“Moon River”, “Days of Wine and Roses”, “Hooray for Hollywood”. These are the songs you have been singing your whole life, and now is your chance to learn about who wrote them! In this week’s episode, we say hooray and honor of the life of Johnny Mercer, preeminent songwriter whose poetic lyrics vividly captured the complexities of human experience. A four-time Oscar winner, Mercer was an incredibly versatile writer, with a catalog of songs stretching from tear-jerking ballads to comedic, character-driven numbers. Featuring stories recounted by Paul Scahill and Margaret Whiting, descendants of long-time Mercer collaborators Sadie Vimmerstedt and Robert Whiting respectively, this episode offers a lens through which to see the man whose words defined American popular culture of the mid-20th Century.

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