Jesse Cloninger and his Festival Hot 7 are fronted by Siri Vik, Clairdee and Byron Stripling in a tribute to two unusually gifted lyricist who gave late 1920s African American Harlem and Broadway revue its best songs: Dorothy Fields and Andy Razaf.
The daughter of famed Jewish-American vaudevillian and Broadway producer Lew Fields, Dorothy Fields got her New York start in 1927 writing songs with composer Jimmy McHugh for the Cotton Club revues and, over the next several years the duo wrote some of the best songs of the 20th century for 2 Broadway revues, Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1928 ("Digga-Digga-Doo", "Doin' The New Low-Down", "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", and "I Must Have That Man") and The International Revue of 1930 ("Exactly Like You" and "On The Sunny Side Of The Street").
Madagascan prince Andriamanantena Paul Razafinkarefo (a.k.a. Andy Razaf) got his start as a lyricist on Tin Pan Alley, having secured a job as an elevator in the district after quitting school at age 16. Working with a number of renowned composers throughout the 1920s and '30s including Fats Waller, Eubie Blake and James P. Johnson, Razaf penned the lyrics to a set of fine songs for 3 late-20s African American revues: Keep Shufflin' (1926, "Keep Shufflin'"), Hot Chocolates of 1928 ("Ain't Misbehavin'", "(What Did I Do To Be So) Black And Blue", "Sweet Savannah Sue"), and Blackbirds of 1930 ("Memories Of You"), along with more than a few stand-alone classics like "Honeysuckle Rose", "Keepin' Out Of Mischief Now", "S'posin'", "My Fate Is In Your Hands", and "Blue Turnin' Grey Over You".
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