Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil will be the 2011 recipients of the Johnny Mercer Award at the 42nd Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Dinner, to be held June 16 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.
The husband-and-wife team, veterans of the legendary Brill Building, have written such classics as “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” (with Phil Spector), “On Broadway” (with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller), “Walking In The Rain,” “Kicks,” “Soul And Inspiration,” “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place,” “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” “Here You Come Again,” “Never Gonna Let You Go,” “Just Once,” and the Grammy-nominated “Don’t Know Much” (with Tom Snow), among others, according to the SHOF announcement. Inductees at this year’s event include John Bettis, Garth Brooks, Leon Russell, Billy Steinberg & Tom Kelly and Allen Toussaint.
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“Barry and Cynthia’s massive stream of classic songs have changed the face of popular music in a way that has endured, with songs that have a straight-from -the-heart, deep appeal,” SHOF inductee and chairman Jimmy Webb said in a statement.
The Johnny Mercer Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, is exclusively reserved for songwriters who have already been inducted in a prior year (as Mann and Weil were last year), and whose body of work is of such high quality and impact, that it upholds the standard set by the legendary Johnny Mercer.
The duo have created scores for many films such as “An American Tail,” for which they wrote the double-Grammy-winning “Somewhere Out There” with James Horner. In addition to collecting Grammys for Song of the Year and Motion Picture or Television Song of the Year, the song also received Golden Globe and Oscar nominations and won BMI’s Most Performed Film Song Award.
Past Johnny Mercer Award recipients have included Phil Collins, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Paul Anka, Dolly Parton, Kris Kristofferson, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Billy Joel, Jimmy Webb, Hal David, Burt Bacharach, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Paul Simon, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Stephen Sondheim, Cy Coleman, Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne.