CHECK OUT THE INTERVIEW & PERFORMANCE ON FOX 5:
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com
The performance link is under the 'Sidebar' section to the right of the interview clip.

The music written for Tin Pan Alley and Broadway theater between the 1920's and 1950's is often regarded as some of the finest songwriting in the history of American music. Among the master songwriters of this period - Irving Berlin, the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Kern and Hammerstein, Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields, and Cahn and Van Heusen.... Johnny Mercer stands unique among them, for many reasons.

Born into the sleepy Southern town of Savannah, Georgia in 1909, Mercer was nursed on black roots music; gospel, blues and jazz as well as the popular songs of his day. He made his way to New York City during the Great Depression with dreams of becoming an actor, but strange twists of fate along the way led him to become a singer, songwriter and lyricist! He was soon working with some of the finest talent of his generation, Hoagy Carmichael among them. In 1935, he moved to Los Angeles to work in films and expand his amazing number of artistic collaborations.

Johnny Mercer was a passionate man whose lust for life led to his early love-struck courting of show dancer Ginger Meehan, (later becoming his wife), Rat-Pack style parties, (way before Sinatra crooned his first note), bouts with alcoholism, a searing love affair with Judy Garland and the creation of Capitol Records, who's committment to musical excellence built the careers of Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Nancy Wilson and Sinatra, to name but a few.

He is unique among the great songwriters because his vast life experience; growing up immersed in black and white culture, living in the South, North and West in both country and city life, and being a professional singer, all equipped him with a vast repository of language from which to draw, whether it was slang, ("Accentuate the Positive"), casual idioms, ("One for my baby"), or urban sophistication, ("Midnight Sun").

Johnny Mercer loved words! He lived passionately and wrote profusely; love letters, telegrams, Christmas cards, poems, and over 1,500 songs, (garnering 4 Academy Awards along the way). Even a cursory examination of his catalog reveals the dynamic scope of his music:
Autumn Leaves, Accentuate the Positive, Dream, That Old Black Magic, Laura, Day in Day Out, Too Marvelous for words, Come Rain or Come Shine, Skylark, P.S. I Love you, Something's Gotta Give, I Wanna be Around, Satin Doll, Midnight Sun, One for my Baby, The Summer Wind, Moon River... and the list goes on and on!

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"Love, Johnny" is a groundbreaking new musical that tells the life story of Johnny Mercer... in Johnny's own words! ("Love, Johnny" was his favorite writing salutation). Granted exclusive use of the Johnny Mercer Archives at Georgia State University, the award-winning theatrical team of Calvin Ramsey and Thomas W. Jones II have created a lively musical about the life and times of Johnny Mercer. The archives, which house thousands of personal correspondences between Mercer and his contemporaries, (Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Harold Arlen, Barbera Streisand and more), makeup the main dailogue of the play.

The result is a beautiful and intimate look at the man, the musician, and the dynamic times in which he lived; a one-of-a-kind story never before seen by the general public. As director Thomas Jones put it, "We could have put words in Johnny's mouth, but why? He wrote so prolifically, we decided if he didn't say it, we weren't going to put it in there!" And then there's the music - over 60 of the finest songs ever penned in the English language!

A 7-ensemble cast and small band bring the story to life for the premiere at The Georgia State University Alumni Hall Theatre, 30 Courtland Street, (corner of Courtland and Gilmer), between November 8 and December 2. As we approach Mercer's 100th birthday in 2009, this show will travel the U.S. and abroad. If you have interest in becoming a sponsor, click on 'Future.'