Born On This Day- November 18th- Songwriter Johnny Mercer

101 years ago today, Johnny Mercer was born in Savannah, Ga., & he grew up to be one of the most popular lyricists of the American Songbook. He was decidedly, not gay, but Johnny Mercer is one my favorite lyricist. He wrote witty, smart, insightful lyrics. Mercer wrote the words, & sometimes the music, for more than 1,500 songs, with more than 200 collaborators, among them composers Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael & Jerome Kern. He was nominated for 18 Academy Awards & won 4. He was the 1st president of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame & the founder of Capitol Records. Mercer was a charming & talented man & a favorite of mine. Here are some of the songs that he supplied the words for: Hit The Road To Dream Land, Blues In The Night, Skylark, One For My Baby, Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive, Dream, Come Rain Or Come Shine, Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home, Autumn Leaves, Something’s Gotta Give, & Moon River.

Check out the lyrics to the most perfect saloon song of all time:

It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place except you & me

So, set 'em up, Joe, I got a little story you oughta know

We're drinkin', my friend, to the end of a brief episode

Make it one for my baby & one more for the road

I got the routine, so drop another nickel in the music machine

I'm feelin' so bad, wish you'd make the music pretty & sad

Could tell you a lot, but you've got to be true to your code

So, make it one for my baby & one more for the road

You'd never know it but buddy, I'm a kind of poet

& I got a lot of things to say

& when I'm gloomy, you simply gotta listen to me

Till it's all talked away

Well that's how it goes & Joe... I know your gettin' pretty anxious to close

So, thanks for the cheer, I hope you didn't mind my bendin' your ear

This torch that I found must be drowned or it soon might explode

So, make it one for my baby and one more for the road

That long, long road

Autumn In New York

Today marks the 108th birthday of the Russian born, American songwriter & theatre composer Vernon Duke. He wrote his own lyrics but also collaborated with: Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, Ogden Nash & Sammy Cahn.  His songs have been performed & recorded by almost everyone in popular music: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Billie Holiday, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitgerald, Tommy Dorsey, Blossom Dearie, Glenn Miller, Dawn Upshaw & Barbra Streisand.


Duke wrote ballets, symphonies, concertos, Broadway musicals, including several editions of The Ziegfeld Follies & Cabin In The Sky, plus songs & scores for films. His works include: April in Paris, I Like the Likes of You, Water Under the Bridge, I Can't Get Started (which I covered in my act). He had a string of hits from 1930-1960. 


My favorite is Autumn In New York, the song & the experience. The lyrics are by Yip Harberg who wrote the lyrics to The Wizard Of Oz.If you have not been to NYC in October, I can't recommend it enough. But, avoid the film- Autumn In New York (2000) with Richard Gere & Winona Ryder.

Autumn in New York

Why does it seem so inviting?

Autumn in New York

It spells the thrill of first-nighting

Shimmering clouds & glimmering crowds

In canyons of steel

They're making me feel

I'm home

It's autumn in New York

That brings the promise of new love

Autumn in New York

Is often mingled with pain

Dreamers with empty hands

They sigh for exotic lands

But It's autumn in New York

It's good to live it again

This autumn in New York

Transforms the slums into Mayfair

Autumn in New York

You'll need no castles in Spain

Lovers that bless the dark

On benches in Central Park

But It's autumn in New York

It's good to live it again

Vernon Duke

1934

Born On This Day- September 7th... Crooner & Broadway Sensation Michael Feinstein

More than 25 years since his professional recording debut, Michael Feinstein has become something of a gay activist. He married his long time Terrence Flannery in October 2008. The ceremony was performed by famed family court & television judge Judith Sheindlin, also known as Judge Judy, a good friend of the couple. The Feinstein/ Flannerys have homes in NYC & LA.

Feinstein is an anthropologist & archivist for the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook. The Library of Congress elected him to the National Sound Recording Advisory Board, an organization dedicated to safeguarding America’s musical heritage.

Feinstein was born to Jewish/American parents in Columbus, Ohio. At the age of 5, he studied piano for a couple of months until his teacher became angered that he wasn't reading the sheet music she gave him, he was more comfortable playing by ear. His mother saw no problem with her son's method, she took him out of lessons & allowed him to enjoy music his own way.

After graduating from high school, he worked in local piano bars, moving to LA when he was 20. Through the widow of legendary concert pianist-actor Oscar Levant (who deserves to be rediscovered), he was introduced to Ira Gershwin, who hired him to catalogue his extensive collection of phonograph records.

