I was born in Maryland and spent my first thirty years living there, first in the Appalachian Mountains, then on the Eastern Shore, and later in suburban Washington. After a year in South Carolina, I moved to Georgia in 1977. I soon met another park ranger who worked in Florida. She was a wonderful woman who became my best friend. then my wife, and soon the mother of our three children. I spent over eleven years working in the historic city of Savannah, Georgia, and on the moss-draped sea islands nearby before moving to Atlanta.. In 2007, I retired from the National Park Service and a career dedicated to preserving and interpreting resources and themes in the cultural and natural history of the United States. It was a most rewarding experience. Today, I enjoy living in the rolling hills and woods of the Appalachian Piedmont east of Atlanta.
Back in the '70's and '80's I had the good fortune to live on the beach of a small barrier island at the mouth of the Savannah River. My house was a raised Caribbean-style cottage built in the 1920s. The porch overlooking the Atlantic faced southeast and was ideal for capturing the summer trade winds. At this time of year when I looked toward the horizon I saw a beautiful event unfold many times in the hour before dawn. Those hours and the imaginary music of the spheres evoke memories so vivid they seem to have occurred only yesterday.
First, Bellatrix, a blue giant star rose out of the Atlantic haze to be followed soon by the red giant, Betelgeuse. Soon the blue giants, Mintaka, and Rigel followed. At this point viewers saw a signature belt of three stars and a faint sword. Experienced sky watchers knew that Orion the Hunter was ascending. In minutes the belt stars pointed to shimmering Sirius, a binary star also known as the Dog Star. It was by far the brightest star in the sky but soon it and all the others would dissolve in the blinding light and heat of another summer sunrise.
Sirius the Dog Star
In the Nile and other valleys of the ancient Middle East, all eyes turned to the summer dawn anticipating the appearance of Orion and Sirius. They signaled the coming of the floods, of water for life and eventually for civilization. To the ancient Greeks the rising of these stars with the sun signaled the peak of summer heat when even dogs chose not to leave shade. They came to call this time of year hemerai kynades, a phrase that translates directly to "dog days." We have come a long way in time since scribes first recorded Sirius rising from the damp mud along the banks of the Nile. But we still experience the Hunter and the Dog, now both lost in daylight, one awaiting his turn to rule the autumn sky, the other to remind us that his days, the sultry dog days, are still with us.
While some people dread them I look forward to the coming of the "dog days." The heat makes me thrive and my arthritis becomes a memory. Atlanta's climate data tells us that on average the warmest days of 2023 will be behind us in a few weeks. The sun is already casting ever longer shadows as it arcs lower across the southern sky. Leaves hang limp on trees catching more and more of that light giving the woods a golden hue even at midday. The aging summer has also brought this year's acorn crop closer to maturity. I can tell because the squirrel community in our woods is starting to work overtime on an early and ripening harvest.
Calm days and high temperatures also lead to popcorn thundershowers that meander across the region waiting to die out as fast as they arise. So far they've brought powerful lightning, the positive strikes that start fires, several inches of rainfall, high winds, and pea sized hail. With that said it's time to envision sitting comfortably on the screened porch where a big ceiling fan quietly generates a steady breeze and your sweating sweet iced tea feels good even to the touch. The forest surrounding me is a still landscape interrupted by an occasional bird or squirrel. If you stay there long you witness the yellowing light of day giving way to the twilights, the lightning bugs, the cicadas, then the katydids and a chorus of north Georgia tree frogs.
I love all of those twilight sounds but I love the katydids most. They remind me of long summer vacations and drifting to sleep in my bed next to a cottage window that opened wide to both their chatter and a comforting breeze moving down the West Virginia mountainsides of my childhood. It was there I first developed a passion for forests, for flowing water, for a clear sky I felt I could almost touch. Over sixty year later that passion leads me to waken before the sun to witness a pattern of stars rise out of an unseen ocean and bring me summer. Bring it on!
One of the most significant writers in America,Flannery O'Connor,was born on March 25 in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925. She spent her early childhood as a devout Catholic there in a home just off Lafayette Square. The square features moss-draped live oaks, colorful azaleas, and an abundance of birds, all sitting in the shadows of the towering spires of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Things haven't changed much in this beautiful space. It still has its interesting spectrum of regular visitors: fast-walking pedestrians, lovers holding hand, lunch hour diners, retirees enjoying the benches, touring families, people waiting for the bus, runners and bikers, and children at play. And every day for the last 120 years, the cathedral casts its shadow over the O'Connor home while its bells remind the people of God's grace and their obligations as His children. I think as long as you can visit Lafayette Square, say on any pleasant Sunday afternoon, you can know O'Connor well.
Her family moved to Atlanta in 1938, where her father was diagnosed with lupus, a chronic disease involving the destruction of healthy tissue by the body's immune system. Shortly thereafter they moved 100 miles southeast to her mother's family home in Milledgeville. When her father died in 1941, O'Connor moved a few miles north of town to her uncle's farm where she lived with her mother. Eventually, the farm would be called Andalusia, and it became a refuge following her own diagnosis with lupus in 1950. At Andalusia, she would raise her beloved peacocks and weave her experiences and memories of people, ethics, morals, and religion into her novels, Wise Blood, and The Violent Bear It Away, and scores of short stories published in two collections in her lifetime, A Good Man is Hard to Find, and Everything That Rises Must Converge. Her Complete Stories appeared posthumously in 1971.
