Theme Song Writer Norman Gimbel ("Angie", "Happy Days","Laverne & Shirley") 1927-2018

[Zoneboy]

Link

I just heard that the lyricist Norman Gimbel has died. He was 91. He wrote the lyrics to so many songs that you don't know you know by heart. The words just flew into your head and stayed there.

He was probably best known for the english lyrics he wrote to bossa nova tunes, helping to make that new sound accessible to american AM radio audiences in the 1960s. "The Girl From Ipanema," "Meditation," "How Insensitive," "Song Of The Sabia" and "So Nice" are Jobim compositions with some of Norman's most famous as well as loveliest lyrics. He took Lori Lieberman's thoughts and ideas on how she felt seeing Don Mclean and turned that into the classic lyric for "Killing Me Softly With His Song." He put English words to Legrand’s score to Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and gave us “I Will Wait For You” and “Watch What Happens.” And of course his words to "Sway," have been heard so many places and in so many ways over the last 65 years.

The passing last week of Penny Marshall brought the Laverne & Shirley theme back to our consciousness. Norman wrote those lyrics as well as those to the themes to the television shows Happy Days, Angie, Wonder Woman and many, many others with his songwriting partner of that time composer Charles Fox.

He was definitely a Hollywood lyricist, writing not only TV themes but many memorable movie songs as well, from "Ready To Take A Chance Again" (Fox) from Foul Play to the appropriately scene-setting words to the Where's Poppa? theme (Jack Elliott). His straight to the gut lyric for "It Goes Like It Goes" (David Shire) from Norma Rae earned him an Oscar. Its plaintive and truthful lyrics have made it one that every singer knows. He also wrote the lyrics to "The Phantom Tollbooth," an animated film that has developed a cult following and the scores to two Broadway shows, "Whoop Up!" and "Conquering Hero," both with music by Moose Charlap, which hastened his move west.

I became aware of Norman Gimbel in the mid aughts when I discovered his songbook while aimlessly poking around Colony Records (Remember doing that? Of course you do.) on the first floor of the Brill Building where Norman had written lyrics back in the '50s. I'd been looking for this song that Tony Bennett recorded in the '60s that just had the sweetest lyrics. And there it was in Norman's songbook! The song was "It Was Me" with a gorgeous melody by Gilbert Becaud. I discovered soon after that he had also written the english lyrics to "Let Go," (Vinicius De Moraes, Baden Powell) which was the shattering (thanks for that word, Rolf) opening number to Mitzi Gaynor's second TV special.

I decided to do a cabaret show of Norman's lyrics that would begin with "Let Go" and end with "It Was Me." With so many well-known and beautiful songs it was very easy to fill the rest of the hour. They aren't needlessly showy lyrics but they are the right lyrics. Right is Norman's word. He would say that he would think and fuss and push and pull a lyric until it was "right," happy to lose glib and clever along the way.

Norman Gimbel was a lovely man who was very kind to me. He was genuinely touched that someone took such an interest in his work and he shared a couple of his favorite and lesser known lyrics with me.

We emailed each other over the years, but I never got to meet Norman. Back in the Metropolitan Room glory days, unbeknownst to me, Norman watched a live video stream of the show from his home near Santa Barbara, California and as soon as the show was over he called the club. Liz picked up the call in the lobby and called out excitedly to me "I have Norman Gimbel on the phone" and we had a wonderful conversation.

Norman Gimbel meant a lot to me and his lyrics touched all of us.

Much love to you, Norman.

Who's the one you would find on the beach every day,
lying there on the shore while his friends swim away,
lying there in the sand only inches from you,
watching you every day till the summer was through?

It was me.

Who would help gather shells for the bracelet you made?
Who would find you the cups for the pink lemonade?
Who was always beside you whenever you'd swim,
when you sat by the sea as the daylight grew dim?

It was me.

Now that summer is gone and the warms skies are cold,
and the soft winds are crisp with their wintery chill.
Do you ever think back on the night when we kissed?
Can you ever forget?
I know I never will.

Who's the one next to you in the group photograph?
Who's the one with the face too unhappy to laugh?
Standing there looking down, so uncertain and shy,
like a boy who's in love, so in love he could cry?

It was me.

It was me.

Me, finding out it was you.

[Zoneboy]

[stevea]

Ah, yes, the famed Brill Building. A lot of 60s hits came from there. Neil Diamond, Bert Berns (eventually the founder of Bang Records, Diamond's original label), Goffin and King, Leiber and Stoller, Phil Spector and many other song writers headquartered there. Back when music production was good times, people who were friends and were working together to produce something great, rather than just tools of the trade. And groups/people like the Ronettes, the Shangri-Las, the Four Seasons, Gene Pitney, the Drifters, Fagen and Becker (Steely Dan)...and many others.

RIP Norman.

[MA]

Rest In Peace Norman.

[stevea]

It's odd that no news service has posted an obit article. The Facebook post is from Sunday and we're now four days later.

