Alan Livingston oral history interview, 1996-10-03

PATON: This is October 3rd, and we're testing the tape recorder to be sure that we are actually recording something. This is Chris Paton; and I am here with Alan Livingston, and we are going to stop now and be sure that we have sound.

[PAUSE]

The first question that we are asking everybody, just to get some commonality is: How did you first meet Johnny Mercer?

LIVINGSTON: I was a young man after the war, and came out to California. I'd had an orchestra in college, and I had gone to the Wharton School and decided I should be in the record business. And when I saw California for the first time, I said, 'This is where I want to live!' And the only company that had its home office here was Capitol Records, which was then a tiny little company on Vine Street, a private company owned by Glenn Wallichs, Buddy DeSylva, and Johnny Mercer. And I went into the personnel department, and I won't go through how I got the job, but I got a job, and they wanted me to produce and write children's records. And I created Bozo the Clown, and wrote all the Bozo albums, and went 00:01:00through a whole thing with Bugs Bunny, and Johnny Mercer was not in the office. He was not there. He was in New York at the time doing St.

Louis Woman, so I did not even know him.

PATON: About what year was this?

LIVINGSTON: Uh, that was 1946. I started work there January 2, 1946. And I was -- I was a fan of Mercer's and one of the reasons that I chose Capitol Records, not only because it was [the] home office there, but because I was so fascinated with the records they were putting out. It was a young company, just a couple of years old, very small. And I loved 'Atchison, Topeka,' and I loved 'Accentuate...,' and Nat Cole was on the record -- on the label. And I just loved what they were doing -- 'Cow Cow Boogie' with Ella Mae Morse. And I started, and was very, very successful in the children's field. I kind of 00:02:00dominated it. And after I'd been successful [loud ringing], Johnny Mercer returned to Los Angeles, and I met him for the first time. And I'll never forget what he said to me [chuckling]. He says, 'I hear you're doing pretty good around here,' he says, 'Just don't get too big!' And it was a joke, you know. But I was shy, you know, in my new job, and I didn't quite know how to take him.

As time went on, I got to know him, and we became very good friends, and we had a social life together. Johnny -- at one point, I asked him to do a children's record for me, which he did. It was based on a Walt Disney picture called Song of the South, which was the tales of Uncle Remus. And he narrated the album and sang the songs. And we spent a lot of time together. I was with him and Jerry Colonna, who was a close friend. And we would go out to dinner together, and we 00:03:00had a relationship.

PATON: When you went out, what did you do?

LIVINGSTON: [We'd] just go to dinner. Johnny -- I don't know whether you want to use it --

Johnny was an alcoholic, and he was -- he was fascinating because he was the sweetest man in the world, and would do anything for you, and very generous with his time and his help and his advice. He came to my record sessions sometimes and would lie down on the couch. I used to think he was asleep, but he was listening, and had comments to make.

And the trouble is, when he drank, he became very insulting. And, you know, nobody -- none of us took it seriously, but Johnny, the next day, would remember what he had done and would be so contrite and so embarrassed that he would go way out of his way to try and make up for it in some way. He really was a nice man. I don't know what alcohol did to him, but it was -- I think the real Johnny 00:04:00was when he was sober.

PATON: Did anyone ever try -- We've heard this from other people --

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: -- in the course of these interviews. Did anyone ever try to talk to him about it, and say, maybe, 'Don't drink quite so much'? Or did everybody just accept it?

LIVINGSTON: They accepted it. We kidded him about it, on occasion. I know one man at Capitol -- we were at a cocktail party, and Johnny was starting to drink. And this man went up to him and said, 'Johnny,' he said, 'Before you give it to me, I'm going to give it to you -- and go "blank" yourself.' And Johnny laughed. And we had him here at a cocktail party one night, which was interesting, and I said to the bartender that we'd hired -- I said, 'Give Mr. Mercer very light drinks.' And he said, 'You're the fourth person that's told me that.' And he made him a scotch and water, and I watched Johnny, and he sipped at it [smack, 00:05:00smack sound], and he went [smack, smack sound] like, you know, it was so weak. But people made jokes about it, and nobody took it seriously. We all loved him.

PATON: Yeah, that's come through in all the conversations --

LIVINGSTON: Right.

PATON: -- is that in spite of the things that may have happened --

LIVINGSTON: In spite of any of that. Sure.