Main house at Andalusia
O'Connor's office-bedroom at Andalusia
Lupus, an incurable long-term autoimmune disease, took Flannery O'Connor from us in 1964 when she was in her 39th year. You can visit both her childhood home and Andalusia thanks to foundations that preserve the landscapes and memories she cherished. And, thanks to her, you can visit the South anytime by simply opening one of her books.
Many years ago the management at Andalusia removed scores of the offspring of O'Connor's beloved peacocks to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, a large Trappist estate about two and a half miles from our ridge top home. At that time the area was still quite rural and the peacocks flourished in and around the monastery grounds.
Thirty years ago on quiet evening when the wind was right it was not unusual for us to hear them calling faintly in the distance. Eventually, they were removed and for some years now there has been no call to break the silence. But we do remember those urgent and sometimes fearful calls in the dusk. Today the woods remain a gallery of sounds. Some we know well. Others we may not recognize so easily. Those of us who know O'Connor's work well may find it difficult to distinguish between the peacock, the author's veil, or the rich spirit world that inhabits her American South. After all, from the ancient traditions of the Catholic world the peacock is the symbol of immortality.
I think it is safe to say that while the South is significantly less Christ-centered than it was in O'Connor's time, it most certainly remains Christ-haunted. The Southerner who isn’t convinced of it is very much afraid if not haunted by the fact that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God. And visitations by ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. In O'Connor's dance with the grotesque her characters and their angst cast strange shadows. The characters may fade away. Their shadows never fade away.
Sources
Photos and Illustrations:
Childhood photo, Andalusia Farm, Inc. Photo courtesy of the Flannery O'Connor Collection, Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, Georgia. House, deepsouthmagazine.com Bedroom, photo courtesy of Emily Elizabeth Beck Adult portrait, openculture.com
Text:
Flannery O'Connor entry, Sarah Gordon, et al, georgiaencyclopedia.org quotation from Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, selected and edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, New York; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969
Aside from the Christmas freeze and an exceptionally cold January it has so far been a rather typical winter in north Georgia. The coming weeks looks promising as higher temperatures should reach above normal by month's end, a certain fulfilment of the promise of spring. It is after all that time of year when cool mornings give way to pleasant afternoons and sitting on the patio in the warming sun. Some early spring flowers are already in bloom along with a few optimistic redbud trees. Even casual observation of the woods reveals first hints of color from sap rising into the young branches. But not all of the activity is at ground level. It's time to look up, way up, for the magnificent Sandhill cranes.
Although year round resident populations of Sandhills continue to increase in Georgia for those who feel the urge it's time for birds in the Southeast to begin their journey. Reports from watchers all over north Georgia confirm that that the great migration is indeed underway. For the next month of so over Atlanta, flocks ranging from a few dozen to as many as several hundred push north and northwest on their journey to summer habitats in the western Great Lakes and central Canada. They are a pleasure to watch with their shapely "v" and wide arc formations as well as their "kettling" in uplifts prior to departure.
In our woodland setting I always hear their distant croaking - "ka-roo, ka-roo, ka-roo" - that leaves me hoping they fly over my clearing. Most of the time they do because they fly high, sometimes into the thousands of feet. At those altitudes it's hard to imagine that you are looking at a bird that may stand four feet tall and soar on a seven foot wing span. Several hundred-thousand will migrate from their wintering ground in Florida and Georgia. Far larger numbers will migrate north from Mexico across the Great Plains for their their summer home in Canada, Coming or going, they always bring a smile to my face and leave me looking up for more.
Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987) was an only child, a "PK," a preacher's kid. His family moved frequently throughout the South until he was fifteen when they settled in Wrens, Georgia. Still, his father often preached on large circuits, necessitating plenty of travel. In fact, the elder Caldwell traveled so regularly that his son could determine his destinations by the odor of coal smoke on his suit. In time, father took son on many of these journeys. The peculiarity, poverty, and injustice of the Depression era South was embedded in Erskine Caldwell's memory and he soon began writing about it. His observations had little to do with remnants of "the late unpleasantness" - the Civil War - that often gripped the region. Instead, Caldwell wrote of the raw realities of the human condition in the South. This, and his crusade for improving conditions, did not sit well with many Southerners. The dislike was enhanced because he was writing "in absentia," having left the South before 1930. Furthermore, his subject matter often placed him in conflict with censors across the country.
Caldwell had a long career as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, but he is best known for Tobacco Road (1932), God's Little Acre (1933) and other works from the 1930's. An adaptation of Tobacco Road played on Broadway for eight years - a record at the time - beginning in 1933. A "sentimental burlesque" adaptation directed by John Ford in 1941 contributed to the stereotyping and ridicule of poor white Southerners. Caldwell greatly disliked the film. God's Little Acre remains one of the most popular novels in the U.S. with over ten million copies in print. A 1958 film version is considered the best presentation of Caldwell themes on film.
Here are the opening scenes from Tobacco Road (1941) and the theatrical trailer from God's Little Acre (1958):
Caldwell, who was born on this day in 1903, is an interesting blend of 20th century authors. He is Sherwood Anderson, William Faulkner, D.H. Lawrence, Christopher Isherwood, Joseph Mitchell, and a reflection of other modernists. Readers who seek more than discourse on the happy veneer of the human condition will enjoy Caldwell's interpretations. A good place to start is Deep South: Memory and Observation, a collection of travel essays written in 1968.
