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Sally Stevens | |
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Background information | |
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | November 24, 1939
Genres | Film score |
Occupation(s) | Singer, actress |
Instrument | Vocals |
Years active | 1957- |
Sally Stevens (born November 24, 1939) is an American actress, singer and a vocal contractor. She has sung on hundreds of The Simpsons episodes, and sings the main title, which has been in use since the inception of the show. She also sings the main title for Family Guy and has worked for Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the show, as vocal contractor and singer since the inception of the series on Fox in 1999. She has sung, and been vocal contractor for hundreds of films, some of which include The Last Airbender, The Abyss, Contact, Amistad, Power of One, Behind Enemy Lines, Beyond Borders, Forrest Gump , and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull . Sally Stevens is the mother of session singer Susie Stevens-Logan. She did the voices of Marge and Patty in the demo recording of "Dancing Workers Song".
More recent projects included singing and vocal contractor services for Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb , for Alan Silvestri, composer (2014). She also contracted the male choir for Thomas Newman, for the Steven Spielberg film Bridge of Spies , (2015) and the male choir for John Williams' score on Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2016) and Finding Dory (Thomas Newman, composer). In 2018, she contracted and sang for Tyler Bates' score for Deadpool 2 . [1] Stevens sang for vocal contractor Bobbi Page on the scores for Tomorrowland and Jurassic World , for composer Michael Giacchino (2015). Also sang for vocal contractor Edie Lehmann on recording sessions for Richard Carpenter in 2018.
Stevens was born in Los Angeles, California, United States, and attended UCLA as a music major. She worked as a production singer in Las Vegas with bookings in 1961 and 1962, then began to work freelance in recording and commercials in Los Angeles. She sang on the Danny Kaye Variety Show two seasons, and The Carol Burnett Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour .
Her first work in film scoring was in 1962, How the West was Won , then continuing, Doctor Zhivago and The Sound of Music . [2] [3] Other solo performances in film include The Secret of NIMH (composer Jerry Goldsmith), [4] Exorcist II: The Heretic (composer Ennio Morricone) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Burt Bacharach, composer). In 1979–82 she was the on-camera spokesperson for KBIG Radio, a Los Angeles radio/music station. She is a freelance artist/session singer and vocal contractor. As a solo artist, she was greatly influenced by Peggy Lee. She has written lyrics for film and television projects, and her song, written with Dave Grusin, "Who Comes This Night" is included in James Taylor's first Christmas CD, recorded in 2005.
During the late 1960s and 1970s, she worked extensively in records and commercials. She has recorded with Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Country Joe and the Fish, Burt Bacharach, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Sonny & Cher, The Hollyridge Strings, Neil Diamond, Ray Conniff, Dean Martin, Tom Scott, Gabor Szabo, Hugo Montenegro, Ennio Morricone, Percy Faith, Gino Vannelli, Wayne Newton, Michael Bublé, and many others. During this period, she was one of a group of singers for Los Angeles radio station KBIG, which at the time was playing the format for which the now-iHeart Media owned station is best remembered, Beautiful music. She also served as on-air promotional spokesperson for that station.
Stevens was the lead vocalist on "Tomorrow's Child", the theme song for Spaceship Earth at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center from 1986 until 1994.
Stevens is also the director of the Hollywood Film Chorale. [5] She was also the choral director of the Oscars broadcasts for over 20 years, the most recent broadcast being the 2018 Academy Awards. She also contracted singers and sang for the 70th Emmy Awards Broadcast, 2018.
Sally Stevens is also a writer, and has had short fiction and poetry published in The OffBeat, Between the Pages Anthology "Fairy Tales and Folklore Re-imagined", MockingHeart Review, Raven's Perch, Funny in Five Hundred, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, and podcast No Extra Words.
Stevens is also a fine art photographer, and has had five solo Fine Art Black & White Photography exhibits in Los Angeles. Some of her photographs of film composers were included in an exhibit at Cite de la Musique, in Paris, France, 2013.
She served on the local and national boards of AFTRA for over 40 years, on the board of Screen Actors Guild for 18 years, was a trustee of NARAS, and is currently a national trustee of the AFTRA Health & Retirement Funds.
Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter, and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classical works, Morricone is widely considered one of the most prolific and greatest film composers of all time. He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, ten David di Donatello, eleven Nastro d'Argento, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010.
Burt Freeman Bacharach was an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist who is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music. Starting in the 1950s, he composed hundreds of pop songs, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. Bacharach's music is characterized by unusual chord progressions and time signature changes, influenced by his background in jazz, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output.
Morten Johannes Lauridsen is an American composer and teacher. A National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994 to 2001, and is professor emeritus of composition at the USC Thornton School of Music, where he taught for fifty-two years until his retirement in 2019.