PATON: -- that people still really enjoyed him. So your first impression when you very first saw him was that you didn't quite know how to take him --

LIVINGSTON: I didn't know how to take him. But then I really got to know him, and we became good friends.

PATON: So, you worked at Capitol in children's records --

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: -- and then what happened as you stayed at Capitol?

LIVINGSTON: Then, I moved on to music and became a vice-president, and eventually executive vice-president in charge of A & R, all of the creative operations. And then I left to go to NBC. RCA had been after me, trying to get me to leave Capitol and go to RCA Victor Records. And I kept turning them down, and they finally offered me vice-president in charge of television programming. 00:06:00And that was so fascinating to me I left Capitol, and I spent five years at NBC. And Capitol induced me to come back and offered me the presidency.

PATON: Um-hmm, when was that?

LIVINGSTON: And I ended up as president and then chairman of the Board.

PATON: And when was that that you came back?

LIVINGSTON: I came back to Capitol in 1960.

PATON: Okay. And that was -- at that time, then, Mercer was out of the business?

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Pretty much?

LIVINGSTON: Yeah, pretty much.

PATON: Okay. During the years when the two of you both were working at Capitol --

LIVINGSTON: Yeah --

PATON: -- When you first signed on with Capitol, Mercer was president, was he?

LIVINGSTON: Mercer was president, but he didn't function as president. Mercer's great talent and his tremendous contribution to Capitol was in finding and judging artists. He's responsible for Nat King Cole. He's responsible for Margaret Whiting, Jo Stafford. He just had a marvelous, sensitive commercial ear 00:07:00for talent, and his contribution was -- in spite of the fact that he did not function as an executive, his contribution was tremendous. And, then, eventually, as the company grew, it really required a working executive. And that's when Glenn Wallichs became president. And Johnny was given an office, of course, and a secretary, and he did not come in too much. He confined himself to the talent area.

PATON: Did he -- do you know whether he minded not being president? Or did he really enjoy looking for the musicians and --?

LIVINGSTON: He was an easygoing man, and he accepted it, but he used to make cracks about it occasionally. They gave him a rather informal office, and it had a kidney-shaped desk, and he never let anybody up about that. He said 00:08:00[chuckling], 'A kidney-shaped desk!'

PATON: During the years when he was president, if he wasn't functioning as president, how was the company working?

LIVINGSTON: Glenn Wallichs really functioned as the chief executive all the time, from the beginning. Glenn set up the distribution arrangements with its own branches. At that time, the other record companies were using independent distributors. And Glenn was the first one to set up his company-owned branch sales offices. And Glenn had been a retailer and had a store, a music store, and that's where he first met Johnny, because Johnny used to come into his store to buy records. And he and Glenn became friendly. And Glenn said -- this was during the war -- and Glenn said, 'You know, I think we ought to start a record company.' And Johnny said, 'Fine.' And he said -- They needed money, and Johnny 00:09:00said, 'Let me talk to Buddy DeSylva.' So they brought Buddy in, and, as I understand it, Buddy put in $15,000, and I think a little more money later. And when Buddy finally died, Capitol Records was his biggest asset. And he at that time was head of production for Paramount Pictures. A big job.

PATON: Yes, definitely. In Mercer's work with the artists at Capitol -- we've spoken with Margaret Whiting, and she's talked about how carefully he talked her through learning lyrics and thinking about songs. And, of course, she was very young at the time.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Do you know whether he continued to pay that kind of attention to the recordings that were being made or to the matching of the artists and material at Capitol?

LIVINGSTON: Um -- He did, but he never inserted himself strongly. It was very informal. And we always used to seek out his help, and then he would give it. 00:10:00But he didn't -- he wasn't strong about trying to take charge. That was not his nature. But we solicited his help constantly, and then he would be very cooperative, and very helpful. And we had great confidence in his judgment.

PATON: Can you give some examples of how you might seek his help?

LIVINGSTON: Um -- I'm trying to think of a specific example. [Pause.] There was one occasion -- oh, yes -- he kept insisting -- we talked to him about Nat Cole. Nat Cole was a jazz pianist. It was the King Cole Trio. And Nat didn't sing. And we heard him sing on a few occasions, and Nat didn't want to sing. He was a jazz piano player. And we got Johnny to come in and work with Nat and to talk to him and get him to sing, which was very helpful. And Johnny said at the time -- he 00:11:00said, 'This can be the biggest vocalist in the country.' And he was the one that pinpointed it.