Read more about him inthis entry from the New Georgia Encyclopedia. The volume is also the source of a quotation and other information in this post.
Today is the birthday (1845) of the beloved Georgia journalist and writer, Joel Chandler Harris. He was born in Eatonton and raised by his single mother and other benefactors to love reading, writing, and humor. At sixteen he was employed at the nearby Turnwold Plantation as a print setter for what was likely the nation's only plantation newspaper, The Countryman. Under the guidance of owner Joseph Addison Turner, Harris read from the plantation's large library over the a period of four years. He also observed life on the plantation including its rich culture of oral traditions among the slaves.
After a decade of employment with several papers in central Georgia and Savannah, Harris joined the staff of the Atlanta Constitution in 1876. It was here that he linked a Lippincott's article on black folklore to his Turnwold Plantation experience and the Uncle Remus character he had created for his feature writing. The rest was history, described here in R. Bruce Bickley's Georgia Encyclopedia article on Harris:
For the next quarter-century, Harris lived a double life professionally. He was one of two associate editors of the premier newspaper in the Southeast, helping readers interpret the complex New South movement. He was also the creative writer, the "other fellow," as he termed himself: a prolific, committed, and ambitious re-creator of folk stories, a literary comedian, fiction writer, and author of children's books. Harris published thirty-five books in his lifetime, in addition to writing thousands of articles for the Constitution over a twenty-four-year period. Along with his first book, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the most ambitious of the Uncle Remus volumes is Nights with Uncle Remus: Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation (1883). This book comprises seventy-one tales that feature stories told by four different black narrators, including Uncle Remus.
Harris also left his impact on major literary figures to come. Rudyard Kipling, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison all responded to the legacy of Brer Rabbit and the tar baby that Harris had helped popularize. Fellow Eatonton writer Alice Walker protested, however, that Harris had stolen her African American folklore heritage and had made it a white man's publishing commodity.
Harris died on July 3, 1908, of acute nephritis and was buried in Westview Cemetery, West End, Atlanta. Obituary writers were not exaggerating when they eulogized this celebrated middle Georgia writer as "the most beloved man in America." Only Harris's friend and admirer, Mark Twain, who died two years later, surpassed Harris in popular reputation at the beginning of the twentieth century. Harris's retelling of the story of Brer Rabbit and the tar baby remains one of the world's best-known folktales, and his complex legacy as a literary comedian, New South journalist, folklorist, fiction writer, and children's author continues to influence modern culture in a surprising number of ways.
As noted in the quotation, Harris's place in the history of folklore is not without its controversy. Historically there has always been a struggle in the sphere of anthropological studies with cultural preservation and destruction as well as ownership. In Harris we have a written legacy from black oral tradition as viewed though the author's personal lens. It isn't perfect but it does preserve universal themes and lessons in their cultural context. Furthermore his work in part inspired a resurgence of interest in storytelling and performance in a number of cultural niches. If anything that interest is far stronger today than it was a century ago and much of it under black ownership. I can certainly encourage and appreciate that as well as Harris's contribution. I also trust that the magic of storytelling will remain a rich tradition in the American experience and beyond.
Sources
Text: R. Bruce Bickley, Joel Chandler Harris, Georgia Encyclopedia, georgiaencyclopedia,org
November 18, marks the 115th anniversary of the birth of John Herndon Mercer (1909-1976). For fans of the Great American Songbook, this is a significant event. Mercer won four Academy Awards for Best Original Song and had another twelve nominations. Indeed he was quite a music master.
Born into wealth in Savannah, Mercer often recounted how his Aunt Hattie hummed to him in his crib and "he hummed right back at her." It was the beginning of a musical career that would produce more than 1500 published songs, a few thousand more unpublished songs and song fragments, scores of poems and prose pieces, an unfinished autobiography, and a major chapter in the history of American music in the twentieth century.
In Mercer's Savannah a rich Southern culture blended with that of a diverse and exciting port city. He spent his childhood fascinated by train and ship whistles, and the sounds and rhythms drifting from the black churches around town. He was thrilled by the chance to slip away from his mother's watchful eye and visit the black business district on West Broad Street - now MLK Boulevard - where he listened to race records. The family's summer home on the Vernon River, about ten miles south of town, immersed him in the natural world of Georgia's tidal creeks and salt marshes. By his teen years, he loved hearing the dance and jazz bands every summer at the famous Tybrisa Pavilion on nearby Tybee Island. He also began writing songs and skits for his student productions at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia.
When the family business failed in the late '20s, any hope of returning to Woodberry or attending college dimmed. He grew bored at home and shipped off to New York to become a Broadway performer. The demand for singers was weak but he began tinkering with lyric writing when he wasn't singing or working odd jobs. Here is his first published song lyric:
Lyrics are meant to be heard but it's not always easy to appreciate them without the poetry on the page, especially when written by such a word genius:
Out of Breath (1930)
lyrics by Johnny Mercer music by Everette Miller
Mine's a hopeless case, But there's one saving grace, Anyone would feel as I do; Out of breath and scared to death of you. Love was first divined, Then explored and defined, Still the old sensation is new; Out of breath and scared to death of you. It takes all the strength that I can call to my command, To hold your hand. I would speak at length About the love that should be made, But I'm afraid. Hercules and such Never bothered me much, All you have to do is say "Boo!" Out of breath and scared to death of you.
