Sparks from the Fire

(If you missed the beginning of this series, please start with The IRA Awards Part 1)

Johnny Mercer!  Oh my goodness, what a lyricist! He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others.  From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, many of the songs Mercer wrote and performed were among the most popular hits of the time.  He wrote the lyrics to more than a thousand songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows.  He received nineteen Academy Award nominations and won four.  Mercer was also a co-founder of Capitol Records.

Among his thousands of songs were the following classic standards: Come Rain Or Come Shine, Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive, Autumn Leaves, Fools Rush In, I’m Old Fashioned with Jerome Kern, I Remember You, Moon River with Henry Mancini, Skylark with a great melody by Hoagy Charmichael, That Old Black Magic, One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) with Harold Arlen, Satin Doll with Duke Ellington, and On The Atchison Topeka And The Santa Fe.

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James Taylor

If you were to ask me, “Who has been your favorite pop star throughout your life?” I’d have to answer that it is a tie between The Beatles and James Taylor.  Perhaps that dates me; perhaps, on the other hand, it doesn’t.  Both have had such musically triumphant careers and both are sure to be long lasting.

Also both churned out mountains of great music and for me that’s the bottom line.  The Beatles were perhaps more eclectic, but Sweet Baby James was, well, just so sweeeet!

As a lyricist, James can be somewhat impressionistic like Paul and Joni, but also could just nail it down with the best of them.  He wrote this song for a musical, “Working”, and as a story-telling song, it’s one of the best.  It wins my Ira Award for Best Song for a Musical Written by a Pop Star.

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Welcome to Part 2 of the Ira Awards!  If you have no earthly idea of what the Ira Awards are, then go to Part 1 and find out.  Besides, who would start anything with Part 2?

Joni Mitchell-Self Portrait

If you’ve already read Part 1, then welcome back!  Tonight let’s start with Joni.  In Part 1 I opened with the expression “A poem doth not a lyric make”.  Joni Mitchell, in my book, comes the closest to writing poetry that works as lyrics.  It is her genius to do so.  Even though she can make it work sometimes, I still wouldn’t try it if I were you.  Joni Mitchells only come along once in a lifetime.

Joni writes a lot like Paul Simon – she paints an impressionistic picture.  She is a poet at work on a lyrical canvas.  She sometimes tells a story, but that story often just has splotches of through line and she leaves it up to the listener to fill in the blanks.  She is also, you may already know, an accomplished painter whose work often graces her album covers.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight we welcome you all to The Ira Awards – the music industry’s evening celebrating its most underappreciated creators – the lyricists.

Ira Gershwin

In the music industry, when the royalty split is determined for songwriters, the industry standard for royalties is that the composer gets 50% and the lyricist gets the other 50%.  Each contributor to the song shares equally.  But when it comes to publicity, notoriety, and public appreciation, that’s where the equality stops.  The composer always gets the lion’s share of the attention.

And so to right this inequality, to re-balance the appreciation for these underappreciated wordsmiths, I’ve decided to create just what this world needs most – another awards show – The Ira Awards, presented by Watchfire Music.  Also I’ve decided to name it after the most underappreciated lyricist of them all – Ira Gershwin.

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