Showing 179 results

Authority record
Person

Merman, Ethel

  • LC81120327
  • Person
  • 1909-01-16 - 1984-02-15

Clooney, Rosemary

  • LC81139248
  • Person
  • 1928-05-23 - 2002-06-29

Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. Born in Kentucky, she and her sister Betty became radio performers in the early 1940s. Clooney's first recordings were with Columbia in 1946 with Tony Pastor's band; she began recording independently in 1949. Within a few years, she was a regular performer on CBS's "Songs for Sale" on both television and radio, and her career was firmly established. In 1954 she starred in "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby, one of her best-known roles. In 1956 she starred in her own television variety show, and continued acting and recording through the 1960s. Despite the declining fortunes of many other performers of her era, Clooney signed with Concord Jazz in 1977 to produce an album a year, an arrangement which continued until her death.
Clooney was also a noted philanthropist in her later years. In honor of her sister, who died in 1976 of a brain aneurysm, she created and chaired the Betty Clooney Foundation for the Brain-Injured. She died of lung cancer at the age of 74.

Stafford, Jo

  • LC81139255
  • Person
  • 1917-11-12

Nestico, Sammy

  • LC82025117
  • Person
  • 1924-02-06 - 2021-01-17

Mercer, Johnny

  • LC82078485
  • Person
  • 1909-11-18 - 1976-06-25

Johnny Mercer (John Herndon Mercer) was a native of Savannah, Georgia, who began writing songs at the age of fifteen and eventually became one of the foremost figures of 20th century American popular music. His catalog includes many numbers that have become American classics, and his activities as lyricist, composer, performer and businessman span a period of nearly five decades.

Mercer was born on November 18, 1909 to real estate investor George A. Mercer, Jr. and his wife Lillian. He spent his childhood and youth in Savannah, growing up in a household where music was much in evidence and in a region where the local culture combined the rich literary and language traditions of the South.

He left school in 1927 and worked in his father's business before traveling to New York as an actor where he received favorable notices for his performances. Mercer returned the following year trying to establish himself as an actor. He continued writing songs during this time (he had written his first song at age 15). When told that casting for the Garrick Gaieties of 1930 was complete but that the show still needed songs, he supplied "Out of Breath And Scared To Death of You." The song was included in the show, marking the start of his career as a professional songwriter.

From there Mercer went on to become one of America's major songwriters of the 1930s to the 1960s, despite his lack of formal musical training. He worked primarily in New York through the early 30s, producing the hit "Lazybones" with songwriter Hoagy Carmichael in 1933, and collaborating with various other writers including Harold Arlen and "Yip" Harburg.

Mercer's work in Hollywood resulted in a remarkable record of hit songs. During the decade between 1936 and 1946 his catalog grew to such songs as "Hooray for Hollywood," "Jeepers, Creepers," "Day In-Day Out," "Blues In The Night," "That Old Black Magic," "Tangerine," "Accentuate The Positive," "Dream," "On the Atchison, Topeka And The Santa Fe" (Academy Award winner, 1946), and "Come Rain Or Come Shine." His film scores included Daddy Long Legs (1955), and stage productions included Top Banana (1951) and Li'l Abner (1956). Mercer attained distinction as a songwriter by receiving Oscars for three more of his songs between 1951 and 1962, namely "In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of The Evening" (1951), "Moon River" (1961) and "Days of Wine and Roses" (1962). Other songs from the period include "Glow-Worm," "Something's Gotta Give" and "Satin Doll."

In the end his catalog included over 1,400 songs, created over a period of 45 years, written by himself and in partnership with a remarkable number of America's most prominent popular composers. Mercer died from an inoperable brain tumor on June 25, 1976, in Los Angeles, CA.

Davis, Charlie

  • LC82084758
  • Person
  • 1899-11-10 - 1991-12-12

Vallee, Rudy

  • LC82152282
  • Person
  • 1901-07-28 - 1986-07-04

Arlen, Harold, 1905 - 1986

  • LC82155108
  • Person
  • 1905-02-15 - 1986-04-23

Harold Arlen was an American composer, arranger, pianist, and vocalist who is considered one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. He wrote over 400 songs but is most famous for composing the songs for the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, particularly “Over the Rainbow,” which was voted the 20th century’s No. 1 song. Arlen wrote some of the greatest hits from the 1930’s and 40’s, such as “Get Happy,” “Stormy Weather,” “It's Only a Paper Moon,” “I've Got the World on a String,” and “Last Night When We Were Young.” He was most prolific from 1929 through the 1950s.
He was born as Hyman Arluck in Buffalo, New York in 1905 to Jewish parents. The son of a Jewish cantor (a trained song-leader for Jewish services) and pianist, Arlen showed exceptional musical talent in childhood. Hyman loved to sing, but was extremely shy. His mother hoped that he would become a music teacher, so she introduced a piano into the Arluck home. Hyman began studying around the age of nine and quickly outgrew the neighborhood piano teacher. He went on to study with the leading local teacher, who was also a conductor, organist and composer. Before long, Hyman left school as a teenager and achieved some local success working as a vocalist and pianist in different bands. He moved to New York City in the 1920s, where he worked as an accompanist in vaudeville and changed his name to Harold Arlen. Arlen composed several songs during that period, but published the first of his many well-known pieces in 1929, "Get Happy", with lyrics by Ted Koehler. "Get Happy” attracted attention to the new songwriting-lyricist duo identifying Arlen and Koehler as hit writers. With “Get Happy” and other rhythmic songs to their credit, the team developed the reputation as writers of "bluesy" rhythm numbers, which were much in demand in the flourishing cabarets. Throughout the early and mid-1930s, Arlen and Koehler produced songs for Harlem’s infamous Cotton Club, which was at the heart of the cabaret scene, as well as for Broadway musicals and Hollywood films, creating familiar pieces such as "Stormy Weather" and "Let's Fall in Love."
In the mid-1930s, Arlen married, and spent increasing time in California, writing for movie musicals. It was at this time that he began working with lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg. In 1938, the team was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to compose songs for The Wizard of Oz, the most famous of which is "Over the Rainbow", which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song. They also wrote "Down with Love" (featured in the 1937 Broadway show Hooray for What!), "Lydia the Tattooed Lady", for Groucho Marx in At the Circus (1939), and "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe", for Ethel Waters in Cabin in the Sky (1943). Going into the 1940s, Arlen teamed up with Johnny Mercer to write a string of successful hits: "That Old Black Magic" (1942), "Accentuate the Positive" (1944), and "Come Rain or Come Shine" (1945), among others. From that point on he worked on various Broadway shows but became more reclusive as an illness in 1954 and the deaths of his parents in 1953 (his father) and 1958 (his mother), and later his wife (1970) caused him to lose interest in composing and music in general.
Arlen died of cancer at the age of 81.

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