PATON: Um-hmm. Did you ever witness him in any recording sessions? Either overseeing -- well, you said he was in on some of yours. Did he --?

LIVINGSTON: Well, he made records himself, and he was in on a couple of mine; and he would, you know, very, again, quietly sit there and come up with a suggestion, but never strong. I mean, we would have to go after him, to get his opinion, which we valued. But he didn't insert himself. And Johnny was so easygoing that he wrote with some other composers who really he shouldn't have been working with, because they went after him, and he couldn't say no. And he'd work with them. But of course, his major composers were Harry Warren and -- who 00:12:00else? Anyway, Harry Warren used to complain all the time that, on radio, when they played one of their new songs, they'd say, 'Johnny Mercer's "Moon River''' -- or 'Johnny Mercer's this' or 'Johnny Mercer's that --' Harry Warren's name was never mentioned. He said, 'Nobody knows me!' He said, 'I wrote all those songs with Johnny, and nobody knows who I am!' And Johnny didn't seek that. It was just his personality, and of course the fact that he was a singer as well, that they identified the songs with him. It was like -- it was always Hoagy Carmichael's 'Stardust,' but the man who wrote with him was never mentioned. I can't even tell you who it is.

PATON: I couldn't either, come to think of it.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Yeah, we've heard complaints along those lines, that Harry Warren --

LIVINGSTON: That was not Johnny. He was not interested in publicity, never sought it, never came after it. It came to him.

PATON: What was he like to work with as you got to know him? I mean, you became social friends --

LIVINGSTON: Yeah --

PATON: -- but in the office or making decisions or --

LIVINGSTON: Uh --. He was very pleasant to work with and very easy. Strangely enough, very easy to influence. If you didn't happen to agree with him, he'd listen to you. But he usually ended up doing what he felt was the best thing to do. He worked very, very informally. When I'd do a session with him, it was almost like a party. I mean, he just didn't seem to take it seriously. But out would come his great talent.

PATON: Describe a session to me. Let's say just any one of the sessions that you might have worked on with him.

LIVINGSTON: Well, let me take the children's record he did for me.

PATON: Um-hmm.

LIVINGSTON: He had a sandwich he was eating. [telephone rings.] He -- I was a 00:14:00little annoyed, frankly, because I couldn't get him to pay attention.

PATON: Um-hmm.

LIVINGSTON: I mean, I had written it, and I was producing it and directing it. [Interview is interrupted by speaker phone. This material has been omitted from this transcript.]

LIVINGSTON: He just took it so casually, and I was anxious to get things done because the musician's union was very strong in those days. I had, like, a 28-piece orchestra there, and I wanted to get the maximum number of sides I was allowed to do, and Johnny was just so casual about it all. I had to keep pushing him and say, 'John, please!' And he's eating a sandwich, and like -- you know. But he did a great job for me, a fantastic job. But he never was businesslike. He was just the opposite of businesslike. In his personal life -- Ginger told me 00:15:00a story once where she found a check in a drawer that was like three months old for thirty thousand dollars, which was from ASCAP or someplace, which he had just put in a drawer and forgotten about. I mean, he had no sense of or interest in business at all. So he could not function as president, and there was no question about that. But his contribution to Capitol was what made the company.

PATON: Um-hmm. The lack of attention to business details must have caused some friction. Did people simply work around him?

LIVINGSTON: Oh, sure. We worked around him. We knew what his value was to us, and the company used it, to the extent that we could, which was quite extensive. But nobody looked to John to have an opinion or even bring him into a meeting where company business was involved. I mean, when the company went public, when 00:16:00EMI -- the deal was made with EMI, John was kept informed, and he might make some comment, but he just absolutely did not participate, and wasn't interested.

PATON: Getting back to recording sessions, they were done differently then than they are now.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: They didn't have -- tape was not available.

LIVINGSTON: Right.

PATON: So that anything that went wrong, you had to start over -- and so on?

LIVINGSTON: Sure.

PATON: How did he handle that kind of thing?

LIVINGSTON: You mean, the retakes and all that?