[Zoneboy]

Originally Posted by stevea

It's odd that no news service has posted an obit article. The Facebook post is from Sunday and we're now four days later.

I found this Facebook post from his friend and songwriting partner Robert Folk.

https://tinyurl.com/ybm5xtcz

Sad news today that my good friend and songwriting partner Norman Gimbel passed away at the age of 91. Norman was an Oscar and Grammy winning songwriter along with numerous other top awards and was a member of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame. We wrote around 15 songs together, mostly for feature films. Norman was an incredible talent; brilliant in every way, and one who had successfully navigated every genre in popular music. I remember one of countless moments with Norman so fondly, when after a playback via phone of a newly finished song for a prominent filmmaker, he said to me privately....

“Don’t ever tell them how easy this work is for us, and how much fun we’ve had writing these songs!.... or else they’ll never pay us all this money again!”... as he laughed out loud!

Norman .... you will be so missed!
Rest In Peace!

[stevea]

https://thelifeandtimesofhollywood.com/?s=norman+gimbel

[Zoneboy]

Originally Posted by stevea

https://thelifeandtimesofhollywood.com/?s=norman+gimbel

That's the site the website I first saw this on used as their source. I was going to use it as well, but when I went there and searched for Norman Gimbel I kept getting zero results messages so thanks for posting.

Here's the full article....

Famed lyricist Norman Gimbel (born November 16, 1927) died yesterday at 91. He was an American lyricist of popular songs, television and movie themes whose writing career includes such titles as “Sway“, “Canadian Sunset“, “Summer Samba“, “The Girl from Ipanema“, “Killing Me Softly with His Song“, “Meditation“, and “I Will Wait for You“, along with an Oscarfor “It Goes Like It Goes” – from the film Norma Rae. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

With Charles Fox, Gimbel wrote lyrics for the theme songs of many TV series, including The Bugaloos, Happy Days,Laverne & Shirley, Angie,Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Wonder Woman, the Emmy-winning theme for The Paper Chase, and the song score for Pufnstuf, the 1970 film version of the 1969–71 Saturday-morning children’s series H.R. Pufnstuf.

Early success

A native of Brooklyn, son of businessman Morris Gimbel and Lottie Gimbel,Norman Gimbel was self-taught in music and following initial employment with music publisher David Blum, progressed to become a contract songwriter with Edwin H. Morris Music. Small successes and moderate fame came as a result of lively novelty songs “Ricochet“, which was popularized in a 1953 recording by Teresa Brewerfrom which was developed the 1954 Judy Canova film Ricochet Romance, and “A Whale of a Tale“, sung by Kirk Douglas in another 1954 production, Disney‘s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Greater success was earned with Dean Martin‘s recording of “Sway”, which reached #6 on the UK Singles Chart, followed by his first big success, Andy Williams‘ rendition of “Canadian Sunset”, which scored to #1 in 1956.

Two Broadway musicals

Top songwriter Frank Loesser became Gimbel’s mentor and, through Loesser, he met composer Moose Charlap with whom he wrote the first of his numerous songs to appear in films, “Past the Age of Innocence”, from the 1951 Monogrammusical, Rhythm Inn.

At the end of the decade, he collaborated with Charlap on the only Broadway musicals for which he has written lyrics, Whoop-Up and The Conquering Hero. Whoop-Upis set within a modern-day Native American community located on a reservation. The novel which provided the basis for the show, Dan Cushman’s Stay Away, Joe, was filmed ten years later, under its original title, as a vehicle for Elvis Presley, using an unrelated screenplay and score. The show’s Joe was portrayed by Ralph Young, who achieved stardom in the 1960s and 70s as one-half of the singing duo, Sandler and Young. The production was directed by Cy Feuer and choreographed by Onna White who received a Tony nomination for her contribution to the show, with another nomination going to Julienne Marie for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Cushman, along with Feuer and Ernest H. Martin, also wrote the book of the show. Eleven of the eighteen songs by Gimbel and Charlap were heard in the first act, and the remaining seven in act two. Whoop Up opened at the Shubert Theatre on December 22, 1958 and, despite some encouraging reviews, ended after a disappointing 56 performances on February 7, 1959.

The opening night of Conquering Hero was almost two years later, on January 16, 1961. The production, at the ANTA Playhouse, had a book by Larry Gelbart, based on Preston Sturges‘ 1944 screenplay and film, Hail the Conquering Hero. It was directed by Albert Marre, choreographed by Todd Bolender and starred Tom Poston as Woodrow Truesmith, the character originated in the movie by Eddie Bracken. Ella Raines‘ Libby was portrayed by Kay Brown, and Lionel Stander, as Sgt. Murdock, took over William Demarest‘s Sgt. Heppelfinger. Act one had ten of Gimbel’s and Charlap’s fourteen songs, while four songs (and four reprises from the first act) were sung in act two. Ultimately, Hero fared even worse than Whoop-Up, closing on January 21, after only 7 performances.

