Jimmy McHugh

James Francis McHugh was born on July 10, 1894, in Boston, Massachusetts, and died on May 23, 1969, in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 74. A composer, book writer, and Broadway performer of Irish descent, McHugh built a career spanning several decades and is credited with more than 500 songs, making him one of the most prolific American songwriters from the 1920s through the 1950s.

McHugh's professional life began in Boston, where he published roughly a dozen songs with local publishers and worked as a rehearsal pianist at the Boston Opera House. His earliest notable song was the World War I-era "Keep the Love-Light Burning in the Window Till the Boys Come Marching Home," which also initiated a decade-long collaboration with lyricist Jack Caddigan. He subsequently worked as a pianist and song plugger for Irving Berlin's publishing company before relocating to New York City in 1921 at the age of 26. There he joined the music publisher Jack Mills Inc. as a professional manager, publishing his first significant hit, "Emaline," and briefly partnering with Irving Mills under the name The Hotsy Totsy Boys to produce "Everything Is Hotsy Totsy Now."

McHugh collaborated with numerous lyricists throughout his career, among them Ted Koehler, Al Dubin, and Harold Adamson, whose partnership with McHugh proved to be his longest. Among the songs that emerged from the McHugh-Adamson collaboration were "Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer," which entered Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, and "It's a Most Unusual Day," composed for Jane Powell in the 1948 film A Date with Judy. His work with Dorothy Fields, a schoolteacher and poet, is widely regarded as his most creatively productive pairing. Having already written material for Harlem's Cotton Club revues, McHugh and Fields scored the all-black Broadway musical Blackbirds of 1928, starring Adelaide Hall and Bill Bojangles Robinson. That production introduced "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," "Diga Diga Doo," and "I Must Have That Man." The two continued their collaboration with the 1930 International Revue, which featured "On the Sunny Side of the Street" and "Exactly Like You," and with The Vanderbilt Revue, for which they wrote "Blue Again." Fields and McHugh parted ways in 1935, by which point they had written more than 30 songs for film together, including "I'm in the Mood for Love" and "I Feel a Song Comin' On" from Every Night at Eight, as well as title songs for Cuban Love Song, Dinner at Eight, and Hooray for Love.

McHugh's Broadway credits span two decades. He contributed to Blackbirds of 1928 and Hello, Daddy in 1928, both with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. The International Revue followed in 1930, also with Fields. Later stage work included The Streets of Paris in 1939 with lyrics by Al Dubin, Keep Off the Grass in 1940 with lyrics by Dubin and Howard Dietz, and As the Girls Go in 1948 with lyrics by Harold Adamson. His Broadway appearances also encompassed the play Singin' the Blues and the revue The International. A medley of his songs, including "I Can't Give You Anything but Love," "I'm Shooting High," "Roll Your Blues Away," and "On the Sunny Side of the Street," was incorporated into the 1979 Broadway production Sugar Babies, starring Ann Miller and Mickey Rooney.

Beyond composing, McHugh served as manager for actress Mamie Van Doren during the early phase of her career and was instrumental in securing her contract with Universal in 1953. His songs were recorded by a wide range of artists, including Chet Baker, Bing Crosby, Marlene Dietrich, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, and Dinah Washington, among many others. McHugh was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, the year following his death.