Dreaming Along With Lynn DiMenna - Music, Cocktails, and Mercer

Have you ever wondered how folks in the music business and other aficionados of popular song spend a free Saturday afternoon? That’s right, they’re all at the Metropolitan Room listening to Lynn DiMenna sing the songs of Johnny Mercer. Her entertaining show on May 2nd, My Huckleberry Friend, A Centennial Salute to Johnny Mercer, marked her debut at the cabaret.

Lynn’s growing roster includes The Oak Room, The Waldorf Astoria, Danny’s Skylight Room, The Tavern on the Green, Town Hall, Birdland, and many more. On April 5th, she participated in a Big Band concert devoted to Mercer songs at Hofstra University; and on April 29th, was the vocalist in a tribute to Johnny Mercer at Fairfield University, a program which was free to the public.

From the first minute she walked on the stage, the gracious Ms.DiMenna’s warm and engaging personality pulled in the enthusiastic audience. More than a hundred of her closest friends, including Andrea Marcovicci, Daryl Sherman, Richard Skipper, and Julie Wilson, filled the intimate room.

The diverse collection, representing thirty years of Mercer’s extraordinary talent, ranged from the sexy Latin tempo of It Had Better Be Tonight to the easy sentimentality of Moon River, both written by Henry Mancini for The Pink Panther and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, respectively. Besides Mancini, more than a dozen of the one hundred and seventy of Johnny’s collaborators were offered – Arlen, Carmichael, Whiting, Kern, and Warren among them.

DiMenna’s versatility was much in evidence throughout This Time The Dream’s On Me, Skylark, Too Marvelous For Words, I’m Old Fashioned, and The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe. Linda Amiel Burns, who founded The Singing Experience, a series of performance workshops, more than thirty years ago, was the director. Lynn was ably accompanied by Steve Doyle on piano, Chris Higgins on bass, and David Meade on drums. Each one has most impressive credentials, having worked with many of the biggest names in cabaret, concert, and recording.

Steve Doyle, who is also a bass player and singer, joined Lynn for the clever Have You Got Any Castles, written by Mercer and Richard Whiting for the movie Varsity Show, and introduced by Dick Powell and Rosemary Lane; and Two Of a Kind, the music by Bobby Darin who later recorded the song with Mercer. Doyle also performed Laura, from the film of the same name, with music by David Raksin and the lyrics supplied by Johnny Mercer a year after the picture’s release.

Although Ms DiMenna performed a few numbers for which the prolific song writer did both words and music, notably Dream and Something’s Gotta Give, there was only one that came with a story attached. A woman from Youngstown, Ohio wrote to Mercer, suggesting a title for a song. He agreed, and gave her half of the credit after he wrote I Wanna Be Around and published it. The song later became a huge hit for Tony Bennett. If anyone should ask, the woman’s name is Sadie Zimmerstedt.

Lynn DiMenna is far too young to have ever sung with Johnny Mercer, a well respected singer in his own right, but one can easily imagine them doing duets of Hit the Road to Dreamland, Blues in the Night, and Come Rain or Come Shine. Still, her presentation reflected an impeccable taste in music, a generous sense of humor, and a voice that encouraged all the right emotions.

If you missed the show, or simply want to hear more of this fine singer, you can catch her on WVOF radio, where she appears regularly with Jeffrey C. Williams on At The Ritz, a program dedicated to the extraordinary range of talented people who inhabit the field of popular music. Or you can run down to the internet and buy her latest CD – Sweet & Swing, featuring a tasty slice of the American Song Book- Berlin, Ellington, Hammerstein, Rodgers, and a lot more.