"Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics written by Johnny Mercer.
It received an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its first performance
byAudrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's.[1]
It also won Mancini the 1962Grammy Award for Record of the Year and
Mercer the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.[2]
Since its original performance, the song has been covered by many other artists.
It became the theme song for Andy Williams, who first recorded it in 1961 and performed it
at the Academy Awards ceremonies in 1962.
He sang the first eight bars at the beginning of his eponymous television show and named his production company
and venue in Branson, Missouri, after it. Williams' version never charted,
except as an LP track, which he recorded for Columbia in a hit album of 1962.[citation needed]
Cadence Records' president Archie Bleyer disliked Williams' version, as Bleyer believed it
had little or no appeal to teenagers.[citation needed]
The song's success was responsible for relaunching Mercer's career as a songwriter,
which had stalled in the mid-1950s because rock and roll replaced jazz standards as
the popular music of the time. The song's popularity is such that it has been used as a test
sample in a study on people's memories of popular songs.[3]
Comments about the song have noted that it is particularly reminiscent of Mercer's youth in the Southern United States.[4]
An inlet near Savannah, Georgia, Johnny Mercer's hometown, was named Moon River in honor of him and this song.[5]
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