Every year or so I learn about a new songwriter – someone who wrote a handful of songs I know and enjoy but that I didn’t know came from the same melodist. Last week my family was in the car listening to Alison Krauss sing Baby, Now That I’ve Found You; my daughter asked if someone else had had a hit with the song, and I sort of remembered a guy singing it on a PBS fund-raiser along with Build Me Up Buttercup.
A Wiki search revealed that Tony McCaulay wrote both those songs, as well as Last Night I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All, Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes (one of my bubblegum faves), and Don’t Give Us On Us Baby. Apparently he was well known in England (twice British Songwriter of the Year, and nine British Academy Awards), but I’d never heard of him.
In this thread please salute any songwriter you wish. Make a list of their great songs or well-known songs, or well-known songs that people might not realize the person composed. Maybe throw in a little background or bio info if you want to. It would be nice if the songwriter has a few hits rather than just some album cuts you really like, but hey, do what you like.
Presumably there are youngsters here who are largely unfamiliar with writers you consider classic, so feel free to salute, Barry Gibb, Burt Bacharach, Carol King and other high profile writers as well as the lesser known souls.
I’m going to salute an oldie, but goodie, one whose songs are as well known to people today as they were in the 1930s.
Harry Warren. Warren is probably the most overlooked songwriter in the history of American song. He was a peer to people like George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rogers, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin. Yet no one seems to remember him. When they made a smash Broadway show using his songs, they didn’t even give him credit on the posters.
Some Harry Warren songs include: Shuffle Off to Buffalo
I Only Have Eyes for You
Lullabye of Broadway
Jeepers Creepers
Chattanooga Choo Choo
You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby
That’s Amore
42nd Street
Nagasaki
And that’s just the start. He wrote primarily for movies as a staff composer at Warner Brothers, which meant that if you saw any classic Looney Tunes (like this), you probably heard his music at one point. Warner Brothers animation could use his music for free (since he worked for WB), and made the most of it.
Warren also wrote the music for most Busby Berkeley musicals.
Warren is so overlooked on the list of great popular composers that people listing overlooked composers feel obligated to mention him even when they’re picking someone else.
I’m partial towards Kesha, who writes or co-writes all her own songs, along with a handful of songs performed by other singers. “Till the World Ends” sung by Britney Spears is an example. Her own hits include “TiK ToK,” “Take It Off,” “We R Who We R,” and “Blow.”
These aren’t necessarily great songs… indeed, the cheese factor is high. But people are often astonished that all these huge hits were written by the same man: Mitch Murray.
Freddy & the Dreamers: “I’m Telling You Now”
Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods: “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero”
“Blame it on the Rain” - Milli Vanilli
“Don’t Turn Around” - Ace of Base
“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” - Aerosmith
“Rhythm of the Night” - DeBarge
“Reach” - Gloria Estafan
“Un-Break My Heart” - Toni Braxton
“When I See You Smile” - Bad English
Like A Virgin - Madonna
Alone - Heart
True Colours - Cyndi Lauper
I Touch Myself - diVinyls
Eternal Flame - The Bangles
I Drove All Night - Cyndi Lauper
I’ll Stand By You - Pretenders (written with Chrissy Hynde)
I can’t stop. Everyone knows Holland-Dozier-Holland, but how about Norman Whitfield?
Ain’t Too Proud to Beg
Ball of Confusion
Car Wash
The Girl’s Alright with Me
I Heard it Through the Grapevine
I’m Going Down
Papa Was a Rolling Stone
War
Too Busy Thinking About My Baby
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)
