Mabel Mercer

Mabel Mercer (3 February 1900 – 20 April 1984) was an English-born cabaret singer who built a career spanning Britain, Europe, and the United States, becoming one of the most celebrated figures in American cabaret. She appeared on Broadway in 1950 in The Consul.

Born in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England, Mercer was the daughter of 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 age 14 and began touring Britain and Europe in vaudeville and music hall engagements alongside her aunt. The precise diction she developed as a student at the convent is widely credited as the foundation of her distinctive vocal style.

Her professional ascent continued through the 1920s and into the following decade. In 1928 she appeared as an uncredited member of the Black chorus in the London production of Show Boat. By the 1930s she had become a celebrated presence in Paris, performing at Chez Bricktop, the club owned by Ada "Bricktop" Smith, and attracting admirers that included Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Cole Porter. When World War II began, she relocated to New York, where she performed at venues including Le Ruban Bleu, Tony's, the RSVP, the Carlyle, the St. Regis Hotel, and eventually her own room, the Byline Club. Frank Sinatra was a frequent presence at her performances and openly acknowledged drawing on her phrasing and storytelling techniques.

Mercer's earliest recordings were selections from Porgy and Bess, released in 1942 on the Liberty Music Shops label with piano accompaniment by Cy Walter. More sustained recording activity followed in the next decade, with Songs by Mabel Mercer, Volumes 1 through 3, released between 1952 and 1954. Four additional LPs appeared by 1960, among them Mabel Mercer Sings Cole Porter in 1955, Midnight at Mabel Mercer's in 1956, and Once in a Blue Moon in 1958. In the late 1960s she gave 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. In 1969 she also made two appearances on the television program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Atlantic Records issued a commemorative boxed set reissuing four of her early LPs in 1975 to mark her 75th birthday, and her final studio recordings were released as Echoes of My Life in 1980.

On 4 July 1977, Mercer returned to England for her first performance there in 41 years. The BBC filmed three evenings of her 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. The following year she performed at San Francisco's Club Mocambo to sold-out audiences in celebration of her 78th birthday. In 1982 she appeared in concert with Eileen Farrell as part of the Kool Jazz Festival.

Among the honors Mercer received, Stereo Review Magazine 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. In January 1981, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York honored her with "An American Cabaret," described as the only musical event of its kind in the museum's history at that time. She also received honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Berklee College of Music in Boston and from the New England Conservatory of Music. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony.

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. In 1985, the Mabel Mercer Foundation was established by her longtime friend and professional associate Donald F. Smith to preserve her legacy and support the art of cabaret performance.