Cynthia "Cindy" Fee | |
|---|---|
 Cynthia Fee photographed in 2023 | |
| Born | December 6, 1954 Detroit, Michigan |
| Occupation | recording artist |
| Period | 1970–present |
| Notable works | "Thank You for Being a Friend", from the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls |
Cynthia L. "Cindy" Fee (born December 6, 1954) is an American singer and recording artist. She is best known for performing "Thank You for Being a Friend", [1] [2] [3] the opening theme song for the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning sitcom [4] [5] The Golden Girls .
Cynthia L. "Cindy" Fee was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Raytown, Missouri, where she was active in music and theater at Raytown High School. [6]
Fee started performing professionally at sixteen, working Kansas City-area restaurants, clubs, local theaters, and amusement parks. In 1973, Fee became a founding member, along with Eric Bikales, of the Kansas City band Hotfoot [7] and also sang with the jazz group the Means/Devan Trio. [8]
Fee recorded a cover of Andrew Gold's song "Thank You for Being a Friend" for the credits of The Golden Girls. [9] During the show's first run and in syndication, the song became well known. In honor of Betty White's 90th birthday, President Barack Obama released a video of him listening to the theme song. [10] After White's death in 2021, [11] the sitcom and theme song were streamed 384 million times in one week alone. [12] After going viral in 2022, [13] the Golden Con convention, a fan convention, returned to Chicago in 2023 featuring Fee as a headline performer. [14]
Fee also recorded chart-topping records with some of the best-selling music artists of all time. [15] Her discography includes a duet with Kenny Rogers, "I Don't Want to Know Why", [16] from the platinum-selling album, What About Me? [17] Fee is also a credited background singer on the Kenny Rogers's album Christmas, [18] which peaked at #34 in the US, [19] and Rogers's Share Your Love , which peaked at #6 in the US. [20] She has also performed as a background singer for Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Whitney Houston, and Lionel Richie. [6] Fee also released her own albums Dancin in My Sleep [21] and Young at Heart, [22] [23] the latter with noted rockabilly guitarist Eddie Angel, [24] a founding member of Los Straitjackets.
Fee is also a prolific jingle and TV commercial singer. Fee's commercial jingle credits include: "Get on Your Pontiac and Ride", [1] for Hoover, "Nobody Does It Like You" [25] [26] and "What the Big Boys Eat", [27] from a Wheaties cereal campaign. Fee's voice was also featured in commercials for Chevy Trucks, McDonald's, Miller Beer, Chick-fil-A, Home Depot, Goodyear, Hot Pockets, Barbie, John Deere, NASCAR, Ford, Toyota, Purina, Avon, and American Airlines. [6] Fee's Wheaties and Hoover commercials were awarded Clio awards. [6] [28] [29]
She is married to Robert Landis and has two adult children, Ethan and Rory Landis. Fee frequently performs a genre she calls "country soul", a combination of Motown and country, [2] and has appeared live at venues including in Nashville, Chicago, Los Angeles, as well as in Europe. She is frequently recognized at events and conventions and interviewed about her career. [30]
Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character designed by Grim Natwick at the request of Dave Fleischer. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She was featured in 90 theatrical cartoons between 1930 and 1939. She has also been featured in comic strips and mass merchandising.
David Walter Foster is a Canadian record producer, film composer, and music executive. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. Foster's career began as a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark in the early 1970s before focusing largely on composing and production. Often in tandem with songwriter Diane Warren, Foster has contributed to material for prominent music industry artists in various genres since then, and is credited with production on over 40 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100. He has also chaired Verve Records from 2012 to 2016.
Andrew Maurice Gold was an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and record producer who influenced much of the Los Angeles-dominated pop/soft rock sound in the 1970s. Gold performed on scores of records by other artists, especially Linda Ronstadt, and had his own success with the U.S. top 40 hits "Lonely Boy" (1977) and "Thank You for Being a Friend" (1978), as well as the UK top five hit "Never Let Her Slip Away" (1978). In the 1980s, he had further international chart success as one half of Wax, a collaboration with 10cc's Graham Gouldman.
Mr. Clean is a brand name and mascot owned by Procter & Gamble. It was used for an all-purpose cleaner and later also for a melamine foam abrasive sponge.
Wheaties is an American brand of breakfast cereal that is made by General Mills. It is well known for featuring prominent athletes on its packages and has become a cultural icon in the United States. Originally introduced as Washburn's Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes in 1924, it is primarily a wheat and bran mixture baked into flakes.
A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meanings that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television commercials; they can also be used in non-advertising contexts to establish or maintain a brand image. Many jingles are also created using snippets of popular songs, in which lyrics are modified to appropriately advertise the product or service.
Country pop is a fusion genre of country music and pop music that was developed by members of the country genre out of a desire to reach a larger, mainstream audience. Country pop music blends genres like rock, pop, and country, continuing similar efforts that began in the late 1950s, known originally as the Nashville sound and later on as Countrypolitan. By the mid-1970s, many country artists were transitioning to the pop-country sound, which led to some records charting high on the mainstream top 40 and the Billboard country chart. In turn, many pop and easy listening artists crossed over to country charts during this time. After declining in popularity during the neotraditional movement of the 1980s, country pop had a comeback in the 1990s with a sound that drew more heavily on pop rock and adult contemporary. In the 2010s, country pop metamorphosized again with the addition of hip-hop beats and rap-style phrasing.
"Thank You for Being a Friend" is a song recorded by American singer Andrew Gold. It appears on Gold's third album All This and Heaven Too. The song reached number 25 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978. On the Cash Box chart, "Thank You for Being a Friend" spent two weeks at number 11. A cover by Cynthia Fee was the theme song for the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls.
Edward Francis Jemison, Jr. is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles as Livingston Dell in the Ocean's film trilogy and Mickey Duka in The Punisher, as well as the television series Hung, iZombie and Chicago Med.
William Chrisman High School is a high school located in Independence, Missouri, United States, as part of the Independence School District.
John Russell Mann was an American arranger, composer, conductor, entertainer, singer, and recording artist.
Christmas is the twelfth studio album and the first Christmas album by Kenny Rogers released in 1981.
Richard Henry Marx was an American jazz pianist and arranger. He also composed for film, television, and commercials.
Richard Noel Marx is an American adult contemporary and pop rock singer-songwriter. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
Share Your Love is a studio album by country singer Kenny Rogers, released in 1981. Produced by Lionel Richie, it is also Rogers' first with Liberty Records besides his Greatest Hits album. The album has sold nine million copies worldwide.
Love Will Turn You Around is the thirteenth studio album by American singer Kenny Rogers, released in 1982.
Across My Heart is the twenty-second studio album by country artist Kenny Rogers released in 1997 by Magnatone Records. It features a wide array of artists collaborating with Rogers on various songs on the album like All-4-One, The Katinas, Tareva Henderson and Bekka & Billy. The album hit the charts, with its strongest showing on the country charts at number 26, although it did not produce any hit singles.
All This and Heaven Too is the third album by singer-songwriter Andrew Gold, released in 1978 on Asylum Records. It includes the hit singles "Never Let Her Slip Away" and "Thank You for Being a Friend".