February, 2010
JOHNNY BURKE, one of America's greatest songwriters of the 20th Century, is the focus of a Lyrics and Lyricists show in New York City
Lyricist Johnny Burke (1908 – 1964) was diminutive in stature but a giant among songwriters. Though not a household name, like many of his peers, his songs remain as relevant and enjoyable today as when they were written in the 1930's, 40's and 50's. Consider just a few of the long list of hit Burke titles: "Pennies from Heaven," "Moonlight Becomes You," "Swinging on a Star," "Imagination," "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," "What's New," and "Misty" -- each one a bona fide American song standard, each one covered by an array of great recording artists.
Late last year, Barbra Streisand retrieved Burke's "Here's That Rainy Day" (from the 1953 Broadway musical, Carnival in Flanders, co-written with composer Jimmy Van Heusen) for her acclaimed Love Is the Answer album. In February of 2010, Burke"s songs were the focus of an installment of the prestigious Lyrics and Lyricists series at Manhattan's 92nd Street "Y." The event, which was directed by singer and pianist Daryl Sherman, featured some of
the top cabaret, musical theater and jazz artists in New York, and demonstrated anew the timeless nature of the Burke catalogue.
A special guest performer at the Lyrics and Lyricist show was Mary Burke Kramer, who was married to Johnny Burke at the time of his death in 1964. Mary, who was much younger than Burke, met the songwriter when she was a dancer in the 1961 Broadway musical, Donnybrook! (music and lyrics by Johnny Burke). She has long been a force in keeping the Burke legacy alive, co-producing the Tonynominated Swinging on a Star, amusical revue centered on her late husband's songs.
Johnny Burke was born in Antioch, California and grew up in Chicago, the son of a construction and steel worker. Johnny was sent to the University of Wisconsin to prepare for a career in law, but the future lyricist opted for poetry and playing piano in bands and brothels. Burke may have disappointed his father, but he followed his heart to work as a songplugger for Irving Berlin's publishing house, first in Chicago and later in New York.
He met his first collaborator, Harold Spina, in New York, and had some early success with songs for Fats Waller, including "My Very Good Friend, the Milkman" and "You're Not the Only Oyster in the Stew."
Hollywood, of course, would be the scene of Johnny Burke's greatest musical triumphs. Before he got there, however, Irving Berlin, himself, recommended Burke and Spina to write the song score for a proposed musical version of The Wizard of Oz in 1934. That production never materialized and when a musical Wizard did appear in 1939, the songs were written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg.
Burke's breakthrough would occur two years later with "Pennies fromHeaven," a song he wrote "on spec" for a Hollywood project with composer Arthur Johnston. "Dixie Lee, Bing Crosby's wife, had somehow discovered Johnny and Arthur,' says Mary Burke. "So Bing called them and asked if they'd be willing to write a song for a movie project. They proceeded to write a song and sent it to California but heard nothing. Finally, Johnny was called to the West Coast and was walking on a movie set with Bing Crosby, with nothingmentioned about the song yet. Johnny finally asked Bing about the song, and Bing told himitwas the title of his newfilm– the rest is history."
BURKE AND SONGWRITING PARTNER, JIMMY VAN HEUSEN, BECAME BING CROSBY'S ONCALL SONGWRITERS, CRAFTING SONGS FOR CROSBY MUSICALS
In fact, the history of both Bing Crosby and Johnny Burke became intertwined. The two were Irish-Americans and became as "close as brothers," says Mary Burke. Burke and his most significant songwriting partner, composer Jimmy Van Heusen, became Crosby’s on-call songwriters, customcrafting songs for Crosby musicals of the 1940's and early 1950's, including Going My Way, The Bells of Saint Mary's, and the great series of Bing Crosby-Bob Hope-Dorothy Lamour "Road" movies: The Road to Bali, The Road to Morocco, The Road to Rio, The Road to Utopia and The Road to Zanzibar. "Bing had rules for his songs; one was that love songs could not contain the phrase, 'I Love You.'" Burke and Van Heusen enjoyed such great success that they became known as "the Gold Dust Twins," winning an Oscar for "Swinging on a Star."
Burke eventually moved his family to New York in hopes of writing a hit Broadway musical. "He did not like sitting around the pool and writing," explains Mary Burke. Burke wrote two musicals with Van Heusen that met with little success – Nellie Bly (1946) and A Carnival in Flanders (1953), although A Carnival did contain "Here's That Rainy Day." In 1961, he composed both words and music for Donnybrook!, a musical version of the John Wayne film, The Quiet Man. It also met with an early closing. Burke's final work was a musical version of the "Little Lord Fauntleroy" story for television, which was never produced.
After 1953, Burke decided to write both words and music on his own and refused any requests to collaborate. The one exception to that rule was a fortuitous one.
In 1955, Burke’s musical transcriber and pianist, Herb Mesick, repeatedly played a wordless melody by Erroll Garner for Burke in the hope that Burke would consider
writing a lyric. Mesick played it so often that Burke gave up in exasperation and wrote the words to the song that came to be known as "Misty." In 1959, it became Johnny Mathis's biggest hit and has since been recorded hundreds of times. Mary Burke recounts that in first handing the song tomusic publisher Frank
Military, Johnny said something like, "If that song ever makes any money, I'll buy you a couple of suits."
—Jim Steinblatt
