Tag: music

Award-winning composer of “American Pie 2” makes album for his late mom, singer Eydie Gormé

Award-winning composer David Lawrence (Courtesy David Lawrence).

Film and television composer David Lawrence, who won an ASCAP Award for the score of “American Pie 2,” was destined for a career in music as the son of the Grammy-winning pop singer of the 60’s and 70s – Eydie Gormé – who sang solo, as well as with her husband, Steve Lawrence, on television, and in shows on Broadway, and in Las Vegas.

Lawrence also composed music for “High School Musical” (1 through 3), “The Cheetah Girls,” and most recently, Disney’s “Descendants 3,” which hit theaters in August. However, one of his life’s biggest regrets had been that he never had the opportunity to make an album with his beloved mother while she was alive.

Eydie Gormé performing with Los Panchos trio. (Courtesy David Lawrence)

At nearly 60, however, Lawrence has accomplished one of his proudest personal feats, producing the album, “Nosotros,” in honor of his late mother, whose own mother was from Spain. He calls it a tribute, including 10 of her most famous boleros, dropping soon after what would have been her 91st birthday.

“I would like to think that she wouldn’t be prouder of anyone in the world, and not be prouder of all that she accomplished at the same time,” says Lawrence.

Here is our conversation with the award-winning composer:

What was it like growing up with two parents who were singers?
I grew up in NYC and spent the first 11 years of my life there. Then we moved to LA, and since then LA has been my home for 47 years. My wife, and I, go back and forth to NY often. NY is really a second home. When both of your parents are celebrities it’s sort of like your life is speeding by…The difficulty for them was trying to manage a home with two kids, and being present. When we were really young, they took us everywhere. We took our homework with us. As we got older, we needed to stay in school more and not go on the road as much. There were many months out of the year that we wouldn’t see them. We had nannies, and aunts and uncles, come take care of us…It was kind of exciting being part of their incredible lives. It was a little depressing when we didn’t see them, and they were on the road. It was an amazing life but it also comes at a price where months out of the year you don’t get to see your parents. When you start getting raised by other members of your family…It’s a blessing to be exposed to certain things but a huge detriment to a normal growth cycle.

What were your parents like?
My parents were very level-headed people. They came from very poor families. They knew they had to work to make a living. Their parents were immigrants. That rubbed off on me. I was always aware of family comes first, and values. What is important and what’s not. It always made sense to me that the root of what their character was was decent. I’ve tried to live that way my whole life, and it’s worked for me.

What kind of music did you hear mostly at home?
I was exposed to a lot of music. It was constantly going on. There were composers and producers constantly in our home. Most of it was the popular standards of the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s – like George Gershwin. I always had on my own a love of music. I barely walked to the piano when I was two, and I never looked back. I was playing since I was four or five. I gradually dove into my personal tastes, Brazilian jazz, classical, and all forms of jazz.

How did you decide to become a composer? Do you remember the moment?
The truth is I was very good at math and science, and I wanted to be a cancer surgeon. I did all these internships around the country. I was getting ready to do my MCATs, and I was doing an internship at a cancer lab, and something changed where I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I needed to make a decision about my life. I decided I really wanted to pursue music and be back in NY. When I finally made the decision to go to The Manis College of Music, that’s when I decided to be a composer. I was about 22. I know what eases me the most is music. Although I learned music my entire life, and was writing music since I was six or seven, I knew I had to learn from the masters to learn how to conduct orchestras. Then I realized I wanted to do music film.

What do you think led to such success of the score of “American Pie 2”?The first “American Pie,” the orchestra had about 60 members, and for the second, there was a 105-member orchestra – with a massive brass and string section. It was a song-driven score – something elegant and contemporary with a large sound. There were so many pop songs that they wanted a very lush song. I did all the underscore [orchestral music you hear in the background]. Working with a big orchestra makes me really happy. You can feel the positive tension in the air, and they want to do well and do the music well.