Yes, it's pretty simple, comic stuff but it had flashes of wordplay and bouncy rhythm. It was perfect for the Garrick Gaieties revue of 1930.
One of the chorus girls left Johnny out of breath as well. Her name was Ginger Meehan and she was Bing Crosby's squeeze at the time. Eventually, Mercer won her over and they married in 1931 after Johnny secured a staff job writing lyrics. The following year, his persistent work paid off when he partnered with Hoagy Carmichael, already well-known for his sensational song, Stardust. After several months, the collaboration produced Lazybones, Mercer's first hit song. It was full of black dialect and all the stereotypical perceptions of the day.
By the time Lazybones became popular, the New York music industry was in full transition thanks, in part, to the rapidly growing film industry in California. Films needed songs and with his prospects cooling in New York, Mercer traveled to Hollywood where he met his old friend, Bing Crosby, who had already made the transition to the West. The early years were a challenge for Mercer, but things changed in 1936. That year, Crosby offered to sing one of Mercer's songs in the film, Rhythm on the Range. The film wasn't much. The song was a runaway hit:
I'm An Old Cowhand
words and music by Johnny Mercer
I'm and old cowhand From the Rio Grande, But my legs ain't bowed And my cheeks ain't tanned. I'm a cowboy who never saw a cow, Never roped a steer 'cause I don't know how, And I sure ain't fixin' to start in now. Yippy I O Ki Ay, Yippy I O Ki Ay.
. . .
And I learned to ride 'Fore I learned to stand, I'm a ridin' fool who is up to date, I know ev'ry trail in the Lone Star State, 'Cause I ride the range in a Ford V-Eight
. . .
And I come to town Just to hear the band, I know all the songs that the cowboys know, 'Bout the big corral where the doagies go, 'Cause I learned them all on the radio.
. . .
Where the West is wild 'Round the borderland, Where the buffalo roam around the Zoo, And the Indians make you a rug or two, And the old Bar X is a Bar B Q. Yippy I O Ki Ay, Yippy I O Ki Ay.
I think Mercer came into perfect form with this one. With a little help from his pal, Crosby, his name became associated with songwriting among Hollywood's shakers and makers. In these early years, he struggled through a few flop movies, but he learned the ins and outs of Hollywood, and continued writing poetry to music. Mercer went on to great fame after I'm An Old Cowhand. Movies, records, and radio brought his folksy, common sense, "free and easy, that's my style" personality into homes across America and made him a beloved next door neighbor.
Mercer could be serious with a lyric, but he was equally capable of making us laugh at ourselves and our circumstances. Hooray for Hollywood is an outstanding example. I'd say almost every American can hum the title line but it's the rest of the lyric that really sparkles. Here's the song as it appeared in Busby Berkeley's 1937 blockbuster film hit, Hollywood Hotel. If you don't want to miss any words, the original lyric is below.
Hooray For Hollywood
words by Johnny Mercer music by Richard A. Whiting
Hooray for Hollywood! That screwy bally hooey Hollywood, Where any office boy or young mechanic Can be a panic, With just a good looking pan, And any bar maid Can be a star maid, If she dances with or without a fan,
Hooray for Hollywood! Where you're terrific if you are even good, Where anyone at all from Shirley Temple To Aimee Semple Is equally understood, Go out and try your luck, You might be Donald Duck! Hooray for Hollywood!
Hooray for Hollywood! That phoney super Coney Hollywood, They come from Chilicothes and Paducahs With their bazookas To get their names up in lights, All armed with photos from local rotos, With their hair in ribbons and legs in tights,
Hooray for Hollywood! You may be homely in your neighborhood, But if you think that you can be an actor, See Mister Factor, He'd make a monkey look good. Within a half an hour, You'll look like Tyrone Power! Hooray for Hollywood!
Over three decades Mercer wrote the lyrics to hundreds of songs, collaborating with the country's top music writers, including Harold Arlen, Bernie Hannigan, Hoagy Carmichael, Harry Warren, Gene DePaul, Henry Mancini, Jerome Kern, Rube Bloom, and Matty Malneck.
In 1971, Mercer appeared in what he called a "parlor evening" performance as part of the 92nd Street Y's Lyrics and Lyricists Series. At the end of the program, Mercer delivered an unforgettable medley of his "bread and butter" songs. I'd say most songwriters and performers would be pleased to have five songs in such a list. Mercer had twenty-nine. Regardless of your age and interest in popular music, you may be surprised at how many of these songs you recognize today:
Lazybones (1933), music by Hoagy Carmichael
Goody, Goody (1936), music by Marty Malneck
Too Marvelous For Words (1937), music by Richard A. Whiting
Jeepers Creepers (1938), music by Harry Warren
Satin Doll (1958), written with Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn
You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby (1938), music by Harry Warren
That Old Black Magic (1943), music by Harold Arlen
Accentuate the Positive (1944) music by Harold Arlen
Fools Rush In (1940), music by Rube Bloom
I Remember You (1942), music by Victor Schertzinger
Day In - Day Out (1939), music by Rube Bloom
Dearly Beloved (1942), music by Jerome Kern
Come Rain or Come Shine (1946), music by Harold Arlen
Tangerine (1942), music by Victor Schertzinger
Hooray For Hollywood (1938), music by Richard A. Whiting
Laura (1945), music by David Raksin
Dream (1944), words and music by Johnny Mercer
On the Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe (1946, Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song, music by Harry Warren
Something's Gotta Give (1954), words and music by Johnny Mercer
One For My Baby (1943), music by Harold Arlen
In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening (1951), Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song, music by Hoagy Carmichael
Skylark (1941), music by Hoagy Carmichael
Autumn Leaves (1950), music by Joseph Kosma
I Wanna Be Around (1962), words and music by Johnny Mercer and Sadie Vimmerstedt
Blues in the Night (1941), music by Harold Arlen
Charade (1963), music by Henry Mancini
Summer Wind (1965), music by Henry Mayer
Moon River (1961), Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song, music by Henry Mancini
Days of Wine and Roses (1962), Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song, music by Henry Mancini
That's plenty of "bread and butter" on one man's plate, but we need to keep in mind that he had seven more songs nominated for an Academy Award that never made it into the medley. What a talent.
