Search Tips: 1) Click "Find on This Page" button to activate page search box. 2) When searching for a name (e.g. a songwriter), enter last name only. 3) When searching for a song title on the catalog page, omit an initial "The" or "A". 4) more search tips.
Cafe Songbook
Music-Video Cabinet:
Jimmy McHugh (This section is currently in preparation)
Capitol Sings Jimmy McHugh /
"I Feel a Song Coming On"
"Jimmy McHugh is one of the lesser-known songwriters to be included in the Capitol Sings series of compilations, but several of his songs, including "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," "On the Sunny Side of the Street," and "I'm in the Mood for Love," are standards, and many more, written during a 40-year career mostly devoted to Broadway and Hollywood, are familiar. McHugh's most successful work was written with lyricist Dorothy Fields in the late '20s and early '30s, and much of his catalog predates the founding of Capitol Records in 1942. So, necessarily, most of the selections here are 1950s recreations of songs written in previous decades. (One exception: Nat "King" Cole's popular recording of "Too Young to Go Steady," drawn from McHugh's unsuccessful attempt to return to Broadway with Strip for Action in 1956.) That means lots of vibrant studio orchestra music conducted by Nelson Riddle and Billy May, among others, and lots of bravura singing by people like Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, Dinah Washington, and Sarah Vaughan. But there are also some performances that provide a change of pace, such as Julie London's smoky "I'm in the Mood for Love," accompanied only by bass and guitar, and Chet Baker's jazzy reading of "Let's Get Lost." The result is more a grab bag than a definitive McHugh compilation, but there are some excellent individual interpretations." ~ William Ruhlmann/CD Universe.
New York Public Library (catalog entries for books, personal papers, recordings, scores, etc.)
Discogs.com (singles, LPs and CD's including songs by this songwriter)
Time.com: March 10, 1930 review of the Lew Leslie's International Revue from which came the McHugh-Fields songs "Exactly like You" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street."
Max Wilk, They're Playing Our Song: Conversations with America's Classic Songwriters (originally published 1973 as They're Playing Our Song: From Jerome Kern to Stephen Sondheim—The Stories behind the Words and Music of Two Generations), New York and Stratford, CT: Easton Studio Press, 2008 (multiple pages on Fields-McHugh collaboration in interview with Dorothy Fields).
David Ewen. American Songwriters, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at abebooks.com (entry, pp. 275-279).
Submit comments on songs, songwriters, performers, etc.
Feel free to suggest an addition or correction.
Please read our Comments Guidelines before making a submission. (Posting of comments is subject to the guidelines.
Not all comments will be posted.)
Credits for Videomakers of videos used on this page:
No videos currently appear on this page.
Borrowed material (text): The sources of all quoted and paraphrased text are cited. Such content is used under the rules of fair use to further the educational objectives of CafeSongbook.com. CafeSongbook.com makes no claims to rights of any kind in this content or the sources from which it comes.
Borrowed material (images): Images of CD, DVD, book and similar product covers are used courtesy of either Amazon.com or iTunes/LinkShare with which CafeSongbook.com maintains an affiliate status. All such images are linked to the source from which they came (i.e. either iTunes/LinkShare or Amazon.com).
Any other images that appear on CafeSongbook.com pages are either in the public domain or appear through the specific permission of their owners. Such permission will be acknowledged in this space on the page where the image is used.
For further information on Cafe Songbook policies with regard to the above matters, see our "About Cafe Songbook" page (link at top and bottom of every page).
Cafe Songbook
Master List of Great American Songbook Songwriters
Names of songwriters who have written at least one song included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook are listed below.
Names of songwriters with two or more song credits in the catalog (with rare exceptions) are linked to their own Cafe Songbook pages, e.g. Fields, Dorothy.
Names of songwriters with only one song credit in the catalog are linked to the Cafe Songbook page for that song, on which may be found information about the songwriter or a link to an information source for him or her.
Please note: Cafe Songbook pages for songwriters are currently in various stages of development.
(publications by and about, recordings, videos, sheet music, etc.)
, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at