feature artist: cathy dennis.songwriter, producer, performer, actor.
"ok. i am sick of not being able to find much information about cathy. so i am going to start my own posting regarding one of the most sought after songwriter of all time. lets us all help build a cathypedia. so start sending any news, missing info etc and i will update them on this post !"
Excerpt from Music Week ...
** If you can't get that song out of your head, it could be because it was written by Cathy Dennis, the former solo performer turned songwriter behind some of the biggest pop hits of the last decade.
When a 17-year-old Cathy Dennis walked into an audition at a London dance studio more than 20 years ago, few would have realized that she would become one of the most influential British songwriters of a generation.
The audition organizer, who had recently left his A&R job at Chrysalis and was searching for a British answer to Madonna to manage, was just glad to have found somebody who not only looked good and could dance, but was also a great singer.
Two decades later Simon Fuller is still Dennis' manager, and taking time out from overseeing the Spice Girls reunion, he is quick to admit that his heart sank when weeks after signing her his young charge announced she wanted to write her own songs.
"To fob her off, I booked her into a studio for a day, and I thought the songs would be rubbish," he confesses. "I was completely wrong. Immediately I had to change my whole plan and realised I needed to nurture this [songwriting] talent."
Fuller initiated what he describes as a songwriting apprenticeship, before taking a video of her to John Williams, then head of A&R at Polydor, who signed the budding artist in 1987 on a three-year development deal for #20,000. **
She was first spotted recording Stevie Wonder influenced demos at The Kitchen in Norwich with her father (himself an experienced musician and local restaurateur) on piano.
In 2007, she created her own publishing company, Toxic Songs – named after the hit she wrote for Britney Spears – and made her first signing, Fabien Waltmann.
to be updated ... soon !
