Download Flash Player Here »
Sunny Side Of the Street, songs of Jimmy McHugh
Jimmy McWho? Oh, you do know him from such songs as 'I Can't Give You Anything But Love', 'Sunny Side Of the Street', 'You're A Sweetheart" and so many more. A dynamic, larger than life kind of guy, Jimmy McHugh always found a way to present his songs to the world and collaborated with the finest lyricists of the day; Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Frank Loesser, Jerome Kern, Ted Koehler and many others. McHugh's songs, written for club reviews in the early years and the Broadway hit 'Blackbirds of 1928' eventually brought him a long a prosperous fifteen year Hollywood collaboration with Harold Adamson.
This legacy of wonderful songs, overlooked until 'Sugar Babies' in 1988 comes once again to the fore in 'Sunny Side Of the Street'. Well known and beloved, these songs are heard again in a joyous celebration of an American master's music.
Reviews and Quotes
"This wonderful singer thrills me when I hear her." Tony Bennett
"Ms. Whitfield combines ruthless insight, intense emotion and highly evolved jazz phrasing into a musical evening that goes beyond mere entertainment to flirt with profundity."
New York Times
"Wesla Whitfield has brought back a lost art by making old songs sound new every time she sings them. Perched on stools in rooms still dark but no longer smoky, Whitfield performs songs as conversations with her husband, arranger-pianist Mike Greensill; with the other musicians; with the composers and lyricists; with the emotion as a leaf in the wind, and sweet as sap. Whitfield sings it like it is; she has known despair
and hope, and she's come out a cockeyed optimist. As she sings "When You Wish Upon A Star," you
believe your dreams will come true because she does, and hers did."
Boston Globe
"For Whitfield, it's always the words, delivered as if she's just chosen them herself.
Is she the best singer -- jazz or whatever-around today? No disagreement here."
Village Voice
"Wesla Whitfield's back in town: the best cabaret singer in the world. She knows how to point up every lewd nuance in a Cole Porter lyric. But she can also swing as hard as Nat Cole, and her way with a torch song is as devastatingly unsentimental as Frank Sinatra at his late-50s best."
New York Daily News
"A lovely instrument, a sure technique, a novel way with phrase, a deep understanding of lyrics - these elements rarely come together in the work of a single vocalist. Where other singers choose histrionics, Whitfield consistently opts for understatement. Where lesses vocalist emphasize one register of their instrument over another, Whitfield produces lean, even, utterly controlled vocal lines top to bottom."
Chicago Tribune
"Wesla Whitfield is an indoor landmark. Every great city deserves a signature chanteuse, and
San Francisco is fortunate to have Whitfield as its resident voice. Much like the city itself,
Whitfield keeps an amused and affectionate eye on the glories of the past, while living entirely
in the present."
San Francisco Chronicle
"One of the finest masters of popular singing, Whitfield should be scrutinized by anyone attempting to learn the subtleties of the vocal arts, and treasured by listeners who value beautiful music, beautifully done. Her voice is pure yet as malleable as a jazz horn, and she uses it with meticulous attention to detail. The result is superb jazz singing. Whitfield is, in short, a singer so good that she doesn't have to shout, she doesn't have to overdramatize, and she doesn't have to be anything other than what she is
-- a nonpareil musical artist."
The Los Angeles Times
"Wesla Whitfield renders song classics with such imagination that her interpretations can't be confused with anyone else's. Her technique is distinctive, too: she spins out the longest phrases in the business, sometimes saving intense surges for the very end, where others would be completely out of breath. Even modest shadings of color or mood pack a wallop."
The New Yorker
"My idea of the best of all possible musical experiences might well be Wesla Whitfield...her use of dynamics, often with a dramatic, personal flair...convert virtually every one of her renditions into a distinctive, personalized classic."
San Franscisco Examiner
Whitfield is a singer who's got it all: clarion pitch, delicious tone, textbook enunciation,
priceless timing, quick wit, and a lot more."
Jazziz Magazine
Song Titles
Let's Get Lost
Don't Blame Me
I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me
I Can't Give You Anything But Love
On the Sunny Side of the Street
Too Young To Go Steady
I Just Found Out About Love
It's Me, Remember
You're A Sweetheart
They Really Don't Know You
I've Got My Fingers Crossed
Hooray For Love
Where Are You
You're The One For Me
Warm And Willing
I'm Shooting High
Related Artists
Wesla Whitfield
Wesla Whitfield inhabits that indeterminate zone where jazz and cabaret meet. Trained in classical music and opera, Whitfield has toiled for more tha...