How did you decide to make this album for your mom?
When my mom passed, I was interviewed by a station in Miami. They wanted to interview me about “High School Musical,” and talk to me about my process, and my upbringing with my mom. I was very sad because my mom had just died. I told my wife [Faye}, and co-producer – we’ve been married and working together for 30 years – I want to do something to honor my mom. Faye told me I should look at that album I wanted to do with my mom [before she died]. I started falling in love with her songs all over again. I modernized them with my love of Latin music and Latin jazz…I was never very interested in singing, but I felt like singing for the first time. I took my time between other jobs I’d been working on. All of a sudden, I had something to share with the world. I was sort of singing to my mom. I almost felt her over my shoulder and propelled by her spiritually. I wanted to let the world know this woman was a pioneer in introducing the bolero to the United States.

I went back to [Grammy-winning] Al Schmitt, the engineering mixer who recorded a great deal of my mom’s music in the 60’s. It came full circle that he mixed this album for me with Capitol Records. Janet Dacal – from “In the Heights” – sings all the background vocals…I tell my mom how much I love her at the end in Spanish – It’s 100 percent love.

Do you have a favorite song on the album /one that you’re particularly close to?
“Sabor A Mi” – it was my mom’s biggest hit. It is a very famous bolero. My mom redid it in such a way that it introduced an already famous song and made it an internationally famous song…She would just light up when she sang in Spanish, and it had a big impact on me watching her sing in Spanish. That’s why I was able to put my heart and soul into this.

What was the most important thing your mom ever taught you?
Don’t ever be afraid to show your soul to people. I think my mom was a no holds barred type of human being. She didn’t hold back. Anyone that really knew my mom well would say the same thing. She gave you everything she had to give on a daily basis.

September 18, 2019
Songwriter, producer Rudy Perez on his memoir, “The Latin Hit Maker”

Grammy-winning songwriter and music producer Rudy Perez (Courtesy Rudy Perez)

Rudy Perez arrived to Miami, Florida from Pinar del Rio, Cuba, when he was 10, with only his family and the clothes he had on. He was one of the estimated 300,000 refugees on the “Freedom Flights,” sponsored by the U.S. government from 1965 to 1973, which transported Cubans to the U.S. when Fidel Castro came to power on the island.

Little did Perez know then that he would live out his “American dream” in the U.S. Throughout his career, which now spans four decades, he has written more than 300 Top-10 songs, won five Grammy Awards, and even co-founded the Latin Grammys. He describes his life’s journey in his memoir, “The Latin Hit Maker,” which hits shelves this week.

Now 61, Perez remembers when he was 12 or 13, and his neighbors would tell him not to dream too big, because his future was working at the local gas station.

“I told the guys one day that I was going to produce that guy over there, and do this and that, and they laughed at me. They told me to get back to reality,” he says. “But that kind of stuff kind of gave me the drive. Even the bad things lead you to something good in life. A lot of people in the neighborhood saw that I was talented, but they were resigned to their lives and not fighting for their dreams. They saw me full of passion and wanting to go out and touch people’s hearts. They would tell me don’t even go there.”

Perez decided to follow the strong urging in his heart, above the naysayers, and that enabled him to become one of the most influential artists in Latin music history. Many, however, don’t recognize his name, because he works mainly behind the scenes as a songwriter and producer.

He’s produced hits such as, Luis Fonsi’s 2000 album, “Eterno,” composing seven of its 13 tracks. In 2007, he produced Beyonce’s Spanish album, “Irreemplazable,” which was nominated for a Grammy, and in 2013 he produced Natalie Cole’s “En Español” album. He was even responsible for discovering boxer Oscar de la Hoya’s singing talent, and inadvertently also his wife – which he details in his book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67bJcPztqt8
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred in 2012, Perez partnered with Burt Bacharach to write a song called “Live to See Another Day,” for which all proceeds are donated to the families of the victims.

Perez, who is happily married for 36 years, with five grown children, credits his closeness to God to his success in career and family. However, his life wasn’t always on a high note.

