Billy Steinberg
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Billy Steinberg | |
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Birth name | William Endfield Steinberg |
Born | February 26, 1950 |
Occupation(s) |
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William Endfield Steinberg (born February 26, 1950) is an American songwriter. He achieved his greatest success in the 1980s with songwriting partner Tom Kelly; together they wrote or co-wrote the No. 1 hits "Like a Virgin" by Madonna (1984), "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper (1986), "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles (1989), "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston (1987) and "Alone" (covered by Heart in 1987). They also wrote or co-wrote the hit songs "I Drove All Night" (recorded by various artists, initially recorded by Roy Orbison in 1987 but first released by Cyndi Lauper in 1989), "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls (1990), and "I'll Stand by You" by The Pretenders (1994).
After Kelly retired from music in the 1990s, Steinberg collaborated with other songwriters. With Rick Nowels and Marie-Claire D'Ubaldo he wrote the hit songs "Falling Into You" (covered by Celine Dion) and "One & One". He has written hit songs with Josh Alexander including "All About Us" by t.A.T.u. (2005), "Too Little Too Late" by JoJo (2006) and "Give Your Heart a Break" by Demi Lovato (2012).
Biography
Early life
Steinberg grew up in Fresno, California and moved to Palm Springs, California when he was 12 and worked with his father's table grape operation. He attended Cate School in California, and Bard College in New York.
Music career
In his mid-20s, he formed the group Billy Thermal, which eventually was signed to Richard Perry's Planet Records.
Their breakthrough occurred in 1980 when Linda Ronstadt heard their album and decided to record their song "How Do I Make You?" for her 1980 Mad Love album. The album hit the top three of the charts and went platinum, and Ronstadt's version of their song reached the American top 10.
Pat Benatar, on her 1980 album Crimes of Passion, covered another Billy Thermal song, "I'm Gonna Follow You". In 1981, Steinberg wrote "Precious Time", which became the title track for Benatar's album Precious Time. Also that year, Steinberg began writing with Tom Kelly, who had written another song ("Fire and Ice") on the album for Benatar.
Further success followed with the song "
The success of the partnership continued with more number one singles, "
Their other hits include "
In the mid-1990s, Steinberg began writing with Rick Nowels, who had established himself as a songwriter for artists such as Stevie Nicks and Belinda Carlisle. Their greatest success of the period was the Celine Dion recording of "Falling into You". In 1997, Steinberg co-wrote the track "One & One" with Rick Nowels and Marie-Claire D'Ubaldo for Edyta Górniak, and this song became a hit in Europe and Asia, leading Edyta as the first Polish singer in the Music & Media's European Radio Top 50 airplay chart.
In 2005, Steinberg collaborated with producer
With Alexander and
Appearance in film
Steinberg performs an acoustic version of "I Touch Myself" in an on camera interview in the documentary film Sticky: A (Self) Love Story.[2][3]
Awards and honors
Steinberg was awarded a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars in 2008.[4]
Steinberg and Kelly were inducted as a team into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2011.[5]
References
- ^ Bakhsh, Ahmed. "INTERVIEW: Porcelain Black". Free-Wired.com. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
- ^ "Review - 'Sticky: A (Self) Love Story' - Afrossip". 13 January 2016. Archived from the original on 2 August 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
- ^ "Sticky: A (Self) Love Story (2016)" – via www.imdb.com.
- ^ Palm Springs Walk of Stars: By Date Dedicated Archived 2012-12-08 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "News - Songwriters Hall of Fame". www.songhall.org.
External links
- Official website
- Songfacts interview with Billy Steinberg Archived 2009-05-29 at the Wayback Machine