If you're curious to learn even more about Mercer, your minimal immersion requires three books, one website, and one audio disk.
THE BOOKS:
A good starting point is, Johnny Mercer: The Life, Times and Song Lyrics of Our Huckleberry Friend. It was collected and edited by television producer Bob Bach and Ginger Mercer, Johnny's widow. There's nothing scholarly about it. It is simply a nostalgic look at Mercer's career through photos, letters, notes, sheet music covers, lyrics, and tributes. Photos are always worth their thousand words, and the book gives readers the chance to study the lyrics to almost 100 Mercer songs. One highlight is the publication of the texts of four Christmas greeting cards. In two of them, Johnny worked his lyrical magic using all the surnames on his card list. The book concludes with incomplete lists of his published songs and motion picture contributions.
Philip Furia takes a more scholarly approach to Mercer in his book, Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer. This book is a well-balanced treatment of a life characterized by great success as well as trouble and torment. It is well known that Mercer could be not only a gentleman and generous friend when sober, but also a vicious drunk who frequently sent roses to his victims the day after his verbal assaults. But Furia is at his best analyzing the process of songwriting, devoting many pages to a single song, and detailing the origin and evolution of the lyric. If you want to skip the nostalgia and go straight to reading a very good biography, Furia has written your book.
Gene Lees was a music biographer, lyricist and jazz historian who was a personal friend of Mercer's beginning around 1950. He brings more of a Hollywood insider perspective to the Mercer story, and does so with an entertaining, informal style. If this is what you look for in a biography, then Portrait of Johnny: The Life and Times of John Herndon Merceris your book. The book doesn't have Furia's tight organization, but it is full of personal recollections and opinions from scores of close friends and associates. The high point for me is the author's extensive use of direct quotes from Mercer's unpublished autobiography. On the other hand, Lees gives his readers almost too much detail on Ginger Mercer as the terror in her family's life. Some readers may say the book is more of a layman's psychological analysis than a true biography. Regardless, it provides a nice balance to Furia's book in spite of the duplication.
This exhaustively researched 2013 biography by Georgia State University professor, Glenn Askew adds much to the Mercer story, builds upon the previous popular biographies, and places Mercer firmly in the context of American music and its impact throughout the world. Askew's thesis that Mercer brought blues, jazz, and Southern-themed music, first, to the attention of American audiences and, second, throughout the world with his founding of Capitol Records, is soundly defended. His ninety pages of notes provide even more information in addition to valuable documentation and context.
THE WEBSITE:
If you want to use the Internet as a source of information on Johnny Mercer, there is no better site than the Johnny Mercer Foundation. The home page may look a bit complex, but don't let that fool you. The links open windows to hundreds of pages of information and media.
THE AUDIO CD:
You can find scores of audio CDs featuring the songwriting and singing talent of Johnny Mercer. For me there is one essential CD and an "honorable mention." The essential is An Evening With Johnny Mercer, the 92nd Street Y Lyrics and Lyricists program Mercer did in 1971. I think it's a great hour to spend with the man and his music.
The "honorable mention" is Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Johnny Mercer Songbook. Fitzgerald's brilliant eight-album Songbook Series was recorded between 1956 and 1964, at the height of her vocal quality. The Mercer tribute is included here because of her near-perfect diction - you do want to hear the words - the fact that Mercer was the only lyricist honored in the Songbook Series.
I have provided you with some details about Mercer's life, his contribution to American popular music, and best of all, several examples of his words and music. In addition, for those interested in learning more about him, I listed several sources in a variety of formats. There's plenty more to know. For example, you'll find that Mercer was both the source of the idea and a founding member of Capitol Records. You'll also read that he was extraordinarily generous. And you'll also find out that almost throughout his life, the fame and fortune came at great personal cost. That seems to be the rule. Still, Mercer's gap-toothed smile and performance talent brought a wealth of entertainment to millions of Americans during his active years beginning in the mid 1930s.
Almost two generations have passed since Mercer's death in 1976. He may be gone, but that mountain of music and the ideas he left behind are very much alive and well. Mercer stays with Great American Songbook and jazz enthusiasts through the singers and organizations that keep his music and legacy alive. Here is a list of past and present singers
THE SINGERS:
Margaret Whiting (Long associated with Mercer as a performer and family friend, she was a most significant individual promoter of Mercer's music late in her life.)