At the beginning of high school, he says the pressures from gangs were inescapable, and that he had no choice in joining one in order to stay alive. At 15, he was arrested and sent to a juvenile jail for six months.

He writes in his memoir, “While lying in that bunk behind bars night after night, I prayed and promised God that when I got out, I was going to let Him have my life and my future…I knew that I needed to go in the direction that He wanted, not the way I had taken on my own that landed me in jail.”

Perez kept his promise, and started listening to a persistent voice within him that always guided him towards music. He started taking guitar lessons from a local teacher, learned piano at his family’s church, and then joined a Miami-based band called Pearly Queen.

“I always, always prayed about everything,” he says. “I always asked, and I always did it with gratefulness in my heart and humility. Then I would say, ‘I need this,’ and God’s always blessed me.”

Although he’s always been talented musically, and is able to play multiple instruments such as, guitar, piano and drums, he says often he doesn’t know how he gets the ideas for songs.

“I almost feel like I’m being used by some sort of a force that funnels that information to me, because I didn’t live that story, but a lot of people take it to heart, says Perez. “We all have different talents. I’ve always taken it very serious. I want to work harder than I did yesterday.”

“You have to go follow your dreams,” he says is what he tells a lot of kids who ask him how to break into the music scene.

“I never asked myself that question,” says Perez, who always just took a leap of faith. “You have to believe in yourself and put effort in. Anybody can do what I’ve done. Anybody. If you know you have that ability in music, the only thing stopping you from being successful is yourself. No matter how many times they tell you, ‘You suck.’ Sooner or later, your dream will come true if you work hard.”

He remembers almost giving up himself, however.

“I found myself on Miami Beach after a major panic attack, and going behind a restaurant and kneeling on my knees and asking God when I was going to get a chance, and God spoke to me. He said, ‘Look, it’s up to you. How badly do you want it? If you give up, then you lost. If you continue, there is a big reward at the end.”

Since then, Perez learned anytime he got a rejection, it didn’t mean “no” forever, it was just “no” for right now. He just continued.

“Prepare yourself like an athlete,” says Perez, who is now working on producing a gospel album with Grammy-winning soul singer Sam Moore. “That’s the same demeanor anybody should have for their career.”

July 24, 2019
Flamenco singer Juana la del Pipa on her Gypsy culture

Juana la del Pipa (Photo/Christine Fu)

Juana la del Pipa, once known as the “Tina Turner” of Flamenco, for her strong legs and dynamic nature, is still turning on passionate performances at 68.

The deep-voiced Gypsy cantaora (singer) was born and still lives in, Jerez de la Frontera, located in the Andalusian region of southern Spain. The city of more than 200,000 is best known for its sherry (“Jerez” is the Arabic word for “sherry”), its fine horses, and its classic Flamenco music and dance tradition. And like most of Andalusia, Jerez de la Frontera has a large Arab and Gypsy influence.

In many classic Flamenco songs, Juana says it is customary that many lyrics are in Caló – their Gypsy dialect. However, her primary language is Spanish. When having a conversation, she ends almost every sentence with “cariño.” The Spanish expression for “my love.”

Juana seems to live every day driven by feelings. Flamenco, an extremely emotional musical genre, seems to run through her veins and make her heart beat. And when she sings, the words seem to flow from the depths of her gut, through her heart, and out of her mouth with a passionate force only capable from a deep-seated love, which has also known great pain and sadness.

“It came down through my genes,” says Juana in her in her native Spanish. “It is my life, and everything I feel, my love.”

From as far back as she can remember, Juana remembers Flamenco being a part of her life. After all, she lived her entire life in Barrio Santiago, the neighborhood coined as the birthplace of classic Flamenco, and nearly all of her family members are Flamenco musicians of some form. Her nephew is the world-renowned Antonio El Pipa.

“It’s important in Flamenco circles to know what town you’re from,” explains Juana, who is related to the Parrilla guitar-playing family and both the Zambo and Terremoto singing clans. “Barrio Santiago is where you can hear the best original Flamenco – the most Gypsy. We have a certain way of approaching the rhythm.”