The assignment led to a 6 year musical excavation of Gershwin's home in Beverly Hills, preserving the legacy of Ira & his composer brother George, who had died 4 decades earlier. Feinstein's extended stay at the Gershwin’s’ enabled him to get to know next door neighbor Rosemary Clooney, who said come-ona-my- house. Clooney & Feinstein enjoyed an intensely close friendship lasting until Clooney's death. He later would serve as musical consultant for My One and Only, a Broadway musical made up from different of Gershwin tunes.

Liza Minnelli helped sponsor his 1986 New York City debut, & his Broadway show- Isn't It Romantic, was a critical & commercial success. 3 years later, he recorded his first CD- The MGM Album, a collection of tunes from some of the studio's most popular movie musicals. He followed this with Live at the Algonquin & compilations of songs by Burton Lane, Jule Styne, and Jerry Herman.

Feinstein has spent his entire adult life chronicling, cataloguing, chronicling, conserving, championing, & recording the work of various composers: the Gershwins , Hugh Martin, Jimmy Webb, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, & Johnny Mercer.

Feinstein is the owner of the Manhattan nightclub- Feinstein's at the Regency, a showcase for cabaret performers. he recently completed a 6-part Warner Home Video series for television that depicts the history of the American popular song up to 1960.

I appreciate his talents a great deal. My mother, who knows a thing or 2 about music, has stated that our singing sounds similar. I should be so talented. Well, actually our singing is similar, I'm just not one to toot my own horn. Feinstein turns 55 years old today. How gay is this post?

I'll Know That Moment Divine

Along with anecdotes from my life, Post Apocalyptic Bohemian is intended to be a celebration of accomplished & gifted gay people on the day of their birth. We live in a great big world, full of people of different shades, sexualities, sizes, shapes, & suppositions. On rare occasions, I am moved & absorbed by the great works of non-gay individuals.


Music is a driving force in my life & my tastes are all over the map. While organizing my CDs, I chuckled as I noted that The Clash & Rosemary Clooney are side by side. I wish that The Clash had done a cover of Come On-A My House.

From childhood, I have a had a passion for The Great American Songbook- popular music from the first 6 decades of the 20th century. I own a large library of books by & about composers & lyricists, & I have done birthday posts on the musical greats- straight & gay. All right, I gave a bit more attention to Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Lorenz Hart, Kander & Ebb, & Jerry Herman, but the gay spin that informs their work is evident & speaks to me.



Today's birthday guest is the decidedly heterosexual Jerome Kern.  He wrote the music to some of the most stunning songs of the last century. In 1915 with bookwriter Guy Bolton, he began a series of intimate musicals for the 299 seat Princess Theatre. Among Kern's songs for these charming shows were They Didn’t Believe Me (1914), which I consider the first modern ballad, & Look For the Silver Lining (1920)


In 1927, Kern teamed with Oscar Hammerstein II & they adapted lesbian Edna Ferber’s novel into one of the greatest of all American musicals: Show Boat. Show Boat pioneered the concept of the fully integrated musical, with all aspects of the show working together toward a single artistic unity. Among the songs introduced in Show Boat were Ol' Man River, Bill, Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man, Make Believe, & Why Do I Love You?


After Show Boat, Kern continued to write for Broadway, contributing such classic songs as The Song Is You, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, & Yesterdays, all from 1933's Roberta with lyrics by Otto Harbach.


In 1935, Kern went to Hollywood, where he spent most of the rest of his career, writing some of his very best music. For the 1935 film of Roberta he wrote I Won't Dance. For Swing Time (1936), he wrote A Fine Romance & The Way You Look Tonight, with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. He was nominated for 9 Oscars & won 2.

On the occasion of our 10th anniversary of being a couple, after a swell party thrown by our neighbors & dear friends- R & M, I found myself alone with the man who would eventually be my husband. He presented me with a piece of his art, a marvelous & meaningful collage, just for the occasion.

I had planned this moment... yet I doubted that it could be pulled off without interruption, giggling, dog barking or humiliation. I stood facing him in our little Seattle cottage, I looked him in the eye & without flinching, in what I have to admit is my pretty amazing, if uncommon singing voice, I performed Jerome Kern’s- All The Things You Are, verse & chorus. I was more nervous than any stage performance. I finished- I'll know that moment divine, when all the things you are are mine". The Husband had teared up. Then he said: “beautiful… how come you never sing to me? I love to hear you sing”. He kissed me.