November 18

Lyricist, songwriter and singer Johnny Mercer was born on November 18, 1909. He wrote the lyrics (or music and lyrics) to more than 1,500 songs, many of which have entered the Great American Songbook. He also co-founded Capitol Records in 1942. Widely known for “Moon River” (1961), a very small sampling of his songs includes "Hooray for Hollywood" (1937), "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" (1938), "Jeepers, Creepers!" (1938), "That Old Black Magic" (1942), "Skylark" (1942), "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" (1943), "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" (1944), "Laura" (1945), "Come Rain Or Come Shine" (1946), "Autumn Leaves" (1947), "Satin Doll" (1953) and "Something's Gotta Give" (1954). Incredibly, he could not read musical scores with any facility, relying instead on his own notation system.