"She was THE woman songwriter. The marvelous thing about the way Dorothy wrote is that her lyrics were inventive without being tricky. She could do it--but she never compromised her direct, fresh manner of expressing a thought."
- Betty Comden, foreword "On the Sunny Side of the Street: The Life and Lyrics of Dorothy Fields"
In the course of a remarkably long career, with successes from the 1920s all the way into the 1970s, Dorothy Fields wrote some of the most enduring lyrics of the golden age of the American popular song.
She was born into a show business family. Her father was Lew Fields, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, who found fame as one half of Weber and Fields vaudeville act, one of the most popular comedy teams at the end of the Nineteenth. After the breakup of Weber and Fields, Lew Fields went on to become one of the most important theater producers of his day. Between 1904 and 1916, he produced some 40 Broadway shows, and was called "The King of Musical Comedy". So when Dorothy Fields was born on July 15, 1905 in Allenhurst, New Jersey, one would think she had the ideal connections for the career she dreamed of as an actress. However, her father disapproved of acting and did everything he could to make that career impossible for her.
She grew up in New York City and after graduating from high school she wrote poetry and taught drama for a while. Soon, however, she met composer Jimmy McHugh and unable to become a performer, she found her talent as a lyricist. They began writing for revues at Harlem's Cotton Club, and soon moved on to Broadway. In 1928 they scored an enormous hit with "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby", written for Blackbirds of 1928.
In 1930 came another classic song, "On the Sunny Side of the Street", written for the International Revue. They began writing songs…
Discography Highlights
WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT, THE
Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern
Aldi Music Co/Universal Polygram International Publishing, Inc.
I’M IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh
Famous Music Corp.
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