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Norman Gimbel
Norman Gimbel (November 16, 1927 – December 19, 2018) was an American lyricist and songwriter of popular songs and themes to television shows and films. He wrote the lyrics for songs including "Ready to Take a Chance Again" (with composer Charles Fox) and "Canadian Sunset". He also co-wrote "Killing Me Softly with His Song". He wrote English-language lyrics for many international hits, including "Sway", "Summer Samba", "The Girl from Ipanema", "How Insensitive", "Drinking-Water", "Meditation", "I Will Wait for You" and "Watch What Happens". Of the movie themes he co-wrote, five were nominated for Academy Awards or Golden Globe Awards or both, including "It Goes Like It Goes", from the film Norma Rae, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for 1979. Gimbel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.
Gimbel was born on November 16, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Lottie (Nass) and businessman Morris Gimbel. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria. He studied English at Baruch College and Columbia University.
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. He wrote the lyrics for the song "Tennessee Wig Walk", a.k.a. "The Tennessee Wig-Walk", composed by Larry Coleman and recorded by Bonnie Lou in 1953. Small successes and moderate fame came as a result of lively novelty songs "Ricochet", which was popularized in a 1953 recording by Teresa Brewer from 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", for which Gimbel wrote English lyrics for the song, which was originally in Spanish. It reached #6 on the UK singles chart, followed by his first big success, Andy Williams' rendition of "Canadian Sunset", which scored a #1 in 1956.
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 Monogram musical, Rhythm Inn.
At the end of the decade, he collaborated with Charlap on the only Broadway musicals for which he wrote lyrics, Whoop-Up and The Conquering Hero. 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. Ultimately, Hero fared even worse than Whoop-Up, closing on January 21, after only 7 performances.
In 1963, Gimbel was introduced by music publisher Lou Levy to a group of young Brazilian bossa nova composers, including Antônio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfá and Baden Powell, for whose works he started writing English-language lyrics, the kind of work he had previously done for "Sway". 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 French composers 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 Belgian jazz harmonica player Toots Thielemans ("Bluesette")."Only Love" sung by Nana Mouskouri – No 2 United Kingdom (performed in a Command Performance for the Queen Mother).
In October 1968, Norman Gimbel moved to Los Angeles, where he became active in film and television. Among the Hollywood composers 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.
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Norman Gimbel
Norman Gimbel (November 16, 1927 – December 19, 2018) was an American lyricist and songwriter of popular songs and themes to television shows and films. He wrote the lyrics for songs including "Ready to Take a Chance Again" (with composer Charles Fox) and "Canadian Sunset". He also co-wrote "Killing Me Softly with His Song". He wrote English-language lyrics for many international hits, including "Sway", "Summer Samba", "The Girl from Ipanema", "How Insensitive", "Drinking-Water", "Meditation", "I Will Wait for You" and "Watch What Happens". Of the movie themes he co-wrote, five were nominated for Academy Awards or Golden Globe Awards or both, including "It Goes Like It Goes", from the film Norma Rae, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for 1979. Gimbel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.
Gimbel was born on November 16, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Lottie (Nass) and businessman Morris Gimbel. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria. He studied English at Baruch College and Columbia University.
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. He wrote the lyrics for the song "Tennessee Wig Walk", a.k.a. "The Tennessee Wig-Walk", composed by Larry Coleman and recorded by Bonnie Lou in 1953. Small successes and moderate fame came as a result of lively novelty songs "Ricochet", which was popularized in a 1953 recording by Teresa Brewer from 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", for which Gimbel wrote English lyrics for the song, which was originally in Spanish. It reached #6 on the UK singles chart, followed by his first big success, Andy Williams' rendition of "Canadian Sunset", which scored a #1 in 1956.
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 Monogram musical, Rhythm Inn.
At the end of the decade, he collaborated with Charlap on the only Broadway musicals for which he wrote lyrics, Whoop-Up and The Conquering Hero. 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. Ultimately, Hero fared even worse than Whoop-Up, closing on January 21, after only 7 performances.
In 1963, Gimbel was introduced by music publisher Lou Levy to a group of young Brazilian bossa nova composers, including Antônio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfá and Baden Powell, for whose works he started writing English-language lyrics, the kind of work he had previously done for "Sway". 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 French composers 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 Belgian jazz harmonica player Toots Thielemans ("Bluesette")."Only Love" sung by Nana Mouskouri – No 2 United Kingdom (performed in a Command Performance for the Queen Mother).
In October 1968, Norman Gimbel moved to Los Angeles, where he became active in film and television. Among the Hollywood composers 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.