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Photo courtesy of Michael Sigman
Songwriters Hall of Famer Carl Sigman collaborated with the top American and European composers and lyricists of his day.
They included such songwriting legends as Duke Ellington, Yip Harburg and Jimmy Van Heusen, not to mention Charles Dawes, his collaborator on perhaps his most famous song "It's All In The Game." A Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dawes was Vice President of the United States under Calvin Coolidge. ("It's All In The Game" was recently named the No. 38 greatest pop song of all time by Billboard magazine. No. 39 is The Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand.”)
But Sigman considered Johnny Mercer to be his mentor. Both are now being celebrated for their centennial years.
“Johnny Mercer would go to my dad’s house in Brooklyn every night, and my grandma would make matzah ball soup as comfort food for him—even though he wasn’t Jewish,” says Michael Sigman, the writer and media consultant who promotes his father’s catalog in conjunction with music publishing company Music Sales Corporation. “They wrote ‘Just Remember’ together: Johnny was a lyricist so my dad wrote the music and it was his big break. But Johnny said, 'There are 15 melody writers for every lyric writer’--because in those days of big bands, everybody could write a tune. So he said to concentrate on lyrics, and after that my dad wrote mostly lyrics.”
Mercer had moved from his native Georgia to Brooklyn in 1928, and was put in contact with Sigman by a music publisher. The two soon spent time together playing softball and writing songs over at Sigman’s house. Besides “Just Remember,” which was a modest hit in England with at least four covers, Sigman and Mercer co-wrote several more songs, most notably “Peekaboo To You,” which Glenn Miller recorded.
Years later, when Mercer was an established star, the two met up at a New York publishing company office. Sigman played a tune and Mercer helped him finish “Please Come Out To Dream,” which Guy Lombardo eventually introduced. But major success still eluded Sigman until Mercer sagely advised him to focus on lyric writing.
“Just Remember” is the first song included in Songs, a three-CD promotional set that Sigman compiled as a means of promoting his father’s songs to professional music users. He and Music Sales Corp. have also published The Carl Sigman Songbook, featuring 47 of Sigman’s best-known songs along with a 15,000 word bio penned by his son.
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