PATON: Just all the sort of nitpickiness that goes into producing a good recording, the repeating of things, the multiple takes.

LIVINGSTON: He was cooperative in that regard. That was no problem with him. I mean, he'd shrug his shoulders and do it again.

PATON: You may or may not have anything to say about this, but do you have any thoughts or observations on how he was perceived within the recording industry? 00:17:00I mean, we know he was a great songwriter. There's no question there.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah. He was perceived as a very successful recording artist -- his records sold -- and perceived as one of the great lyricists of all time. Nobody ever questioned that. There was never an opposite opinion. He was highly respected. Nobody could try and steal him away from

Capitol. He was a major stockholder, and nobody would even think that it was possible, which it wasn't. So he wasn't, like other artists, out there where other record companies were competing for his contract or whatever. I mean, he was Capitol Records, period. But he was highly respected.

PATON: Would other companies have wished that they had him?

LIVINGSTON: Oh, of course. Oh, of course.

PATON: As a recording artist?

LIVINGSTON: In those days, there were only really three major record companies 00:18:00before Capitol came along, and that was Victor Records, then, which is now -- was RCA; and there was Columbia Records, which is CBS, and there was Decca Records. All three big companies, very successful. And Capitol was kind of the little company that was coming along and making everybody kind of look and wonder where they were going. I mean, when I joined Capitol, I think their net sales were something like six million dollars a year. When I left, it was over a hundred million, and, of course it went up after that, too -- particularly in the years, in the sixties when I came back from NBC, and I signed the Beatles and the Beach Boys and The Band. And we had -- we were the number one record company in the country during that period. Now, since then, it's not the case. 00:19:00Warner Brothers came along and CBS; those are the two major companies now.

PATON: Things have changed a lot.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Not necessarily for the better, I don't think.

LIVINGSTON: No.

PATON: The reason I asked that about whether other companies would want him as a

recording artist is that from what we've read and from what people have said, apparently, one of the things he really regretted in his later life was that he wasn't recording anymore, and that he --. Some people told us that in spite of independent views that his recordings were very good, that his recordings as a performer were very good, that he never necessarily felt that secure about that, but that it was a piece of his life that he really enjoyed and missed --

LIVINGSTON: Yes.

PATON: -- and wished that he could do.

LIVINGSTON: Yes, well, Johnny had a strange insecurity. He never thought of himself [as] being the successful man that he was. And in his forties, he kept saying -- he said, 'I'm an old man. I'm through. It's over.' And we'd laugh at 00:20:00him because, you know, he was still tremendously successful and important. And he was a young man by any standards, in his forties. But he didn't feel that way. Now, the reason he couldn't record anymore was because the whole music industry changed and swing -- Chubby Checkers [sic] came along and Elvis Presley, and then the Beatles, and I mean, the music was not interested -- the audience was not interested in what Johnny Mercer did, and that didn't go [just] for Johnny Mercer. It went for all the major artists. I mean, we still recorded Peggy Lee, who was a discovery of John's, but she didn't sell compared to the way the rock artists did. Rock just eliminated those people to the point where Andy Williams couldn't get a contract. Tony Bennett couldn't get a contract. 00:21:00Now, these were the major male vocalists of the earlier days. And rock came along and just changed all that, and, of course, Johnny went with it. And so he was -- the music business moved beyond him -- not beyond him, but away from him. And I guess if he felt that he was unhappy that he couldn't record, that was the reason. It had nothing to do with his talent.

PATON: We didn't think it did, but we thought we'd ask other people about it.

LIVINGSTON: No, no, no. It had nothing to do with his talent or his ability to sing. It had to do with where the young people's music interests were. And today, you know, I don't even understand the music business today. It's the rap music, and there are no songs anymore. If Johnny Mercer were a young man today, he could not get his songs recorded. It's true. And that's true of any of the 00:22:00great -- Irving Berlin included. There are no songs and no singers. It's production, and it's not very appealing to any talented vocalist or songwriter. There's no place for them to go. The only songs which still have a market is country-western, and their songs are being done, but you have to be a country-western writer and a country-western artist.

PATON: It's interesting that you should mention that at age 40-something, he was saying that he felt that he was a failure, because Hugh Fordin, when we interviewed him, he had interviewed Mercer in the early seventies for a book that Fordin was doing on Arthur Freed. And he said that the overwhelming sense that he had when he met with Mercer was that this man felt like he was a failure.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah. It's true.

