1940s music
A01=Alyn Shipton
Adelaide Hall
American songrwriter
Author_Alyn Shipton
biography
Bobby Breen
Broadway
Carmen Miranda
Category=AVN
Category=AVP
Category=DNBF
composer
Cotton Club
Deanna Durbin
Dorothy Fields
Duke Ellington
early 20th century music
entertainers
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Ethel Waters
Fats Domino
Frank Sinatra
Hollywood composer
I'm in the Mood for Love
Jimmy McHugh
manager
music
music business
musicals
One the Sunny Side of the Street
Pat Boone
polio
pop music
Shirley Temple
songwriting
Tin Pan Alley
war effort
Product details
- ISBN 9780252034657
- Weight: 653g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 02 Sep 2009
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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This first biography of Jimmy McHugh captures a lively and significant contributor to American songwriting. Creator of favorite tunes such as "I'm in the Mood for Love" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street," McHugh was a one-man history of twentieth-century popular music: in his prolific composing career, he wrote songs for Duke Ellington, Shirley Temple, Bobby Breen, Carmen Miranda, Deanna Durbin, Frank Sinatra, Ethel Waters, Adelaide Hall, and scores of other entertainers, and his last works were turned into smash hits by Pat Boone and Fats Domino.
Following McHugh from humble Irish-American beginnings in Boston to eventual success in New York, Europe, and Los Angeles, Alyn Shipton deftly evokes the lively milieus of Tin Pan Alley, the Cotton Club, Broadway, and Hollywood. McHugh crossed the color line frequently, writing revues for both black and white entertainers, and he and his songwriting partner Dorothy Fields were also among the first to create Hollywood musical films. In the 1940s, he waged heroic fundraising efforts for the war effort and the crusade against polio. He continued to write songs for shows, movies, and revues and managed up-and-coming singers late in his life.
Alyn Shipton is a jazz critic for the Times of London and a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio. His books include A New History of Jazz and biographies of Bud Powell, Fats Waller, and Dizzy Gillespie.