It is common for families there to sing and dance together, as Flamenco expresses her people’s way of life, their philosophy, their struggles and pride in their culture.

Juana started singing among her family at age 11. Then at 15, she sang at the Mairena del Alcor Festival, which began her professional singing career.

“I felt marvelous the first time,” says Juana. “It was, I don’t know what I felt…I can’t explain it.”

She says she was mainly influenced by the talents of Manolo Caracol, Tio Borrico, and Terremoto, because their singing reflected her Gypsy culture, and they transmitted deep feelings.

But the most memorable moment of her career, she says, was at 15, when she sang a solea for her mother, while her mother danced for her.

“That was an incredible honor for me,” says Juana, explaining that it took place at the wedding of her niece.

Her mother played an integral role in her life. Juana inherited her name, “Juana la del Pipa,” from her mother, a world-famous Flamenco dancer. And her mother got the name, because when she was young, she sold “pipas,” the Spanish word for “sunflower seeds.”

“She was a great person,” reminisces Juana. “[Her character] was the first thing I learned about her. And she danced until she died.”

Today, when Juana’s not on tour, or performing at an event or family functions, she spends her days cleaning, cooking and taking care of her 19 grandchildren.

Professionally, she sings as soloist in many festivals around the world, accompanied by different guitarists. Most recently, she will be returning to sing in New York with world-renowned dancer José Maya on February 17 (her first time in NYC was at age 28, and has come many times since then), and then in San Francisco on February 19 and 23.

Like her mother, she says she hopes to continue performing classical Flamenco until her last breathe.

What advice about life would she give her 20-year-old self?

“The most important thing in life is your health. I take care of myself with food. I eat lots of fish,” says Juana. “Keep fighting in life, and don’t give up the struggle. Stay strong, my love.”

February 10, 2017
Jazz singer, Joan Cartwright, pursues doctorate at 68

Singer Joan Cartwright (Photo: Whitfield Moore & Son Photography)

Joan Cartwright has spent a good portion of her life traveling around the world singing jazz. Music had been her first love since the age of four when her mother put her in dance school, and her childhood home in Queens, NY was often filled with the sounds of jazz records being played by her father.

Now 68, Cartwright lives in West Palm Beach, Fla. where she remains a creative force using many different platforms – from writing books, blogs, and poetry. In March, she taught her first college course in speech communication at Southeastern University. She also heads Women in Jazz South Florida, a non-profit organization she founded to support the success of fellow women jazz musicians, and hosts a weekly radio talk show called “Music Woman.”

“Musicians are messengers,” says Cartwright, who calls herself “a communicator” above all else. “Music is about delivering messages. So I don’t see music as necessarily art, but as communication.”

Ever since she was in college, she was adamant about combining her love of music and communication. And now she is finishing up her doctorate in marketing at Northcentral University.

“My passion now is to get my doctorate,” says Cartwright. “I’m working on my dissertation research right now on women in jazz, music publishing and marketing. I have to interview 20 women composers and ask them about their marketing practices.”

She says she realized early on that musicians have very poor business skills, and she decided to pursue that topic, because she wants to help them – especially women, because the jazz music industry has long been dominated by men.

Cartwright herself remembers returning to New York to sing after getting her master’s degree in communication from La Salle University in Philadelphia.

“New York was a little tougher,” she says about the music industry in the early 80’s. “In Philly, there were five or seven of us jazz singers. In New York, about 30.”

She said she would hustle during the day doing odd jobs like word processing and working as a legal secretary, and at night she would sing.

“I used to be a street musician in Central Park for a while with my boyfriend who was a drummer,” remembers Cartwright. “Sometimes we’d make more money there than in the clubs.”

In the 90’s, she got her first contract which allowed her to tour Europe.

“I met a piano player who became my music arranger, and he produced my first CD in Catania, Italy, called ‘Feeling Good,’” recalls Cartwright.

