1.
Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
2.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
3.
Willie Nelson
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Willie Hugh Nelson is an American musician, singer, songwriter, author, poet, actor, and activist. He was one of the figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has involved in activism for the use of biofuels. Born during the Great Depression, and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven, during high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Polka as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from school in 1950, he joined the Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music, during this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in Honky-tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he wrote Family Bible, in 1958, he moved to Houston, Texas after signing a contract with D Records. He sang at the Esquire Ballroom weekly and he worked as a disk jockey, during that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including Funny How Time Slips Away, Hello Walls, Pretty Paper, and Crazy. In 1960 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and later signed a contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Prices band as a bassist. In 1962, he recorded his first album. And Then I Wrote, due to this success, Nelson signed in 1964 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry the following year. After mid-chart hits in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Nelson retired in 1972 and moved to Austin, the ongoing music scene of Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing frequently at the Armadillo World Headquarters. In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson turned to country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the acclaimed album. The same year, he recorded another outlaw country album, Wanted, the Outlaws, along with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. In 1990, Nelsons assets were seized by the Internal Revenue Service, the difficulty of paying his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments he had made during the 1980s. In 1992, Nelson released The IRS Tapes, Wholl Buy My Memories, the profits of the double album—destined to the IRS—and the auction of Nelsons assets cleared his debt. During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, reviews ranged from positive to mixed. He explored genres such as reggae, blues, jazz, Nelson made his first movie appearance in the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and on television
4.
Diana Ross
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Diane Ernestine Earle Ross, known professionally as Diana Ross, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and record producer. As part of the Supremes, her success made it possible for future African-American R&B, Dianas high-pitched and bright lyric-soprano voice has been enjoyed and still is by fans around the world. The group released a record-setting twelve number-one hit singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, including the hits Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love, Come See About Me, Stop. In the Name of Love, You Cant Hurry Love, You Keep Me Hangin On, Love Child and she later released the album Touch Me in the Morning in 1973, its title track reached number 1, as her second solo hit. That same year, her album Lady Sings The Blues, which was the soundtrack of her film based on the life of jazz singer Billie Holiday. By 1975, the Mahogany soundtrack included her third number-one hit and her eponymous 1976 album included her fourth number-one hit, Love Hangover. In 1979, Ross released the album The Boss and her 1980 semi-eponymous album Diana reached number 2 on the US Billboard albums chart, and spawned the number-one hit Upside Down, and the international hit Im Coming Out. After leaving Motown, Ross achieved her sixth and final US number-one hit, Ross has also ventured into acting, with a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award-nominated performance for her performance in the film Lady Sings the Blues. She also starred in two films, Mahogany and The Wiz, later acting in the television films Out of Darkness, for which she also was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Ross was named the Female Entertainer of the Century by Billboard magazine, Ross has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, when her releases with the Supremes and as a solo artist are tallied. In 1988, Ross was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as member of the Supremes, alongside Mary Wilson and she was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. She is a 12-time Grammy nominee, never earning a competitive honor, in December 2016, Billboard magazine named her the 50th most successful dance artist of all time. Diane Ross was born at Hutzel Womens Hospital in Detroit on March 26,1944 and she was the second eldest child of Ernestine, a schoolteacher, and Fred Ross, Sr. a former Army soldier. Much has been made of whether her first name ends in an a or an e, according to Ross, her mother actually named her Diane but a clerical error resulted in her name being recorded as Diana on her birth certificate. She was listed as Diane during the first Supremes records, she introduced herself as Diane until early in the groups heyday and her friends and family still call her Diane. Rosss grandfather John E. Ross, a native of Gloucester County, Virginia, was born to Washington Ross, Virginia Baytops mother Francis Frankey Baytop was a former slave who had become a midwife after the Civil War. Ross and her family lived at Belmont Road in the North End section of Detroit, near Highland Park, MI. When Ross was seven, her mother contracted tuberculosis, causing her to seriously ill
5.
