Mabel Mercer

Mabel Mercer was born on 3 February 1900 in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England, to a white English music hall performer and an itinerant black American musician who died before her birth. She left her convent school in Manchester at the age of 14 and began touring Britain and Europe in vaudeville and music hall engagements alongside her aunt. The precise diction that would later define her vocal style is attributed to training she received during her years at the convent.

Mercer made her Broadway appearance in 1908 in Fluffy Ruffles. In 1928, she was an uncredited member of the black chorus in the London production of Show Boat. By the 1930s she had established herself as a celebrated figure in Parisian nightlife, performing at Chez Bricktop, the club owned by Ada "Bricktop" Smith, and counting Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Cole Porter among her admirers. When World War II began, she relocated to the United States, where she performed at New York supper clubs including Le Ruban Bleu, Tony's, the RSVP, the Carlyle, and the St. Regis Hotel, and eventually operated her own venue, the Byline Club. Frank Sinatra was a frequent presence at her performances and openly acknowledged drawing on her phrasing and storytelling techniques.

Her recording career began in 1942 with selections from Porgy and Bess, released on the Liberty Music Shops label with piano accompaniment by Cy Walter. The early 1950s brought her first sustained output: Songs by Mabel Mercer, Volumes 1 through 3, appeared between 1952 and 1954, followed by four additional LPs by 1960, among them Mabel Mercer Sings Cole Porter in 1955 and Midnight at Mabel Mercer's in 1956. In the late 1960s, she performed two concerts with Bobby Short at Town Hall in New York City, both released by Atlantic Records: Mabel Mercer & Bobby Short at Town Hall in 1968 and Mabel Mercer & Bobby Short Second Town Hall Concert in 1969. She also made two appearances on the television program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in 1969. Atlantic Records issued a commemorative boxed set of four early LPs in 1975 to mark her 75th birthday. In 1978, Stereo Review praised her 1956 album Midnight at Mabel Mercer's as one of the best recordings of the previous twenty years. That same year she performed to sold-out audiences at San Francisco's Club Mocambo in celebration of her 78th birthday. Her final studio recordings were released in 1980 as Echoes of My Life.

In addition to her recording and club work, Mercer appeared in the films Tropical Trouble and Everything Is Rhythm, both in 1936, and The Sand Castle in 1961. In 1977, she returned to England for the first time in 41 years, performing on 4 July; the BBC filmed three evenings of those performances and broadcast them in a week-long late-night television program titled Miss Mercer in Mayfair, a first of its kind for the broadcaster. In 1981, the Whitney Museum of American Art honored her with "An American Cabaret," described as the only musical event of its kind in the museum's history to that point. She also served as the first guest on Eileen Farrell's National Public Radio program featuring prominent popular singers, and in 1982 the two performed together at the Kool Jazz Festival.

Mercer received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983, presented by President Ronald Reagan at a White House ceremony. She also held two honorary Doctor of Music degrees, one from Berklee College of Music in Boston and one from the New England Conservatory of Music. Stereo Review presented her with its first Award for Merit for lifetime achievement and outstanding contributions to American musical life; the award was officially renamed the Mabel Mercer Award in 1984. Mercer died on 20 April 1984 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, at the age of 84, and is buried at Red Rock Cemetery near Chatham, New York. The Mabel Mercer Foundation was established in 1985 by her longtime friend and professional associate Donald F. Smith to preserve her legacy and support the art of cabaret performance.