VA - Capitol Sings Johnny Mercer (1991)

Singer/songwriter Johnny Mercer was one of the founders of Capitol Records in the early '40s, so it's appropriate that he rates his own volume in the label's various-artists songbook compilation series of the 1990s (one that has already had discs devoted to Cole Porter and George Gershwin). As a lyricist working over a long career, Mercer provides a varied range of material for inclusion. This is a man who was setting words to 1930s swing hits like "And the Angels Sing," "Goody Goody," and "Satin Doll," and was still going strong in the 1960s, when he was writing movie themes like "Moon River" and "The Days of Wine and Roses" with Henry Mancini. In between, there were standards of the ‘40s such as "Blues in the Night" and "That Old Black Magic," and ‘50s favorites like "Autumn Leaves" and "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening." Capitol was devoted to singers, which allowed it to take advantage of the post-swing era of the late ‘40s and ‘50s when singers ruled. Tops among them was Frank Sinatra, a Capitol artist, who apparently didn't allow his recordings to be compiled on this sort of collection. But many other important singers are included, among them Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Dinah Shore, and Dean Martin. And Mercer himself pops in several times, as do a couple of his composer collaborators, Harold Arlen and Hoagy Carmichael. Although Mercer has an identifiable writing style, full of a self-invented Southern slang ("swingeroonie!," "my huckleberry friend"), his teaming with different sorts of composers allows for many different musical styles on this disc, making it one of the rangier volumes in the series. ~William Ruhlmann