Blossom Dearie (close associate of Mercer in his last years who kept his memory and music very much alive until her death in 2009)
That just about covers my Mercer birthday tribute this year. I want to end with three favorite Mercer lyrics that have become embedded in our culture as great American songs and jazz standards over their sixty years. They are:
Midnight Sun
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. Ella Fitzgerald has "owned" this song for fifty years.
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
Early Autumn was composed in 1949 by Ralph Burns and Woody Herman.
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....
Laura
In 1944, the film, Laura, appeared with a theme song composed by David Raskin. The next year Mercer added the haunting lyrics.
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....
If you do pick up a book or check out a website, you'll find that Mercer was quite a diverse personality. As a lyricist, composer, performer, businessman, and philanthropist, he shaped much of the American popular music industry for forty years, beginning in the mid 1930s. You'll also find that, almost throughout his life, the fame and fortune came at great personal cost. That seems to be the rule. Still, Mercer's gap-toothed smile and performance talent brought pleasure to millions of Americans during the mid-century. He's still with us in so many ways.
So happy birthday, Johnny. You're just about too marvelous for words.
References: Books by Bach and Mercer, Furia, and Lees; Johnny Mercer Foundation; Georgia State University Archives, and The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer, by Kimball, Day. Kreuger and Davis.
With Halloween behind us the holiday party triad of Christmas, New Year's, and Twelfth Night will be upon us quickly and it's never too early to think about a menu. If you think about serving a punch and want something really special this post is for you. Long-time readers know one of my favorite preparations for these occasions is Savannah's very own concoction known as Chatham Artillery Punch. In 1977, I was introduced to it at the Lion's Den in the DeSoto Hilton - now the DeSoto Hotel - in Savannah. If you assemble your batch this week it should be perfect for sharing on December 4 when artillerymen honor Saint Barbara, their patron saint. In the weeks following Saint Barbara"s Day the punch mellows into an even more delicious and potent beverage.
Chatham Artillery Punch is a drink to be enjoyed responsibly in an appropriate setting. Keep in mind the longer it ferments, the more powerful, deceptive and tasty it becomes. If made this week, by Christmas it should be legendary. There is a point - say after two months - at which it can be used as a lightly fruited rumtopf perfect for topping ice cream or bundt. I suspect however that using it in Old Savannah as something other than a beverage would be a sacrilege.
In the past I've posted a recipe for 50 servings but this year it's reduced by half for two reasons. First, it's an expensive endeavor, and, second, a small cup can be enjoyed for a long time. The origin of today's recipe is lost to history but the assemblage of scattered notes over the decades - like the spirits themselves - produces a deliciously potent punch. A Georgia National Guard newsletter noted that a pair of soldier's socks, the stockings of a soldier's wife, and sand from Iraq were added to the punch in 2006. We're not going that far. On the other hand I will say that quality ingredients make a quality product.
Chatham Artillery Punch
Yield: 25 servings
1 quart strong green tea (soak about 1/4 pound of tea for a day, then strain)
Juice 5 lemons
10 ounces brown sugar
1 quart Catawba wine (a muscadine wine may be easier to find and works as well)
1 quart Santa Cruz rum (use Virgin Islands style rum, light or dark)
1 pint brandy
1 pint dry gin (I like the flavorings in Bombay Sapphire)
1 pint rye whiskey (Bulleit 95 Rye Small Batch is a perfect choice)
1.5 pints Queen Anne cherries
1.5 pints pineapple chunks
1.5 quarts champagne
To prepare, sterilize a crock or similar vessel. Mix the tea and lemon juice, then dissolve the brown sugar and gently stir in all the alcohol except the champagne. Add the cherries and pineapple chunks carefully. Cover the crock tightly and sit aside in a cool, dark place for at least one week - a month is better. Careful sampling is permitted to insure the fermentation process is working as planned. To serve, pour the mixture carefully over a block of ice, add the champagne, stir gently, and serve immediately. IMPORTANT: Never refrigerate to cool ahead of serving or serve with ice cubes.
Enjoy!
Distinctive Unit Insignia of the Chatham Artillery
The Chatham Artillery survives today as Battery B, 1st How. Battalion, 118th Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 48th Armored Division Artillery, Georgia National Guard. The regiment traces its roots to 1751 and the 118th Field Artillery, Georgia Militia. Their latest deployment was to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2009.
Regardless of what's in your cup on the evening of December 4, remember the men and women of the Chatham Artillery at their annual banquet in Savannah. Raise your cup to their nearly 250 years of service and remember their motto: "He does not know how to give up."
Even in his fiction, Pat Conroy had a way of writing about himself and all of us as we face the challenges and adversities - mental and physical - of growing into young adulthood and beyond. Stated another way, he had extraordinary skill in probing the long childhoods many of us face as we grow old. For him, it was an arduous journey, carried out with the same reality that comes with recognizing nature as a cruel mother. Yes, there is beauty and light along the way, but the mountains can't stand without the valleys, and Conroy's reality had its share of darkness. Some may not enjoy that journey, but it is a good dose of reality and I and millions of other readers hold Conroy in high esteem.
