John Lissauer | |
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Background information | |
Born | Summit, New Jersey, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Composer, producer, performer |
Website | www |
John Lissauer is an American composer, producer, and performer. At the age of 19, he arranged the first recordings of Al Jarreau. [1] Lissauer went on to produce and arrange a pair of Leonard Cohen albums. Lissauer produced and arranged the first recording of "Hallelujah" which was featured in the film Watchmen and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2019. [2] [3] He has been a composer or music producer for record albums, films, and radio and TV commercials. Lissauer received a Clio "Campaign of the Decade" award for his work for Polaroid. [4]
Lissauer was raised in Hauppauge, New York. From age 11 until he graduated from Yale College, Lissauer studied with Joseph Allard at the Juilliard School. Lissauer attended Yale University and graduated with honors in music. [4]
Lissauer plays piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone. He began arranging music for Al Jarreau while still at Yale. He taught at Yale for a year, and then became a session piano player. [4]
As a composer and music producer, he has worked with Al Jarreau, Bette Midler, Whitney Houston, and Luther Vandross. [4]
In Canada to produce a record for Lewis Furey, Lissauer was approached by Cohen at a Furey concert. The two met again several weeks later in New York to produce the New Skin for the Old Ceremony album. [5] John Miller, who played bass on the album, described Lissauer's approach to music as "very particular, European, simple but complex, highly imaginative". [6] : 118 New Skin for the Old Ceremony would make the Top Thirty in the United Kingdom. [7]
After the album was completed, Cohen appointed Lissauer as the musical director for his next two tours; Lissauer played piano, organ, saxophone, and percussion on the tours. [6] : 124
In 1983, Lissauer again worked with Cohen to produce the album Various Positions , including the arrangement of "Hallelujah", which would go on to become one of the most recorded songs of its time. Disappointed when Columbia Records decided against a U.S. release of the album, Lissauer decided to focus his efforts on composing for films and TV. [lower-alpha 1] [6] : 184–195
Although he had given up record producing, in 2006 Lissauer arranged several songs on Blue Alert by Anjani as a favor for Cohen. [6] : 279
In 2022, Lissauer appeared in the documentary Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, and composed the score. [8]
Lissauer was married to Erin Dickins, with whom he restored an overgrown 35-acre property an hour north of New York City that had been owned previously by composer Frederick Loewe. [1] [4] In 1984, he married Lilian, with whom he had one son. [4]
Artist | Release | Label | Credit |
---|---|---|---|
Leonard Cohen | Various Positions | Columbia | Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Leonard Cohen | New Skin for the Old Ceremony | Columbia | Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Mary Fahl | Love & Gravity | BMI Publishing | Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Mary Fahl | Four Sings | BMI Publishing | Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Mary Fahl | The Other Side of Time | Odyssey | Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Bette Midler | Songs From the New Depression | Atlantic Records | Arranger/Conductor |
Loudon Wainwright III | Final Exam | Arista Records | Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Loudon Wainwright III | T-shirt | Arista Records | Arranger/Performer |
Lewis Furey | Lewis Furey | Aquarius Records | Producer/Arranger/Conductor/Performer |
Lewis Furey | The Sky is Falling | Aquarius Records | Producer/Arranger/Conductor/Performer |
Tony Bird | Bird of Paradise | Columbia | Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Anjani | Blue Alert | Columbia | Arranger/Performer |
Kiss | Peter Criss Solo Album | Casablanca Records | Conductor |
The Hotel Orchestra | Swings Digital | A & M Records | Arranger/Performer/Composer |
Carole Laure | Alibis | RCA Victor | Arranger/Conductor/Performer |
Carole Laure | She Says Move On | Fnac Music | Arranger/Performer |
Leata Galloway | Leata | Ariola | Producer/Arranger/Conductor/Performer |
Clara Ponty | The Embrace | Philips Classics | Co-Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Ayo | Joyful | Polydor Records | Producer/Arranger/Performer |
Daniel Rodriguez | In The Presence | Blix Street Records | Arranger/Conductor |
Eddie Brigati | Lost in the Wilderness | Elektra | Arranger/Conductor/Performer |
Fred Stark | Time After Time | New Central Music Company, LLC | Arranger/Performer |
Kenny Karen | This Day | Big Tree Records | Arranger/Performer |
Lisa Gutkin | From Here On In | Independent | Producer/Performer |
Ten Feet Deep | Ten Feet Deep | Independent | Producer |
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, comedian and author. Throughout her career, which spans over five decades, Midler has received numerous accolades, including four Golden Globe Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards and a Kennedy Center Honor, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and a British Academy Film Award.
Arif Mardin was a Turkish-American music producer, who worked with hundreds of artists across many different styles of music, including jazz, rock, soul, disco and country. He worked at Atlantic Records for over 30 years, as producer, arranger, studio manager, and vice president, before moving to EMI and serving as vice president and general manager of Manhattan Records.
Recent Songs is the sixth studio album by Leonard Cohen, released in 1979. Produced by Cohen alongside Henry Lewy, it was a return to his normal acoustic folk music sound after the Phil Spector-driven experimentation of Death of a Ladies' Man, but now with many jazz and Oriental influences.