PATON: Yeah, well he wasn't. And I said, 'How could that be?' I mean, with a record like his, with everything that he did. And Margaret Whiting said the same 00:23:00thing, not in terms of failure, but just that he was very, very unhappy. That the things that he was good at doing, the things that he wanted to do, nobody wanted.

LIVINGSTON: Of course.

PATON: It's been kind of interesting.

LIVINGSTON: He was born at the right time for his talents. If he had been born later, his talents would never have come out. There was no market for them. My son is a songwriter and very talented. But there is no place for him to go. No place.

PATON: Walt Disney animated pictures are bringing a little bit of it back anyway.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Actually, it's interesting. One of the things -- Margaret is now head, president of the Johnny Mercer Foundation that's handling distribution of Ginger Mercer's -- the income from the various things. And one of the things they have is a young songwriter's award. And they're trying to encourage good songwriting again. It's also one of the things they hope from Dream, is that people will 00:24:00acquire a taste --

LIVINGSTON: Margaret manages that money or --?

PATON: She's the president. There's an executive director. There's a whole structure.

LIVINGSTON: What is the organization?

PATON: The Johnny Mercer Foundation.

LIVINGSTON: Oh. You mean, she set up a foundation or --

PATON: Ginger did.

LIVINGSTON: Ginger did. Oh.

PATON: I'll tell you more about it when we finish. But, in terms of what you said about the wrong time, you know, that if he had been born now -- they are trying to make some effort to remind some people that songs can be written that way and to encourage young songwriters to do that.

LIVINGSTON: Well, there's a market for the older records on television today. I don't know whether anybody has taken advantage of Johnny's records or not. I don't see them advertised.

PATON: Capitol has done some very nice rereleases.

LIVINGSTON: Have they?

PATON: Very nice. Very carefully done. They're not over-processed. I mean, you can still hear some of the surface noise from the lacquers and all that. They're lovely.

LIVINGSTON: On CDs?

PATON: On CD and cassettes. The cassettes are hard to get, though. And I don't know. The people that come to us almost always want cassettes. And I just tell 00:25:00them anymore: Get the CD and have your daughter tape it for you. And when it wears out, tape it again -- because they object to the format. They don't want to have to buy a CD player. But what we are experiencing is more and more people --. We have an exhibit, and there's a CD playing in there. And we are experiencing more and more people, young people, too, coming out and going, 'That's good. That's really good.' You know, 'Who is this?' and [they] want to know more about it.

LIVINGSTON: Sure.

PATON: So, we are hoping he is entering kind of a renaissance period, where there is more interest.

LIVINGSTON: My son, who is quite a talented singer and songwriter -- I sometimes play some of these old records for him. I want to get his reaction. I say, 'Do you like that?' He says, 'Yeah, it's good. It's good.' But he doesn't get excited about it. I play the big bands for him occasionally. He says, 'Yeah, that's okay.' You know, there's no reaction, and I grew up with them. I mean, the music was so exciting to me then, and still is.

PATON: It still is.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Oh, well. Times change. Did you know Ginger Mercer at all?

LIVINGSTON: Oh, yes, I knew her quite well.

PATON: Can you --? We're trying to flesh her out a little bit. I mean, we know her as 'Mrs. Johnny Mercer.'

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: But we are just trying to get other people's impressions of kind of what she was like or what she did or -- we've heard various things: that she was involved at one point in some politics and, you know, community things.

LIVINGSTON: I'm not too aware of that. I know that she was, quote, 'Mrs. Johnny Mercer,' unquote. That was very important to her. Johnny would be very sweet to her when he was sober and very mean to her when he had too much to drink. And she just put up with it. She loved being who she was, and as long as Johnny wasn't drinking, they had a good life together because Johnny was a kind person 00:27:00and very nice and maintained the marriage. I don't know how he felt, but he always maintained the marriage in a comfortable way, except there were times when he was not very nice to her. And it came from alcohol, which was -- you know -- upset us all. And she would just quietly sit and take it. And, the next morning, it was over.

PATON: So these things happened in public?

LIVINGSTON: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

PATON: Oh, yes?