“I toured Italy for four years with him, and I sang in Spain, Austria, Germany and England, Holland, France and Switzerland. I met some wonderful musicians and got to see a lot of famous musicians.”

When she moved to Florida in 1996, she had collected so many photographs of beautiful places and people all over the world that she decided to take them to the publisher of African American Travel magazine. She ended up writing for them for four years.

These days, she’s excited to be back recording music with her daughter, and fellow singer, Mimi Johnson, and also plans to keep teaching business courses once she finishes her doctorate in December.

“I keep doing what I’m doing…and then I’m going to publish “The Best Business Practices for Women Musicians,” because women have to use different strategies than men use,” says Cartwright. “One of my triumphs is that I’ve got a collection of at least six CDs of music with 63 songs from 45 women. So nobody can never say that women don’t write music.”

And what is her one piece of life advice that she wishes she could tell her younger self now?

“Love yourself first,” says Cartwright, adding that she is “blissfully single” after four marriages – she’s even written a poem about it. “Women tend to give away their hearts to men, and men generally take those hearts for granted.”

April 28, 2016
Horticulturist dedicates his life and career to PA’s Longwood Gardens

Colvin Randall at the Longwood Gardens Conservatory. (Photo/Kristina Puga)

“If I had to choose between going blind or going deaf – that’d be tough,” says Colvin Randall, 63.

Randall works at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania – located 46 miles west of Philadelphia. Longwood Gardens was the estate of the late American philanthropist, Pierre S. du Pont, and features more than 1,000 acres of gardens, woodlands, meadows and fountains, including a 4.5 acre conservatory. Randall has had the rare opportunity to work there his entire 37-year career in various capacities.

“My parents first brought me to Longwood Gardens in a carriage, but the first time I remember coming was in 1963 – for my 13th birthday,” says Randall. “It was very magical.”

Ten years later, when he was 23 and a recent graduate from the University of Virginia, he entered the Longwood Graduate Program in ornamental horticulture – a joint master’s program with the University of Delaware. Randall says his first job out of school was at Longwood Gardens, in 1977, pulling weeds, but he eventually became the public relations manager, the historian and information manager, and in 2008 was named the first P.S. du Pont Fellow in recognition of his varied contributions to the Gardens.

“What I do now is a lot of historical research, work on videos, and present history talks on Longwood,” says Randall.

The quiet and gentle historical gardener has written many materials on Longwood Gardens, including the book, “Longwood Gardens: 100+ Years of Garden Splendor,” in 2005.

“I’m also in charge of fountain and firework displays – two nights a week during summer and every night during Christmas,” says Randall. “I figured out how to use music with fountains. “I’m fascinated by fountains…I’m also very interested in music.”

The instruments at Longwood Gardens. (Photo/Kristina Puga)

He has maintained the famous Aeolian pipe organ and a 62-bell carillon since 1978, in addition to performing concerts for audiences of more than 160,000 for 15 years.

“We also have a grand piano made by Steinway in Queens, [New York],” says Randall excitedly, yet serenely.

He mentions his mother was a piano teacher, and perhaps that’s how his love for music developed. Randalls was an only child, and now lives on Longwood Gardens property alone. He never married or had children.

“I walk to work. I used to roller skate around the property at night, but I fell, so I stopped,” says Randall smiling. “In April/May the tulips come out…the spring brings bird song. Just today, I heard some robins chirping. The sounds in a garden setting are just fantastic.”

He says working full-time as a Fellow at Longwood Gardens is an honor, and he couldn’t imagine doing anything else – except maybe volunteer at The Metropolitan Opera if he lived in NYC.

“Find a job that pleases you,” recommends Randall. “If I had chosen to be a stockbroker to make lots of money, I’m sure I’d be retired by now, because I couldn’t take it. I enjoy very much what I do…because it is not repetitive, and in researching history, hopefully future generations will not have to do the research. The information will be there….I wish I could go on forever.”

May 7, 2014