Various Positions is the seventh studio album by Leonard Cohen, released in December 1984. It marked not only his turn to a modern sound and use of synthesizers, but also, after the harmonies and backing vocals from Jennifer Warnes on the previous Recent Songs (1979), an even greater contribution from Warnes, who is credited equally to Cohen as vocalist on all of the tracks.
New Skin for the Old Ceremony is the fourth studio album by Leonard Cohen, released in 1974. On this album, he begins to evolve away from the rawer sound of his earlier albums, with violas, mandolins, banjos, guitars, percussion and other instruments giving the album a more orchestrated sound. The album is silver in the UK, but never entered the Billboard Top 200 in the US.
"Hallelujah" is a song written by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, originally released on his album Various Positions (1984). Achieving little initial success, the song found greater popular acclaim through a new version recorded by John Cale in 1991. Cale's version inspired a 1994 recording by Jeff Buckley that in 2004 was ranked number 259 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Pokémon: The First Movie is the soundtrack to the first Pokémon film in the North American markets. Some of the songs were featured in the animated short Pikachu's Vacation, and some songs did not feature in either the short or the movie at all. The CD contains extra features, such as Pokémon videos and a screensaver. When it was released, it included a promotion to send in a proof of purchase for an exclusive Jigglypuff card from the Pokémon TCG.
Blue Alert is a jazz album recorded by Anjani, girlfriend and longtime backing singer of iconic Canadian singer-songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen, who also produced the album and wrote the lyrics. Also on the production team was John Lissauer, known for having previously produced two of Cohen's albums: New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974) and Various Positions (1984).
The Divine Miss M is the debut studio album by American singer and actress Bette Midler, released in 1972 on the Atlantic Records label. The title of the album refers to Midler's famous stage persona. The album was co-produced by Barry Manilow, and includes several songs that since have become repertoire standards, such as "Do You Want to Dance?", "Chapel of Love", "Hello In There", "Friends" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy". It was released on CD for the first time in 1990. A remastered version of the album was released by Atlantic Records/Warner Music in 1995. A remastered deluxe edition was released in October 2016.
Bathhouse Betty is the ninth studio album by the American singer Bette Midler, released in 1998. Bathhouse Betty was Midler's debut album for Warner Bros. Records, after having parted ways with sister label Atlantic Records in 1995 following the moderate commercial success of her later-platinum certified album Bette of Roses. Bathhouse Betty was certified Gold by the RIAA and spawned the Billboard Dance Club chart topper "I'm Beautiful".
Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook is a studio album by American singer Bette Midler. Produced by Barry Manilow, it serves as a follow-up to their Grammy Award-nominated Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook (2003). Released in 2005, the Peggy Lee tribute was Midler's first album produced in the DualDisc format, although the DVD features were limited to a few short video clips; the initial release was affected by Extended Copy Protection technology.
Robert Kraft is an American songwriter, film composer, recording artist and record producer. As president of Fox Music from 1994 to 2012, he supervised the music for more than 300 Fox feature films, as well as dozens of TV shows. He co-produced the 2016 Score: A Film Music Documentary about film composers and the evolution of Hollywood film music.
Lewis Furey, born with the name Lewis Greenblatt, is a Canadian composer, singer, violinist, pianist, actor and director.
Randy Kerber is an American composer, orchestrator and keyboard player, who has had a prolific career in the world of cinema.
Leonard Norman Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, social and political conflict, and sexual and romantic love, desire, regret, and loss. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, he received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.
Watchmen: Music from the Motion Picture is the film soundtrack album for the 2009 film Watchmen. The soundtrack features three songs written by Bob Dylan: "Desolation Row", "The Times They Are a-Changin'", and "All Along the Watchtower".
Scott Erickson is an American Los Angeles-based record producer, composer and arranger. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Erickson has been working in the music scene in Los Angeles since his graduation from Berklee College of Music in 1992. After stints working as an assistant for The Manhattan Transfer and Al Teller, he landed a job working with Robbie Buchanan. From 1997 until 2003, Erickson learned the craft of making records and, in 2003, left Buchanan to begin his production career on his own. Since then, artists that Erickson has produced and/or arranged for include Barry Manilow, Mijares, Yuri, Carly Simon, Alison Krauss and Michelle Tumes. He also has arranged and composed music and songs for numerous Disney films and Live Entertainment shows at the Disney Theme Parks.
Peter Matz was an American musician, composer, arranger and conductor. His musical career in film, theater, television and studio recording spanned fifty years, and he worked with a number of prominent artists, including Marlene Dietrich, Noël Coward and Barbra Streisand. Matz won three Emmys and a Grammy Award and is best known for his work on Streisand's early albums as well as for his work as the orchestral conductor and musical director for The Carol Burnett Show.
William S. Schnee is an American musician, music producer, and audio engineer. Schnee has been nominated 11 times for the Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical Grammy Award and worked on a multitude of other Grammy nominated and awarded albums. He has won two Grammys, an Emmy for Outstanding Sound for a Television Special, and a Dove Award. In a 45+ year career of very diverse artists, Schnee has received over 135 gold and platinum records and has recorded/mixed over 50 top twenty singles.
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song is a 2022 feature-length documentary biographical film created by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine describing the story of Leonard Cohen, focusing on his song "Hallelujah". The film is based on Alan Light's 2012 book The Holy or the Broken.
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