- Arthur Fields
Arthur Fields (
August 6 ,1888 –March 29 ,1953 ) was aUnited States singer (baritone ) and songwriter.He was born Abe Finkelstein in
Pennsylvania inPhiladelphia , but grew up mainly inUtica, New York . He became a professional singer as a youngster. Around 1908 he toured withGuy Brother 'sMinstrel Show , and helped form avaudeville act "Weston, Fields and Carroll".His first hit as a songwriter was "On The Mississippi" (1912) which he wrote the music for with
Harry Carroll andBallard MacDonald supplied the lyrics. In 1914 he wrote the lyrics to "Aba Daba Honeymoon", which was revived for the 1950 M.G.M. film "Two Weeks With Love " and thus got a renewed popularity which brought Fields large royalty incomes during his last two years.From 1914 onwards he recorded with many bands and for many labels and had a varied career in the recording industry. His 1919 recordings with bandleader
Ford Dabney may be the very first recordings of a white singer backed by a black band. For a period Fields also formed a vocal trio with brothers Jack andIrving Kaufman , billing themselves as "The Three Kaufields". Fields also often appeared on records underpseudonym s, for example as "Mr X." onGrey Gull Records and related labels. His last records were made in the early 1940s.Among Field's most prolific partnerships was the one with band leader and pianist Fred Hall, with whom Fields made plenty of records and co-wrote several songs, often with comic titles like "The Shoes We Have Left Are All Right" and "I Can't Sleep In The Movies Anymore". Hall and Fields also broadcasted together as
Rex Cole's Mountaineers .Retiring to
Florida in 1946 he also worked in radio onWKAT Miami . He suffered a stroke early in 1953 and was killed in a fire at Littlefield Convalescent Home a little later the same year.External links
*imdb name | id=1023221 | name=Arthur Fields
* [http://www.gracyk.com/fields.shtml Arthur Fields online biography by Tim Gracyk]
* [http://www.phonostalgia.com/death/fields.html Arthur Fields's death certificate]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/ArthurFieldswiththePeerlessQuartet Song "Any Old Place the Gang" from "archive.org"]
* [http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=arthur+fields&queryType=%40attr+1%3D1 Arthur Fields cylinder recordings] , from theCylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara Library.
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