In 1977, Conroy's book, The River is Wide, was hardly five years old when I moved to the edge of the ocean east of Savannah and a mere three miles or so across the sound from the book's setting on Daufuskie Island. In a matter of months, I succumbed to life on a sea island and having lived there for eleven years - there's a poem about it - was never quite the same. The coast obviously had a similar effect on Conroy a decade earlier, and over the next forty years he would blend his experience with the Lowcountry setting and produce many books. One of his last, My Reading Life (2010), is a memoir of sorts recalling his love of reading as well as an interesting list the essential and influential books in his life.
Over thirty years have passed since those quiet evenings when I sat reading in my den, feeling and hearing the low frequency vibrations from ship screws in the channel a few thousand feet away. That may seem like an odd recollection from the complex experience of the natural setting and its cultural overlay, but it approaches the unique and remains one of many fond memories. For the most part - small flashes of creativity being the exception - I simply enjoyed them. Pat Conroy, on the other hand, took the everyday and unique events in his life journey and turned them into some of the most lyrical writing of our time.
Charleston has a landscape that encourages intimacy and partisanship. I have heard it said that an inoculation to the sights and smells of the Carolina lowcountry is an almost irreversible antidote to the charms of other landscapes, other alien geographies. You can be moved profoundly by other vistas, by other oceans, by soaring mountain ranges, but you can never be seduced. You can even forsake the lowcountry, renounce it for other climates, but you can never completely escape the sensuous, semitropical pull of Charleston and her marshes.
The Prince of Tides
Born on this day in 1945, Pat Conroy passed away in his beloved adopted hometown of Beaufort, South Carolina, in February 2016, not far from Charleston and Daufuskie Island where the wide rivers join the sea.
The image above is a screen capture of Conroy at a UNCTV interview conducted in Chapel Hill in February 2014. Interested readers may view this 27 minute program here. It's an informative look at the author's life and work and well worth your time, especially if you're a Conroy fan.
This year marks the 135th anniversary of the birth of the poet, Conrad Aiken. He was born on August 5, 1889, in Savannah and lived in a townhouse on Oglethorpe Avenue across the street from Colonial Cemetery. He often played in that ancient burial ground midst tabby crypts and tombstones where the mortal remains of many of Georgia's aristocracy found rest. From the time he was eight or nine he wanted to be a writer. Soon he found himself captured by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and happily sharing the terror with his brother and sisters.
With his parents immersed in Savannah society and surrounded by wealth, privilege, and pedigree, he seemed destined for happiness. His father was a successful physician, his mother, a leader in Savannah society circles. Unfortunately, there was little peace in the family. One day, when young Aiken was eleven, his father took a revolver and killed his wife, then killed himself. Aiken never fully recovered from the horror of hearing the gun shots and discovering his parents' bodies only seconds after the event. He would spend the rest of his life exploring the interplay and uncertainty of a good and evil world.
Aiken spent the remainder of his childhood with relatives in New England. Later, he would attend Harvard where he was deeply influenced by the writer-philosopher, George Santayana. He also began a life-long friendship with fellow student, T.S. Eliot. Aiken would go on to write lyrical poetry weighted with symbolism and psychological exploration so deep that, in his own words, "Freud was in everything after 1912." Later in his career he moved predominantly to prose expressing "faith in consciousness" and an endless search for knowledge as the means to bring order and structure to the larger consciousness of the world. In all, he wrote or edited fifty books, including poetry, short stories, five novels, and one autobiography.
Unfortunately, for all of his output Conrad Aiken never achieved the level of fame of his good friend, T. S. Eliot, or other contemporaries. Shyness kept him away from readings that, for a poet, were lifelines to his audience. Also, he was a most candid critic, a posture that did not endear him to his fellow writers. Lastly, as a resident of both the United States and Europe he could never quite be associated with writers, benefactors, and salons on both sides of the Atlantic. By 1960, he had been resident in the U.S for some years and "rediscovered" by Americn readers. Aiken eventually returned part-time to the elegance of Savannah. He spent the winters living next to his boyhood home becoming the focus of social and academic circles and sought out by admirers until his death in 1973.
If you wander toward the eastern bluff in Savannah's magnificent Bonaventure Cemetery you arrive at Aiken Way. At it's end you find a memorial bench Aiken installed before his death. Next to it is a headstone bearing the identical death dates of his parents, an eerie reminder of the chaos he and all of us face in our lives.
For those of us who have found our peace, there is a profound release there under the live oaks and Spanish moss. Others may not be so fortunate. Aiken is one them. In life, he was restless, a constant searcher forever sailing through an uncertain sea. He felt the same about death and wanted us to know. How fitting it was that he should find his epitaph quite by accident while perusing the Savannah newspapers. It appeared in the daily list of port activity and read simply: "Cosmos Mariner - Destination Unknown." Aiken indeed saw himself a cosmic mariner who on his death in 1973 cast off without a port of call, destination unknown. He left behind, engraved on the bench the wish, "Give my love to the world." It is a rather confident wish coming from a restless sailor. We can pray that every man should find safe harbor, all the while knowing that we are not the final judge of his navigation. We are left merely to explore the products of a shy and troubled man who could appreciate a bawdy pun and have his say in singing words and lilting prose.
Back in the '70's and '80's I had the good fortune to live on the beach of a small barrier island at the mouth of the Savannah River. My house was a raised Caribbean-style cottage built in the 1920s. The porch overlooking the Atlantic faced southeast and was ideal for capturing the summer trade winds. At this time of year when I looked toward the horizon I saw a beautiful event unfold many times in the hour before dawn. Those hours and the imaginary music of the spheres evoke memories so vivid they seem to have occurred only yesterday.
