Portrait of Johnny Mercer

Birthday profile

Johnny Mercer

Johnny Mercer, American singer-songwriter and producer, co-founded Capitol Records (died 1976)

Born
November 18, 1909
Died
June 25, 1976
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1909

About Johnny Mercer

John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. He is best known as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, but he sometimes composed music, despite not knowing piano or standard musical notation, and was a popular singer who recorded his own as well as others' songs from the mid-1930s through the mid-1970s. Mercer wrote the lyrics to more than 1,200 songs, including compositions for movies, Broadway shows, and well-known standards of the time, including "Autumn Leaves", "Days of Wine and Roses", "Hooray for Hollywood", "I'm an Old Cowhand" (music & lyrics), and "Moon River". He received eighteen Oscar nominations and won four Best Original Song Oscars. He received nineteen Oscar nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars. Mercer's songs were among the most successful hits of the time, inclu.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Johnny Mercer was born

Johnny Mercer was born in 1909. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1909

  • Best-selling book"The Inner Shrine" – Basil King

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentHonus Wagner leads Pittsburgh Pirates to World Series victory
  • Top headlineRobert Peary claims to reach the North Pole
  • Technology milestoneBakelite (first fully synthetic plastic) invented
  • Notable inventionBakelite plastic
  • World population~1.69B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam Howard Taft
  • U.S. population88.8M

1909 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Johnny Mercer's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19092026
Population88.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.