“Young men showing a lot of promise”…. That’s how observers in Hollywood in 1939 might have described Johnny Mercer, band singer, songwriter, and sometime movie actor and Chester Babcock, the young composer who had begun calling himself Jimmy Van Heusen. Mercer, in particular, had had some big successes with recent movie tunes like “I’m An Old Cowhand” and “Too Marvelous For Words”.  Mercer & Van Heusen came together in 1939, and then, like ships passing in the night, went their separate ways and didn’t work together again for another 35 years. Van Heusen’s best known partnerships later on were with lyricists Johnny Burke and Sammy Cahn, while Mercer worked with nearly every notable composer in the business. The Van Heusen-Mercer collaboration is graced with only one really noteworthy success, but it’s a standard and an American classic. Minnesota’s Voice Debbie Duncan is on track with “I Thought About You”…

“Young men showing a lot of promise”…. That’s how observers in Hollywood in 1939 might have described Johnny Mercer, band singer, songwriter, and sometime movie actor and Chester Babcock, the young composer who had begun calling himself Jimmy Van Heusen. Mercer, in particular, had had some big successes with recent movie tunes like “I’m An Old Cowhand” and “Too Marvelous For Words”.  Mercer & Van Heusen came together in 1939, and then, like ships passing in the night, went their separate ways and didn’t work together again for another 35 years. Van Heusen’s best known partnerships later on were with lyricists Johnny Burke and Sammy Cahn, while Mercer worked with nearly every notable composer in the business. The Van Heusen-Mercer collaboration is graced with only one really noteworthy success, but it’s a standard and an American classic. Minnesota’s Voice Debbie Duncan is on track with “I Thought About You”…