Draft:Jason Mershon

Jason Mershon
Jason Mershon in 2016
Born	Jay Jeffrey Mershon February 24, 1951 Chicago, Illinois
Other names	Legs Hunter, JJ Breeze
Years active	1969 - present

Jason Mershon is an American entrepreneur whose career included stints as a newspaper editor and publisher, nightclub promoter, and producer of beauty pageants and rock and roll concerts in the 1970s and 1980s. He is also known as a singer and songwriter, who wrote the book, music, and lyrics for the award-winning musical comedy, Heaven Rocks, later re-titled Rock and Roll Heaven - The Musical Comedy,  which he produced and directed theatrically in the 1990s through the early 2000s.

Mershon is the subject of A Baby Boomer’s Last Stand: A True Story of a Novel Life from Truman to Trump, a series of books by author Jon Alexander Young published from 2020 - 2024.

Early Life

Mershon was born Jay Jeffery Mershon in Chicago, Illinois in 1951 and moved to Los Angeles when he was five years old. He attended Lakewood High School in California where he graduated in 1968 and decided to change his first name to Jason after moving to Las Vegas in 1969. Attending the University of Nevada (UNLV) on a student deferment during the Vietnam War, he studied Law, Journalism and Political Science. But after drawing a high number in the Selective Service Draft Lottery in 1970 which assured him of not being drafted to Vietnam, Mershon chose to leave UNLV rather than spend his time in Las Vegas as a full-time student.

In 1971, Mershon began writing an entertainment column and selling advertising for the Las Vegas Star Magazine. During that period, he had also become friends with many Las Vegas musicians and would spend time singing and performing with them, along with entering local talent contests. Through those music contacts, Mershon briefly had the opportunity to join the famous 1960’s band The Box Tops who had recently broken up, but was being reformed with completely different band members by the management company who owned the trademark and rights to the name of the band. When he joined the new version of The Box Tops as their singer in 1971, Mershon adopted the stage name of JJ Breeze and joined several other reformed “famous” sixties bands for a concert tour the management company was promoting. But during the tour, Mershon saw there were few, if any, original members who had made those sixties bands famous, and decided it wasn’t a career he wanted to pursue.

Newspaper Career

Returning to Los Angeles in 1972, Mershon became the publisher of the Singles News Register newspaper which at the time, was the first publication to strictly focus on classified personal ads for dating. Although classified ads for dates often had the stigma of being a “lonely hearts” concept, Mershon’s publication was instrumental as having been the first mainstream newspaper to legitimize advertising for dates as an acceptable way to begin serious relationships. The Singles News Register also differentiated itself from the “swinging singles” and similar publications at the time, as it catered to the heterosexual singles who were looking for serious relationships and marriage, which also started to launch other similar publications and dating services.

As readership grew across the United States, the newspaper expanded to nationwide distribution, it was renamed the National Singles Register in 1975 and was recognized as the most successful singles publication throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s.The newspaper remained a successful business for twenty-five years, however, with the advent of the internet and proliferation of video and online dating services in the 1990’s, the National Singles Register published its last issue in 1996.

Nightclub Promoter

During his years as an editor and publisher of the National Singles Register, Mershon produced singles parties and Bachelorette and Bachelor of the Month contests to promote the newspaper at various nightclubs and discos in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Las Vegas. The success of the singles parties, along with the explosion of the disco era, motivated Mershon to leave his day job as full-time editor of the newspaper in 1976 to become a full-time nightclub promoter. Beginning in 1977, Mershon produced hundreds of parties, events, and beauty contests through his new entertainment company, Steppin’ Out Productions.

Mershon’s most well-known and successful promotion was the "Miss Legs America Pageant"; which he produced nationally in all 50 states in over 200 cities from 1980 through 1986. Co-sponsored by Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, who awarded over $50,000 in prizes to the winners, Mershon also made arrangements with Playboy magazine's West Coast Editor, Marilyn "Mo" Grabowski, to submit the "Miss Legs" contestants who were interested in being in Playboy magazine.

Using the stage name of “Legs Hunter” at his pageants, Mershon personally hosted and emceed the preliminaries at many of the most celebrated nightclubs and discos in America, including, Paul Anka’s Jubilation Disco in Las Vegas, Tramps Disco in Washington DC, Gazzari’s in Hollywood, The Limelight in Atlanta, the 2001 Odyssey Disco in Brooklyn (where Saturday Night Fever was filmed) and Zelda’s Nightclub in Palm Springs. The first "Miss Legs America" national winner was Kathy Shower of Cincinnati, Ohio, who went on to appear on the cover of Playboy magazine in May 1984, became Playmate of the Month in June 1985, and Playboy’s Playmate of the Year in 1986.

