Barry Manilow

Hoagy Carmichael — NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This month’s song is a minor hit from what is sometimes called the Great American Songbook.

Composer Hoagy Carmichael and lyricist Johnny Mercer created it for a Broadway show — I WALK WITH MUSIC — which did not prove to be a success.

But it did give us this sweet song.

I discovered it when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs by Hoagy Carmichael — who also wrote the music for standards including “Georgia on My Mind,” “Stardust,” “The Nearness of You,” and “Skylark” (another song co-written with Johnny Mercer).

Pianist/producer Doug Hammer and I had a lot of fun recording it.

I just re-read the Wikipedia entries for Johnny Mercer and for Hoagy Carmichael.

I learned that — later in his life — Hoagy appeared as a songwriter character on THE FLINTSTONES animated TV show and also participated in a TV special with Fred (Mr.) Rogers.

And I was reminded that Johnny Mercer was a bit of a Jekyll/Hyde personality — beloved during the daytime and then drunk at parties saying mean things during the night — after which he would send flowers and an apology the next morning.

Johnny Mercer (from the Johnny Mercer Foundation website)

In addition to being successful songwriters, Hoagy and Johnny were also successful performers.

Later in his life, Hoagy worked as an actor in movies and TV shows, while Johnny recorded many hit singles over the years — of his own songs and as well as songs written by other people.

Johnny also was one of three men who founded and ran Capitol Records very successfully for many years.

He was mentored early in his career by Yip Harburg (the lyricist who co-wrote “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” “Over The Rainbow,” “How Are Things In Glocca Morra?” and “It’s Only A Paper Moon” among many other hits).

And near the end of his own life Mercer became a fan of singer-songwriter Barry Manilow.

In fact one of my favorite Johnny Mercer songs — “When October Goes” — was created after Mr. Mercer died with music by Barry Manilow and unpublished lyrics given to Mr. Manilow by Mercer’s widow, Ginger.

Both Mercer and Carmichael kept writing songs even after rock-n-roll had significantly altered the landscape of popular music — which meant that their work was less and less in demand…

I take inspiration from their creative perseverance as well as from the rich legacy of hit songs they left for all of us to savor.

On a personal note, I have begun attending several open mics on a regular basis, sharing my original songs while accompanying myself on ukulele.

Performing like this has been a good workout for my brain because I now have to remember both lyrics AND chords.

It has also been interesting to see how other regular open mic attendees do (and don’t) welcome one into each musical micro-community.

The key, I think, is simply continuing to show up.

Gradually we reveal ourselves to each other through our song choices and through the things we say between songs (the open mics I attend allow a person to perform 2-3 songs per night).

And trust begins to form…

And curiosity begins to arise…

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

All of the venues are also registered with ASCAP, the performing rights organization I joined several years ago.

So after each open mic, I log onto my ASCAP account and enter which of my original songs I performed.

In theory this is supposed to generate a tiny stream of income for me, but I haven’t seen anything yet…

One final thing I have been appreciating about attending open mics is that they give me a chance to fine-tune the lyrics of songs I haven’t yet recorded (but plan to record with Doug Hammer later this year).

If you would like to stream “I Walk With Music,” you are welcome to click here for a link to many different digital music platforms.

Thank you to pianist/composer/producer Doug Hammer for our ongoing — and ofter very playful — musical collaboration.

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for his photo and design expertise.

Thank you to Wikipedia (to which I give a tiny financial contribution each month) for being such a useful source of information.

Thank you to all of the terrific songwriters, living and dead, whose work touches our souls and lifts our spirits on a daily basis.

Thank you to Jeno Szabo for his beautiful image from Pixabay.

And thank you, dear reader, for making it through another one of my (now mostly monthly) blog posts.

David Friedman is a composer, a songwriter, a conductor, an arranger, a producer, a philosopher, a teacher, AND a dedicated advocate for the singer Nancy LaMott, who died much too young in 1995.

I first became aware of him after hearing one of Nancy’s CDs — and eventually buying all of them because I was so touched by the heartfulness in her voice.

Nancy recorded many of David’s songs, and I fell in love with several of them.

So when David put together a songbook of his original works, I bought it and got to work!

Two of his songs ended up on a CD of songs about love which singer Bobbi Carrey and I recorded with pianist/engineer/producer Doug Hammer, arranger Mike Callahan, and a handful of Boston-area musicians called If I Loved You.

“I’ll Be Here With You” (on the player at the beginning of this blog post) is one of Bobbi’s and my favorite songs with which to end a performance.

And, although I do not know the details of Nancy and David’s musical partnership, I have the sense that this song may have had a strong emotional resonance for them (and might even have been inspired by their friendship…)

Perhaps people who know more about David and Nancy’s history can weigh in using the comments section at the end of this blog post.

I think of David whenever someone says something along the lines of, “They don’t write great standards like they used to…”

There are, in fact, many people who are alive and well on planet earth and who are writing beautiful, wise songs.

But the ways that those songs reach — and touch — the rest of the world have changed significantly since the days of sheet music and singing around pianos in living rooms.

No longer does a new song get recorded by many, many different performers — with different recordings of the same song vying for the top spot on a few national radio networks.

The rise of the singer-songwriter — along with self-contained bands who create their own original material — marked a significant shift in our popular musical culture.

David’s songs have been recorded by pop stars including Diana Ross, Barry Manilow, and Petula Clark — but these days Diana, Barry and Petula are not dominating the charts as they once did…

However, we now have many new ways to share music — such as YouTube, Pandora, Spotify… and even personal blogs like mine.

And there are many singers still devoted to both the Great American Songbook of standards from the 1920s-1960s AND to all of the great songs that have been written since then.

So ripples of music continue to wash around our culture and around our planet…

Thank you to David Friedman for writing songs.

Thank you to Bobbi Carrey for her singing and for her musical collaboration over the past 15 years.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his piano playing and his engineering and his production skills and his patience and his humor.

Thank you to Mike Callahan for his vocal arrangements.

Thank you to Pixabay for most of the images in this blog post (and to the world wide web for the ones of David and of Nancy).

And thank YOU for making time so that you could read and listen to another one of my blog posts!

amusicalifeonplanetearth

Music and the Thoughts It Can Inspire

I Walk With Music

In Praise of David Friedman