LIVINGSTON: Oh, yes. I don't think you should print -- you should use these things, but I was sitting with them at a party once --

PATON: Well, if you tell me, it is going to be in the transcript, so --

LIVINGSTON: Well.

PATON: I mean, it's nothing new. Other people have told us that he was mean, and --

LIVINGSTON: Oh, they have told you?

PATON: Yeah.

LIVINGSTON: There was one occasion where -- I won't use his language, but there was one occasion when he was sitting next to her at a cocktail party, and he took his drink and looked at it and reached over and poured it over her head.

PATON: Really?

LIVINGSTON: Just like that, for no reason.

PATON: How awful.

LIVINGSTON: I know --

PATON: She didn't react or -- go home or --?

LIVINGSTON: Oh, she reacted. But she didn't scream at him or get angry. She never did. She just quietly -- she knew him and knew he was under the influence; and, therefore, every now and then, she would have to put up with this, which she did.

PATON: It's too bad.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: So you are not aware of her having an active life of involvement in social things or community or -- I mean, she may have, but --

LIVINGSTON: No, she may have, but I am not aware of it.

PATON: Okay. We are asking. We figure eventually we will find out what people know. I think Margaret had mentioned that she thought that, perhaps, at least fairly early when they came out here, that she was involved in some political organizations and community things and that type of thing. I'm going to turn this over because we are running kind of short here.

PATON: [I need?] to wrap up because --

LIVINGSTON: Okay.

PATON: -- we've pretty well covered most of the questions that I had. Are there 00:29:00any particular memories or events or projects or anything that come to mind? We've mentioned a little bit about recording. We've mentioned that you socialized together. Anything in particular?

LIVINGSTON: No, the one thing that always interested me was that I was with him when he drank, and he never was mean to me.

PATON: Really?

LIVINGSTON: No. There was never one incident where he was rude or insulting or anything else. And I always felt a little -- 'maybe he doesn't like me very much,' you know [chuckling]? But -- I saw it with other people, but it never happened to me. It was interesting. No, I can't think of any particular incident. I'm sure there are, but, you know, my memory is not that great for it. [Pause.]

I remember going out with him to dinner with Jerry Colonna on occasions. And people would -- Jerry was so obvious, with his big mustache and everything. People would come up to get his autograph and didn't know who Johnny was.

PATON: About when was this?

LIVINGSTON: Oh, this was in the late '40s, early '50s.

PATON: We have photographs of Colonna in the collection.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah, see, Johnny -- Colonna was a nice man. We liked him, but --

PATON: Were they good friends?

LIVINGSTON: Yeah. But Johnny would spend his time, generally, with people who went after him. He was not aggressive in his relationships, not aggressive in choosing composer/writing partners. Those who came after him, he went with, and sometimes with the wrong people. And we were, at times, critical of him for that. But he was just such an easygoing man that he would never think of saying no or turning somebody down or not being social or polite or whatever.

PATON: Who would have been a 'wrong' person? You mean just a weak composer or --?

LIVINGSTON: There is one. I hate to say it --

PATON: You don't have to say, necessarily. I mean, we know all the big ones.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah, there was one that he wrote with who was not a talented composer at all. And he wrote some really boring, dull songs. This man was a very successful arranger, conductor at Paramount, but he couldn't write music. And, you know, my main experience in the music business is that sometimes these people with tremendous ears who will sit down with a piece of score paper and write a whole score for something without even being near a piano and maybe have perfect pitch. And I worked with them as arrangers and conductors, they could not write melodies. This was one case where this man was that kind of person and 00:32:00could not write melodies, but he went after John. And John should have said to himself, 'I don't like these melodies.' But John didn't do that. He would always work with him. The songs never got to first base. You never heard of them again.

PATON: We'd heard a quote from somebody to the effect that John wrote with whoever he met first in the mornings.

LIVINGSTON: That's right.

PATON: That he was a very laid back --

LIVINGSTON: That's right.

PATON: Whoever asked him to write with them.

LIVINGSTON: Sure.

PATON: Did that hurt his reputation at all?

LIVINGSTON: No. No, no. It was just -- we just knew what Johnny was like. We'd criticize

him for it, you know, and say, 'John, you shouldn't be writing with him.' And he'd say, 'Well, you know, he's a nice guy.'

PATON: As long as they were happy, I guess.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Getting back to when you all socialized -- where did you go and who did you go with? Who would have been other people who might be along?