First, Bellatrix, a blue giant star rose out of the Atlantic haze to be followed soon by the red giant, Betelgeuse. Soon the blue giants, Mintaka, and Rigel followed. At this point viewers saw a signature belt of three stars and a faint sword. Experienced sky watchers knew that Orion the Hunter was ascending. In minutes the belt stars pointed to shimmering Sirius, a binary star also known as the Dog Star. It was by far the brightest star in the sky but soon it and all the others would dissolve in the blinding light and heat of another summer sunrise.
Sirius the Dog Star
In the Nile and other valleys of the ancient Middle East, all eyes turned to the summer dawn anticipating the appearance of Orion and Sirius. They signaled the coming of the floods, of water for life and eventually for civilization. We have come a long way in time since scribes first recorded Sirius rising from the damp mud along the banks of the Nile. But we still experience the Hunter and the Dog, now both lost in daylight, one awaiting his turn to rule the autumn sky, the other to remind us that his days, the sultry dog days, are still with us.
While some people dread them I look forward to the coming of the "dog days." The heat makes me thrive and my arthritis becomes a memory. Atlanta's climate data tells us that on average the warmest days of 2023 will be behind us in a few weeks. The sun is already casting ever longer shadows as it arcs lower across the southern sky. Leaves hang limp on trees catching more and more of that light giving the woods a golden hue even at midday. The aging summer has also brought this year's acorn crop closer to maturity. I can tell because the squirrel community in our woods is starting to work overtime on an early and ripening harvest.
Calm days and high temperatures also lead to popcorn thundershowers that meander across the region waiting to die out as fast as they arise. So far they've brought powerful lightning, the positive strikes that start fires, several inches of rainfall, high winds, and pea sized hail. With that said it's time to envision sitting comfortably on the screened porch where a big ceiling fan quietly generates a steady breeze and your sweating sweet iced tea feels good even to the touch. The forest surrounding me is a still landscape interrupted by an occasional bird or squirrel. If you stay there long you witness the yellowing light of day giving way to the twilights, the lightning bugs, the cicadas, then the katydids and a chorus of north Georgia tree frogs.
I love all of those twilight sounds but I love the katydids most. They remind me of long summer vacations and drifting to sleep in my bed next to a cottage window that opened wide to both their chatter and a comforting breeze moving down the West Virginia mountainsides of my childhood. It was there I first developed a passion for forests, for flowing water, for a clear sky I felt I could almost touch. Over sixty year later that passion leads me to waken before the sun to witness a pattern of stars rise out of an unseen ocean and bring me summer. Bring it on!
When I moved to Savannah in 1977 people were still talking about "The Nancy." It was the familiar name for the Nancy Hanks II, a daily Central of Georgia - later the Southern Railway - train that ran round trip from Savannah to Atlanta from 1947 t0 1971. Abraham Lincoln's mother seemed like an odd choice as a name for anything in the South until I quickly learned that, at the turn of the 20th century, "Nancy Hanks" was also a record breaking trotting mare from Lexington, Kentucky.
Nancy Hanks in 1892 shortly after her record breaking run
The Central of Georgia Railroad is best remembered for two trains named after fast and famous race horses, the other being the much better known Man o' War. That train made two 117 mile runs a day from Atlanta to Columbus. But it is the Nancy that gained fame among Georgians. The name was first used on a short-lived train in 1892-93. The train featured reserved-seat deluxe coaches, a grille and lounge car, a dome car in its later years, and maid service. The color scheme was a mix of blue and gray inside and out with a logo on each car.
The Nancy Hanks at Wadley, Georgia, in 1948
Central of Georgia Depot and Train Shed in Savannah (now a visitor center and museum)
At 7:00 a.m. every day the Nancy pulled out of the Central of Georgia Depot and Train Shed in Savannah for its 294 mile, five hour and forty minute run to Atlanta. For twenty years the train was popular with a wide variety of travelers ranging from businessmen to children on school field trips to families visiting relatives and friends to shoppers - the famous Rich's flagship store was across the street from the Atlanta Terminal. Day-trippers had about four hours of useful time before they had to return to the terminal for the 6:00 p.m. departure and return to Savannah.
An Atlanta advertisement for the Nancy Hanks II
Atlanta's Terminal Station in 1955. Demolished 1972.
By the late '60's improved highways, government regulations, labor issues, taxes, and subsidized competition spelled the end of privately-owned passenger rail service across the country, a service that had rarely made a profit for railroads for decades. So it was with the Nancy Hanks II. She made her last run on April 30, 1971 just one day before the creation of Amtrak, a publicly funded rail passenger service.
Twenty-four years earlier, on July 17, 1947, the Nancy Hanks II made her first run from the Georgia coast across the blistering midland to the state capital. Today, people still talk fondly about that trip. Some would be thrilled at the prospect of taking it again. Should a ride on the Nancy Hanks III become a reality I hope to be among the happy riders racing on the rails across Georgia.
In case you have any question, the horse was indeed named for Lincoln's mother. The train was definitely named for the horse.
Sources
Photos and illustrations: Kentuckiana Digital Library rebelrails.com carrtracks.com railga.com georgiaencyclopedia.org
Text: wikipedia georgiaencyclopedia.org chsgeorgia.org railga.com cofga.org american-rails.com
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