Dorothy Fields was best known as a lyricist, one of the few women who played a central role in the great period of American popular song from 1920 to 1960. Fields first became prominent writing the lyrics for Cotton Club shows in Harlem in the late 1920s and 1930s, and her most successful collaboration was with the great songwriter Jerome Kern. Her role as a music creator in a world dominated by men makes a fascinating and unusual story- with particular interest for woman today. Dorothy Fields first became prominent writing the lyrics for Cotton Club shows in Harlem in the late 1920s and 1930s, which included such songs as "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby," and "On the Sunny Side of the Street." Her most successful collaboration was with the great songwriter Jerome Kern on three 1930s films, including the incomparable Swing Time with Rogers and Astaire, which produced such classic songs as "The Way You Look Tonight" and "A Fine Romance." Fields also collaborated with such prominent composers as Sigmund Romberg, Fritz Kreisler, Harold Arlen, Burton Lane, Arthur Schwartz, and Cy Coleman. Her lyrics were colloquial and urbane, sometimes slangy and sometimes sensuous. Her role as a music creator in a world dominated by men makes a fascinating and unusual story- with particular interest for woman today. Greenspan further discusses Fields in relation to other women songwriters and lyricists of the time.
Readership: Scholars and students of twentieth-century music
Charlotte Greenspan, Associate Professor of Music, Cornell University
1: The World of Her Father 2: The World of Her Family 3: The Teen Years 4: Marriage and Start of Career 5: What's Black and White and Heard All Over 6: Give My Refrains to Broadway 7: Hello to Hollywood 8: Change Partners and Write 9: The Best of Hollywood 10: End of an Era 11: Hollywood Through a Broadway Lense 12: Librettos Instead of Lyrics 13: Up In Central Park 14: Annie Get Your Gun 15: More Movies 16: The American Colonies and Brooklyn 17: Something Old, Something New 18: Sweet Charity 19: It's Where you Finish Appendix 1: List of Songs Appendix 2: List of Theatre Works and Movies / Endnotes