The Beach Boys
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The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California in 1961. The groups original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, distinguished by their vocal harmonies and early surf songs, they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era. The Beach Boys began as a band managed by the Wilsons father Murry. Emerging at the vanguard of the California Sound, they performed material that reflected a southern California youth culture of surfing, cars. After 1964, they abandoned the surfing aesthetic for more personal lyrics, in 1966, the Pet Sounds album and Good Vibrations single vaulted the group to the top level of rock innovators and established the band as symbols of the nascent counterculture era. Following Smiles dissolution, Brian gradually ceded production and songwriting duties to the rest of the band, reducing his input because of mental health and substance abuse issues. The continued success of their greatest hits albums during the mid 1970s precipitated the transition into an oldies act. Since the 1980s, much-publicized legal wrangling over royalties, songwriting credits, Dennis drowned in 1983 and Carl died of lung cancer in 1998. After Carls death, many live configurations of the band fronted by Mike Love, Even though Wilson and Jardine have not performed with Love and Johnstons band since their one-off 2012 reunion tour, they remain a part of the Beach Boys corporation, Brother Records Inc. The Beach Boys are one of the most critically acclaimed, commercially successful, the group had over eighty songs chart worldwide, thirty-six of them US Top 40 hits, four reaching number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. They received their only Grammy Award for The Smile Sessions, the core quintet of the three Wilsons, Love and Jardine were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. At the time of his birthday on June 20,1958, Brian Wilson shared a bedroom with his brothers, Dennis and Carl – aged thirteen and eleven. He had watched his father, Murry Wilson, play piano, after dissecting songs such as Ivory Tower and Good News, Brian would teach family members how to sing the background harmonies. For his birthday that year, Brian received a tape recorder. He learned how to overdub, using his vocals and those of Carl, Brian played piano with Carl and David Marks, an eleven-year-old longtime neighbor, playing guitars they had each received as Christmas presents. Soon Brian and Carl were avidly listening to Johnny Otis KFOX radio show, inspired by the simple structure and vocals of the rhythm and blues songs he heard, Brian changed his piano-playing style and started writing songs. His enthusiasm interfered with his studies at school. Family gatherings brought the Wilsons in contact with cousin Mike Love, Brian taught Loves sister Maureen and a friend harmonies
6.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
7.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
8.
Quincy Jones
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His career spans six decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, and 28 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991. He is best known for the role of himself in Yakety Yak, Take it Back, Trash Talk, Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor, before moving on to work prolifically in pop music and film scores. In 1971, Jones was the first African American to be named as the director and conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. In 1995, he was the first African American to receive the Academys Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and he is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the African American who has been nominated for the most Oscars, each has received seven nominations. In 2013, Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the winner, alongside Lou Adler, among his awards, Jones was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century. Jones was born in 1933, on the South Side of Chicago, to Sarah Frances and Quincy Delight Jones and his father was a semi-professional baseball player and carpenter from Kentucky, his paternal grandmother was an ex-slave in Louisville. They had gone to Chicago as part of the Great Migration out of the South, Sarah was a bank officer and apartment complex manager. Jones later discovered that his paternal grandfather Caesar Jones was the son of a white American man of Welsh descent, Quincy had a younger brother, Lloyd, later an engineer for the Seattle station, KOMO-TV, Lloyd died in 1998. Quincy was introduced to music by his mother, who sang religious songs. When Jones was five or six, Jackson played stride piano next door, Lucy Jackson recalled that after he heard her that one day, she could not get him off her piano if she tried. When the boys were young, their mother suffered from a breakdown and was committed to a mental institution. His father obtained a divorce and remarried, Joness stepmother, Elvera, had three children of her own, Waymond, who became a friend of the young Quincy, Theresa, and Katherine. In 1943, when Jones was ten, his family moved to Bremerton, Washington, after the war, the Jones family moved to Seattle, the major regional city, where Jones attended Garfield High School near his home. He had discovered music when he was 12 and became deeply involved in high school. Classmates included Charles Taylor, who played saxophone and whose mother, the youths began playing with a band. At the age of 14, they were playing with a National Reserve band, Jones has said he got much more experience with music growing up in a smaller city, otherwise, he would have faced too much competition. At the age of 14, Jones introduced himself to a 16-year-old musician from Florida, Ray Charles, Jones cites Ray Charles as an early inspiration for his own music career. He noted that Charles overcame a disability to achieve his musical goals and he has credited his fathers sturdy work ethic with giving him the means to proceed, and his loving strength with holding the family together
9.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
10.
Tony Renis
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Tony Renis, stage name of Elio Cesari, is an Italian singer, composer, songwriter, music producer and film actor. Born in Milan, he debuted in the mid-1950s, paired with Adriano Celentano, performing an impression of Dean Martin, in 1958, he signed to the label Combo Record as a singer and started releasing covers of Italian and American songs. In 1961, Renis debuted at the Sanremo Music Festival with the song Pozzanghere, in 1962, Renis gained international success with the song Quando, quando, quando, written with Alberto Testa and performed at the Sanremo Music Festival. One year later, he won the same Festival with the song Una per tutte, in 1972, he composed the song Grande grande grande with Alberto Testa, successfully performed by Mina, and later by Shirley Bassey under the English translation title Never Never Never. In 1974, he won the Nastro dArgento for the Best Score for the score of Brothers Blue, in the 1980s, Tony Renis mainly worked as music producer and, in 1981, he launched the career of Nikka Costa. In 1999, Renis received a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Oscar for the song The Prayer, performed by Céline Dion and Andrea Bocelli, in 2005, he won a David di Donatello for the song Merry Christmas in Love from the film Christmas in Love. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song at the 63rd Golden Globe Awards. He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2016, directed by Duccio Tessari Totò Ye Ye, directed by Daniele DAnza Tony Renis at the Internet Movie Database
11.