The “Miss Legs America Pageant” received extensive press coverage during its first three years that was mostly positive, with most seeing it as light-hearted fun and a parody on pageants like Miss America or  Miss World. But as the 1980’s progressed, feminists and women’s groups began showing up at Mershon’s pageants and other beauty pageants, protesting them as exploitive and leading to violence against women which caused the media coverage to change as well. A national media scandal involving the Miss Legs America Pageant occurred in January of 1984 when the media reported of a "lynch mob" scene shortly after the crowning of the "Miss Legs America" in Pennsylvania, when accusations were made that the winners weren’t awarded their prizes. This also led to Mershon’s arrest that same night. The first news that streamed across the wire services by the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) insinuated that the entire pageant was a “scam” and a “con” by Mershon, and was published in newspapers nationwide. It was later discovered that the only reason for the delay in the prizes was that the co-sponsor, Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, had sent the prizes to the wrong address. Once Mershon explained his side of the story, he was released from custody, however, it was the next week before the media reported that criminal charges against “Legs Hunter” had been dropped.

A feature documentary "Legs Across America," was produced in 1984 which covered an entire year of Mershon’s life on the road as the "Legs Hunter," and documented both the positive and the negative coverage by the press and media during that year. Mershon continued producing "Miss Legs America" for two more years, but with the culture changes happening in the United States in the mid-1980’s, after five national tours he retired the "Miss Legs America Pageant," along with the name "Legs Hunter" in 1986.

Concert Promoter and Music Career

Moving to Palm Springs, California in the late 1980s, Mershon produced and promoted many pop and rock concerts between 1989 and 1992. Some of the famous bands from the 1960s and 70s included Foghat,The Marshal Tucker Band, Molly Hatchet, The Tubes, The Cowsills, Jan and Dean, The Pat Travers Band, War, Sugarloaf, Eric Burdon of The Animals, Robbie Krieger of The Doors, and Gary Richrath from REO Speedwagon. Mershon also became well-known in Palm Springs for his all-night rock and roll house parties.

With music productions having been his main focus since he ended his nightclub promotions in the late 1980s, Mershon also recorded an album of his original songs in 1990 titled Memories of a Legs Man under his old stage name JJ Breeze. He also embarked on one more national tour in 1992 as JJ Breeze, to promote and sing his own songs, along with several The Box Tops hits he had performed twenty years earlier.

In between his music promotions, Mershon wrote the book, music and lyrics of the musical comedy Heaven Rocks and premiered the first staged production at Sun Studios in Palm Springs during the spring of 1994. He would later produce and direct other versions in Boston, San Diego, and other locations in Southern California. Many well-known actors, singers and comedians including Joseph Pilato, John Moschitta Jr., Joe Ochman, Lisa Sundstedt, Jose Sinatra, and Smokey Miles (aka: Count Smokula), appeared in Heaven Rocks, along with dozens of other well-known celebrity impersonators who would portray deceased rock and pop music legends interacting with historical and biblical characters in the afterlife.

When Mershon revived Heaven Rocks in Hollywood in 2006, re-titling it Rock and Roll Heaven - The Musical Comedy, he won two awards for the Stage Musical of the Year and the Best Original Soundtrack at the 16th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards. Mershon also produced the album, Heaven Rocks! A Wild Night in Rock and Roll Heaven, which included the soundtrack and partial libretto from his musical in 2002.

Other Ventures

Mershon owned and operated Jason’s Nightclub and Harbor Nights Restaurant in San Diego, California from 1997 through 2002. His nightclub became well known for presenting tribute bands recreating legendary artists in concert including “Sticky Fingers” (The Rolling Stones), “Backbeat” (The Beatles), “Wild Child” (The Doors), “Pink Froyd” (Pink Floyd), Purple Haze Experience (Jimi Hendrix), “Janis Comes Alive” (Janis Joplin) “Viva Santana” (Santana), “Panama” (Van Halen), Electric Waste Band (Grateful Dead), along with others who recreated such legends as Prince, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Cher, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper and The Blues Brothers live in concert.

Mershon often appeared as a guest singer with several well-known musical artists throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. His final appearance onstage as JJ Breeze was in 2003 at Sycuan Casino in San Diego with the Classic Rock All-Stars, performing alongside famed rock stars, Peter Rivera from Rare Earth, Jerry Corbetta from Sugarloaf, Mike Pinera from Blues Image and Iron Butterfly and Spencer Davis from The Spencer Davis Group.

Mershon also spent several years as a professional poker player in the early 2000s. He wrote the song "Playin’ Poker for a Livin’" as JJ Breeze which received widespread publicity in the poker community and internet blogs in 2009.

In Popular Culture

Mershon is the subject of the in-depth biography A Baby Boomer’s Last Stand: A True Story of a Novel Life from Truman to Trump, a series of books written by Jon Alexander Young that documents Mershon’s career and personal life from the 1950’s through 2019 as well as the cultural changes in America during those years.