocalists - you'll hear more about that tomorrow - who have recently discovered the timelessness of the Great American Songbook.

Lionel Hampton and Sonny Burke wrote Midnight Sun in 1954 as an instrumental and had a big hit with it. The story goes that Mercer heard the tune on the freeway heading to his office. By the time he got there, he had the lyric. I think Ella Fitgerald "owns" this song, but Tony Bennett does a great job with it, too.

Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice
Warmer than the summer night
The clouds were like an alabaster palace
Rising to a snowy height
Each star its own aurora borealis
Suddenly you held me tight
I could see the midnight sun.


Early Autumn was composed in 1949 by Ralph Burns and Woody Herman. Herman had an immediate instrumental hit. Jo Stafford followed a few years later with this superb interpretation:



When an early autumn walks the land and chills the breeze
And touches with her hand the summer trees,
Perhaps you'll understand what memories I own.
There's a dance pavilion in the rain all shuttered down,
A winding lane all russet brown
A frosty window pane shows me a town grown lonely.


In 1944, the film, Laura, appeared with a theme song composed by David Raksin. The next year Mercer added the haunting lyrics. Here is Dick Haymes doing the vocal track to a visual tribute to Gene Tierney, who played Laura Hunt in the film:



Laura is the face in the misty lights,
Footsteps that you hear down the hall.
The laugh that floats on a summer night
That you can never quite recall.

And you see Laura on the train that is passing through,
Those eyes how familiar they seem.
She gave your very first kiss to you
That was Laura but she's only a dream.


Simply beautiful work. More tomorrow.