Hit English-language lyrics to Brazilian and French songs

In 1963, Gimbel was introduced by music publisher Lou Levy to a group of young Brazilianbossa nova composers, including Antônio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfá and Baden Powell, for whose works he started writing English-language lyrics. Most notably, he created the lyrics for Marcos Valle‘s “Summer Samba,” also known as “So Nice”, as well as Jobim’s “How Insensitive“, “The Girl from Ipanema” (turning it into a top hit for Astrud Gilberto) and “Meditation”, which has gained the status of a “classic” in the jazz and bossa nova genres. He also provided the lyrics for Frenchcomposers Michel Legrand(two themes from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg—”Watch What Happens” and the Oscar-nominated “I Will Wait for You“), Eddy Marnay and Emil Stern (“Amazing”) and singer-composer Gilbert Bécaud(“You’ll See” and other songs). He also provided the lyrics for Belgium jazz harmonica player Toots Thielemans(“Bluesette”).”Only Love” sung by Nana Mouskuri – No 2 United Kingdom (Performed in a Command Performance for the Queen Mother).

Career as a lyricist of film songs and TV themes

In October 1967, Norman Gimbel moved to Los Angeles, where he became active in film and television. Among the Hollywoodcomposers with whom he worked were Elmer Bernstein, Bill Conti, Jack Elliott, Charles Fox, Dave Grusin, Maurice Jarre, Quincy Jones, Fred Karlin, Francis Lai, Peter Matz, Lalo Schifrin, David Shire and Patrick Williams.

Gimbel received four Golden Globes nominations, the first of which was for the song “Circles in the Water,” with music by Francis Lai), written for the American distribution of the 1967 French film Live for Life, while the second honored “Stay” (with composer Ernest Gold), heard in the 1969 film The Secret of Santa Vittoria. The other two were for the songs “Richard’s Window,” from 1975’s The Other Side of the Mountain, and “Ready to Take a Chance Again,” used in 1978’s Foul Play. Both songs, whose lyrics Gimbel wrote to music that had been composed by Charles Fox, his most frequent collaborator, were also nominated for Oscars.

In 1973, Gimbel experienced another great success when Roberta Flack sang a cover of “Killing Me Softly with His Song“. Co-written with Charles Fox, it was originally written for LA bistro singer Lori Lieberman after she shared a poem with them that she had written after seeing Don McLean live in concert. The song won him his second Grammy Award for Song of the Year. The same year his and Fox’s “I Got a Name“, recorded by Jim Croce, from the 1973 film The Last American Hero,was voted “Best Film Song” by the Young New York Film Critics. In 1979 he had his only Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Music Composition for a Series” for The Paper Chase, which he again shared with Fox. Los Angeles theater work with Fox included a rock/pop version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the city’s Shakespeare Festival, seen at the Ford Amphitheatre, and The Eleventh, which played the Sunset Theater. The year 1980 was a banner year at the Oscars for Norman Gimbel with a win for “Best Original Song“, (“It Goes Like It Goes“), written with David Shire for the film Norma Rae.

Continuing his working relationship with Charles Fox, Gimbel wrote lyrics for the theme songs of many TV series, including The Bugaloos, Happy Days,Laverne & Shirley, Angie,Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Wonder Woman, the Emmy-winning theme for The Paper Chase, and the song score for Pufnstuf, the 1970 film version of the 1969–71 Saturday-morning children’s series H.R. Pufnstuf.

In 1984, Gimbel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and continued to be active in film into 2009. He has written all the songs, including “A World Without Fences” for Disney’s 2001 direct-to-video cartoon feature, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure,receiving a nomination for the Video Premiere Award, in addition to having provided song scores for The Phantom Tollbooth (1969), Where’s Poppa? (1970), A Troll in Central Park (1994) and The Thief and the Cobbler (a/k/a Arabian Knight) (1995 U.S. version). Over the years, his songs have been used in over ninety films, with some of the most popular titles, such as “The Girl from Ipanema”, heard in 1997’s Deconstructing Harry, 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, 2005’s V for Vendetta and Mr. & Mrs. Smith and 2007’s The Invasion, and “Sway” heard in 2004’s Shall We Dance?and 2046, 2006’s Bella, 2007’s No Reservations and 2008’s Paris. Additional films which used his songs include 1984’s Johnny Dangerously, (with composer John Morris), 2006’s Invincible (“I Got a Name”) and Click (“So Nice”) and the 2007 French film Roman de Gare, which featured his English-language lyrics to Gilbert Bécaud’s “You’ll See.” To date, Imdb Filmography credits Norman Gimbel with having over 646 entries of his songs in films and television.

He has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences since 1970.

[stevea]

Here's the article that finally passed muster for Wikipedia:

https://bestclassicbands.com/norman-...iter-12-27-18/

[stevea]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/ampht...?noredirect=on