LIVINGSTON: My wife and I. My brother, Jay. Not too many people because Johnny 00:33:00didn't -- did not see a lot of people. I don't think Johnny had any close friends. He went with people who called him and said, 'Let's go out to dinner,' or whatever it is, or invited him to a cocktail party or a dinner or whatever it was. And he would always come. But I don't think that he ever developed a really close, intimate, warm relationship or had a best friend. I don't think Johnny had a best friend --

PATON: Really?

LIVINGSTON: -- that I know of. But he had a lot of acquaintances. And he was out with the people that called him. And the funny thing is, too: Johnny never lived up to his income or his stature, ever. He had a little house in a very middle-class part of town. And he had a business manager who got to him, who was not, certainly, an important business manager in this town, who did not 00:34:00necessarily handle his funds as well as they should have been handled. But Johnny didn't care. He just went along and whoever came to him, he said 'Okay.' He just didn't -- he didn't live up to who he was, ever. And he had an insecurity about him. Strange.

PATON: Yeah, with that kind of talent.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: So the groups of you that went out, where did you go? Are there some names of some places --?

LIVINGSTON: We used to go to Chasen's occasionally. We went to a place called Dave's Blue Room on Sunset Boulevard, which actually later became Chasen's. Dave was the man who opened up Chasen's, and Mercer was friendly with him. And we would go there. We would --that's all I remember is Dave's Blue Room and Chasen's; and other than that, it was at our home or his home. In Los Angeles, 00:35:00it's not like New York or a big city where you usually go to restaurants a lot. Most of the entertaining here is done in the home.

PATON: Yeah, somebody else mentioned that.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Again, it just gives us a better feel of what life was like for him or with him.

LIVINGSTON: To sum up Johnny Mercer, he just went along with the tide.

PATON: Um-hmm.

LIVINGSTON: Wherever he was invited or asked, or who wanted to write with him or who wanted to see him or whatever it was, he was friendly with all of them. I don't think he had an intimate relationship with anyone. And he was not aggressive in any manner at all. If somebody took advantage of him, he'd complain about it, but he wouldn't do anything about it. And his contribution to Capitol Records was number one, and his talent was number one. And he never 00:36:00thought he could sing. He'd say, 'You call that a voice?' You know. And his writing talents he took for granted and didn't think much of it. You see, he should have been writing with Henry Mancini, as he did with 'Moon River.' And he should have been writing with Harry Warren only, and he should have been writing only with those people that were as talented as he was in their own way. But he'd end up with somebody that didn't make a contribution.

PATON: Being non-aggressive and non-assertive about things, did he or didn't he initiate new projects, say, at Capitol or with people he was working with?

LIVINGSTON: He'd walk in and say 'I heard a singer' and I think you ought to [pitch?] him. He'd never push it. But, believe me, we listened when he made such a remark. And that's how Nat Cole came in and Margaret Whiting came in and Jo Stafford came in and Peggy Lee came in --

PATON: Um-hmm.

LIVINGSTON: -- just on a comment of his. He didn't say -- He was president, or whatever, at that time, but he wouldn't say, 'I heard somebody, you got to sign them.' Johnny would never talk like that. But if he said, 'I heard somebody. I think they're good,' we went after them.

PATON: So, the people around him recognized --

LIVINGSTON: Oh, yeah.

PATON: -- the value of his comments, and of his knowledge --

LIVINGSTON: Oh, sure. Oh, sure.

PATON: -- and his senses.

LIVINGSTON: Yeah.

PATON: Can you think of anybody who we should talk to -- else? I've mentioned a few of the people that we've spoken with, and we are talking with you.

LIVINGSTON: You've probably covered most of them. Did you ever talk to Mickey Goldsen?

PATON: No.

LIVINGSTON: Mickey Goldsen was very -- Mickey Goldsen was head of the publishing company, the music publishing company for Capitol. And then he left and formed his own publishing firm. And he's still here in Los Angeles as a music publisher, and he's had some interesting experiences with Johnny and knew him 00:38:00well. I think he'd be worth talking to.

PATON: Okay.

LIVINGSTON: The name of his music company -- Let me see if I have a number for him.

PATON: Okay. I'm going to put this on 'pause' while you look.

LIVINGSTON: Okay.