Editing Johnny Mercer (section)

===Starting out===
Mercer moved to New York in 1928, when he was 19. The music he loved, [[jazz]] and [[blues]], was booming in [[Harlem]] and [[Broadway (Manhattan)|Broadway]] was bursting with musicals and revues from [[George Gershwin]], [[Cole Porter]], and [[Irving Berlin]]. [[Vaudeville]], though beginning to fade, was still a strong musical presence. Mercer's first few jobs were as a bit actor (billed as John Mercer). Holed up in a Greenwich Village apartment with plenty of time on his hands and a beat-up piano to play, Mercer soon returned to singing and lyric writing.{{sfn|Furia|2003|p=39}} He secured a day job at a brokerage house and sang at night. Pooling his meager income with that of his roommates, Mercer managed to keep going, sometimes on little more than oatmeal. One night he dropped in on [[Eddie Cantor]] backstage to offer a comic song, but although Cantor didn't use the song, he began encouraging Mercer's career.{{sfn|Lees|2004|p=58}} Mercer's first lyric, for the song "Out of Breath (and Scared to Death of You)" (1930), composed by friend Everett Miller, appeared in a musical revue ''The Garrick Gaieties'' in 1930. Mercer met his future wife at the show, chorus girl Ginger Meehan. She had earlier been one of the many chorus girls pursued by the young crooner [[Bing Crosby]]. Through Miller's father, an executive at the prominent music publisher T. B. Harms, Mercer's first song was published.{{sfn|Lees|2004|p=61}} It was recorded by [[Joe Venuti]] and his New Yorkers.

The 20-year-old Mercer began to frequent the company of other songwriters and to learn the trade. He traveled to California to undertake a lyric writing assignment for the musical ''Paris in the Spring'' and met his idols [[Bing Crosby]] and [[Louis Armstrong]]. Mercer found the experience sobering and realized that he much preferred free-standing lyric writing to writing on demand for musicals. Upon his return, he got a job as staff lyricist for Miller Music for a $25-a-week draw, which give him a base income and enough prospects to win over and marry Ginger in 1931.{{sfn|Furia|2003|p=61}} The new Mrs. Mercer quit the chorus line and became a seamstress, and to save money the newlyweds moved in with Ginger's mother in [[Brooklyn]]. Johnny did not inform his own parents of his marriage until after the fact, perhaps in part because he knew that Ginger being Jewish would not sit comfortably with some members of his family, and he worried they would try to talk him out of marrying her.
In 1932, Mercer won a contest to sing with the [[Paul Whiteman]] orchestra, but singing with the band did not help his situation significantly. He made his recording debut, singing with Frank Trumbauer's Orchestra, on April 5 of that year. Mercer then apprenticed with [[Yip Harburg]] on the score for ''Americana,'' a Depression-flavored revue famous for "[[Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?]]" (not a Mercer composition), which gave Mercer invaluable training. While with Whiteman, he recorded two duets with fellow band member [[Jack Teagarden]], "Fare Thee Well to Harlem" and "Christmas Night in Harlem". Both are talk songs in a heavy Black accent. The latter was a best-selling record.<ref>"Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra", Joel Whitburn, ''Pop Memories 1890–1954'', Record Research, Menomonie Falls, WI, p. 453. Mercer is on the recording but not mentioned in the listing.</ref> After several songs which didn't catch fire during his time with Whiteman, he wrote and sang "Pardon My Southern Accent" (1934). Mercer's fortunes improved dramatically with a chance pairing with Indiana-born [[Hoagy Carmichael]], already famous for the standard "[[Stardust (1927 song)|Stardust]]", who was intrigued by the "young, bouncy butterball of a man from Georgia."{{sfn|Furia|2003|p=70}} Mercer, later well known for rapidly writing lyrics, spent a year laboring over the ones for "[[Lazybones (song)|Lazybones]]", which became a hit one week after its first radio broadcast, and each received a large royalty check of $1250.{{sfn|Furia|2003|p=73}} A regional song in pseudo-black dialect, it captured the mood of the times, especially in rural America. Mercer became a member of [[ASCAP]] and a recognized "brother" in the [[Tin Pan Alley]] fraternity, receiving congratulations from Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter among others. Whiteman lured Mercer back to his orchestra (to sing, write comic skits and compose songs), temporarily breaking up the working team with Carmichael.

During the golden age of sophisticated popular song of the late 1920s and early '30s, songs were put into revues with minimal regard for plot integration. The 1930s saw a shift from revues to stage and movie musicals using song to further the plot. Demand diminished accordingly for the pure stand-alone songs that Mercer preferred. Thus, although he had established himself in the New York music world, when he was offered a job in Hollywood to compose songs and perform in low-budget musicals for [[RKO Pictures|RKO]], he accepted and followed idol [[Bing Crosby]] west.<ref>{{cite book | first=Martin | last=Gottfried | year=1984 | title=Broadway Musicals | publisher=Abradale Press | location=New York | isbn= 0-8109-8060-6}}</ref>