As the only major woman lyricist of the golden age of American popular song and musical theater, Dorothy Fields stood virtually alone among men for almost fifty years after she began her career in the 1920s, writing lyrics for Harlem's Cotton Club revues. Teamed with more than a dozen of the most prominent composers of popular music--primarily, Jimmy McHugh, Jerome Kern, and Cy Coleman--she was responsible for hit songs that have become part of the fabric of American culture. Yet, the fame of Fields's signature songs, such as "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" (1928), "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (1930), and "Big Spender" (1966), far surpasses her personal renown. In her lifetime she often encountered people who would suddenly exclaim in realization, "You wrote that""--a situation about which, publicly anyway, she used to joke.

The trademark of a Fields lyric is her use of slang and...