Filippa Giordano is an Italian-born Mexican crossover singer.
The Mission is the soundtrack from the film of the same name, composed, orchestrated, conducted and produced by Ennio Morricone. The work combines liturgical chorales, native drumming, and Spanish-influenced guitars, often in the same track, in an attempt to capture the varying cultures depicted in the film. The main theme, "Falls", remains one of Morricone's most memorable pieces, and has been used in numerous commercials since its original release. The Italian song "Nella Fantasia" is based on the theme "Gabriel's Oboe" and has been recorded by multiple artists including, Sarah Brightman, Amici Forever, Il Divo, Russell Watson, Hayley Westenra, Jackie Evancho, Katherine Jenkins, Amira Willighagen and Yasuto Tanaka.
Merry Clayton is an American soul and gospel singer. She contributed vocals to numerous tracks and worked with many major recording artists for decades, including a duet with Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones song "Gimme Shelter". Clayton is prominently featured in 20 Feet from Stardom, the Oscar-winning documentary about background singers and their contributions to the music industry.
The Big Gundown is the third studio album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.
John O'Neill (1926–1999) was a British musician, known as a singer, whistler, and trumpeter.
The Ambrosian Singers are an English choral group based in London.
Summer Watson is an English soprano.
Paul Salamunovich KCSG was a Grammy-nominated, American conductor and educator.
"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is the theme to the 1966 film of the same name, which was directed by Sergio Leone. Included on the film soundtrack as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ", the instrumental piece was composed by Ennio Morricone, with Bruno Nicolai conducting the orchestra. A cover version by Hugo Montenegro in 1967 was a pop hit in both the US and the UK. It has since become one of the most iconic scores in film history.
Edda Sabatini, known as Edda Dell'Orso, is an Italian singer known for her collaboration with composer Ennio Morricone, for whom she provided wordless vocals to a large number of his film scores. A soprano with a three-octave range, Dell'Orso also provided vocals to scores of other Italian composers such as Bruno Nicolai, Piero Piccioni, Luis Bacalov and Roberto Pregadio. She was born in Genoa.
LC Powell is an American actor and musician from California who is best known for their work on the Disney Channel's programs Phineas and Ferb, Sofia the First, and Jake and the Never Land Pirates as a voice actor, vocalist, vocal contractor and voice director. On December 12, 2014, they released their debut album, One for My Baby – To Frank Sinatra with Love, on Music & Mirror Records in celebration of Frank Sinatra's 99th birthday and centennial year.
Crime and Dissonance is a 2005 compilation album of Italian composer Ennio Morricone's film score work. Intended as a follow-up to two earlier Morricone compilations assembled by Dagored, the album was put together by Alan Bishop and released by Ipecac Recordings. Crime and Dissonance features work ranging from the later 1960s to the early 1980s, and contains scores taken from films of several different genres.
The Hateful Eight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (stylized as Quentin Tarantino's The H8ful Eight) is the soundtrack album to Quentin Tarantino's 2015 motion picture The Hateful Eight. The soundtrack includes the first complete original score for a Tarantino film and is composed, orchestrated and conducted by Ennio Morricone. Morricone composed 50 minutes of original music for The Hateful Eight.
Moira Smiley is an American singer, composer, lyricist and musician born in New Haven, Vermont. She is a multi-instrumentalist on banjo, accordion, piano, and body percussion. Smiley's music has been influenced by folk styles, shape-note singing, classical song, and jazz. Smiley has performed and collaborated with various artists including Billy Childs, Solas, Jayme Stone's The Lomax Project, choral composer Eric Whitacre, Los Angeles Master Chorale, New World Symphony, and often tours with eclectic indie-pop group Tune-Yards.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is the soundtrack album to the 2008 film Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, the second instalment in the Madagascar franchise. Released on November 4, 2008 by Interscope Records, the album featured original score composed by Hans Zimmer, who teamed up with American rapper will.i.am to produce the songs and score. will.i.am also wrote five new songs specifically for the film, while other incorporated songs were included in the film's soundtrack. The music received generally favorable critical response.
Kung Fu Panda 3 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2016 film Kung Fu Panda 3, the third instalment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise and the sequel to Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011). The film score is composed by Hans Zimmer, who scored the previous instalments with John Powell, but the latter did not return for the third instalment, thereby Zimmer being credited as the sole composer for the franchise. The album was released by Sony Classical Records on January 29, 2016, to positive critical response.
With the help of choral contractor Sally Stevens and orchestrator-conductor Tim Williams, the new lines — written during a 20-minute break in the middle of a three-hour recording session — were incorporated into the score.