When I Fall in Love
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When I Fall in Love is a popular song, written by Victor Young and Edward Heyman. It was introduced in the film One Minute to Zero, jeri Southern sang on the first recording released in April 1952 with the songs composer, Victor Young, handling the arranging and conducting duties. The song has become a standard, with artists recording it. Days recording was made on June 5,1952 and it was released by Columbia Records as catalog number 39786 and issued with the flip side Take Me in Your Arms. The song reached number 20 on the Billboard chart, a version was recorded by Nat King Cole on December 28,1956. It was issued by Capitol Records on an LP album entitled Love Is the Thing, the song was also used in the movie called Istanbul. Cole played in the movie and sang the song, the single was released in the UK in 1957, and reached number 2 on the UK singles chart. This recording was re-released in 1987 and reached number 4 and this version won two awards at the 39th Grammy Awards, Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and Best Instrumental Arrangement with Accompanying Vocal for arrangers Alan Broadbent and David Foster. Johnny Mathis recorded it on his 1959 album Open Fire, Two Guitars, sandra Dee covered the song in 1960. Blues-lounge singer Etta Jones released a version on the song in 1960, a version by The Lettermen was issued as a single in 1961 and became quite popular, spending 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 7, while reaching No.1 on the Billboards Easy Listening chart, veteran drummer Earl Palmer played on this version. Big-band leader Guy Lombardo recorded the song and his version was released in 1962, and appears on his Decca LP By Special Request. Teen idol/TV star Johnny Crawford recorded the song and his version was released in 1963. Donny Osmond covered the song in 1973 for his album, A Time for Us and it spent 13 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 55, while reaching No.4 on the UK Singles Chart, the Carpenters recorded this song for their last television special, Music, Music, Music. Richard Carpenter officially released it on their album Lovelines in 1989, the song appeared on their second compilation, Interpretations, in 1994. Carpenter also released a VHS tape called Interpretations, which held the When I Fall in Love music video, in 1984, Linda Ronstadt released the song as the lead track on her album Lush Life and as a single. Ronstadts version reached No.24 on Billboards Adult Contemporary chart, Little Willie Littlefield recorded a version for his 1990 album Singalong with Little Willie Littlefield
12.
David Foster
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David Walter Foster, OC, OBC, is a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, songwriter, and arranger. Foster has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations and he is the chairman of Verve Records. Foster was born in Victoria, British Columbia, the son of Maurice Foster, a maintenance yard superintendent, and Eleanor May Foster, in 1963, at the age of 13, he enrolled in the University of Washington music program. In 1966, he joined a band for Chuck Berry. In his teens, he moved to England with the Victoria rock band, the Strangers, in 1974, he moved to Los Angeles with his band Skylark. Foster was a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark, discovered by Eirik Wangberg, the bands song, Wildflower, was a top ten hit in 1973. In 1975, he played on George Harrisons album Extra Texture and he followed that up by playing the Fender Rhodes and clavinet on Harrisons album Thirty Three & 1/3 a year later. In 1976 Foster joined Guthrie Thomas on Thomas 2nd Capitol Records album, Lies and Alibis, with Ringo Starr and a host of many other famed performers. Foster was a contributor to the 1979 Earth, Wind and Fire album I Am. The most noteworthy being the song After the Love Has Gone for which Foster, Foster worked as an album producer on albums for The Tubes, 1981s The Completion Backward Principle, and 1983s Outside Inside. Foster cowrote such songs as Talk to Ya Later, the Top 40 hit Dont Want to Wait Anymore, and these four songs were cowritten with the band’s lead vocalist Peter Cetera. Foster also helped Cetera cowrite his US No.1 solo hit Glory of Love in 1986, Foster cowrote Kenny Logginss songs Forever, from the 1985 album Vox Humana, and Heart to Heart, from the 1982 album High Adventure. In 1985, Rolling Stone magazine named Foster the master of and that year, Foster composed the score for the film St. Elmos Fire, including the instrumental Love Theme from St. Elmos Fire, which hit No.15 on the US pop charts. Another song from the film, St. Elmos Fire, recorded by John Parr, in the following years, Foster continued turning out occasional film scores, including for the Michael J. Foster composed Winter Games, the theme song for 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. Winter Games is also the soundtrack for fountain shows at the Bellagio resort in Las Vegas, in 1995, Foster signed a deal with Warner Brothers that enabled him to set up his own boutique label,143 Records, as a joint venture with Warner. Foster gave the responsibility for running the label to then manager Brian Avnet, One of the labels first signings was a then-little known Irish folk-rock band, The Corrs, for whom he produced their debut album. Foster, along with Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, composed The Power of the Dream, Foster produced major-label debut albums for Josh Groban, Michael Bublé, Renee Olstead, and Charice, which were released under his 143 Records. Foster, with his then-wife Thompson, composed Light the Fire Within, in 2003, Foster won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics for The Concert for World Childrens Day
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