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Gary Lemel - International President, Soundtrack Division, Warner Brothers Pictures

Upon hearing Gary LeMel's latest CD on Concord Records, "The Best of Times," one reviewer expressed his appreciation by saying, "With a voice as smooth as cashmere and a delivery as cool as a South Beach cocktail, Gary is back on the scene…" Not only was this laudatory comment reflective of the singer's vocal know-how, but at the same time it also underlined the fact that the release pattern of LeMel's albums has indeed been erratic.
There is, however, a valid reason for that. His "day job" is President, Worldwide Music, Warner Bros. film studio. In his almost eighteen years of being responsible for all the music contained in the film company's output of approximately thirty films a year, his music department has received a total of seventeen Academy Award nominations. This has entailed twelve "Best Score" nominations which included an Oscar for "'Round Midnight" in 1986, and five "Best Song" nominations. In 2004 the song "A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow," from the film "The Might Wind," the brilliant satire of the early '60s folk scene, was Oscar-nominated. In addition, six soundtrack recordings which he supervised have won Grammy Awards.
LeMel brings a thorough and varied background to his highly responsible position. The beginning of the London-born singer and music executive's fervent interest in music dates back to his childhood in Tucson, Arizona, where he was a member of the renowned Tucson Boys Choir. He left the University of Arizona in 1959, after three years, to go out on the road playing bass with Anita O'Day, one of the essential jazz singers of all time. It was during these two years that LeMel developed his innate sense of time, which was later to become an essential ingredient of his singing.
After two years in the Army, that included Vietnam, he moved to Los Angeles to further his musical aspirations. In 1964 he signed with Vee Jay Records, who firmly believed his romantic ballad singing was about to achieve a national breakthrough. The Gary LeMel album was praised by critics but was not a commercial success.
Unfortunately, it never made a significant impact due to the fact that Vee Jay got behind the American debut of a four-man group from Liverpool whose album was entitled, "Introducing the Beatles." It featured the Lennon and McCartney lament, "Please Please Me." LeMel might have faced the onslaught of the British Invasion and the subsequent takeover of rock 'n roll in pop culture, but he never lost his appreciation for the contributions of the enduring popular songwriters whose efforts now compose what is popularly known as "The Great American Songbook."
Always blessed with a flexible and realistic viewpoint in an industry not noted for such thinking, LeMel moved from the recording studio to the executive side of music. He was now married to Maddy LeMel, a sculptor, and had two children, Tasha and Tal. He joined the personal manager and now film producer Jerry Weintraub's Management III firm as Vice President. The company was then a partnership between Weintraub, the late Marty Kummer, and the now renowned personal manager and producer, Bernie Brillstein.
After three valuable years learning to work with the whims of talented artists, he joined First Artists as Vice President. This short-lived film production company was a partnership between Barbra Streisand, Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Paul Newman, and Sidney Poitier. While at First Artists, he became closely involved with the tempestuous twosome of Barbra Streisand and producer Jon Peters in selecting the music for the film "A Star is Born." This included convincing Streisand that she should record a new song called "Evergreen," which not only energized the movie but was also a smash single record. The "A Star is Born" album sold over six million copies and helped immeasurably in solidifying his already solid reputation in the music industry.
In 1978 he joined Neil Bogart's well remembered Casablanca Records, which was at the forefront of the then emerging disco movement led by Donna Summer. Casablanca later splintered off into Boardwalk Records, where LeMel was Senior Vice President.
A year later, he returned to the executive side of the film business in becoming Executive Vice President of Columbia Pictures. It was at Columbia where the soundtracks of "The Big Chill," "St. Elmo's Fire," "Against All Odds," and "Ghostbusters" served to change the outlook of motion picture music and became substantial record sellers as well, each selling well over a million units.
In selecting the music for "The Big Chill," LeMel wanted to make use of the '60s Motown hits, the perfect musical viewpoint for a film whose plot dealt with the reunion of a group of friends from the 1960's generation. He approached Motown's President Jay Lasker, who had run Vee Jay during LeMel's tenure there. In exchange for Columbia's putting in an additional $25,000 into album production, Motown licensed several of their major hits for the soundtrack. Motown enjoyed a big selling album. A music industry trade magazine then referred to LeMel as "The Godfather of the Modern Sountrack."
On the basis of all that, he moved to Warner Bros. as President of Warner Bros. Music. His continuing success led in 1991 to the score of the music for "The Bodyguard" becoming the biggest selling soundtrack album of all time. This led to his becoming President, Worldwide Music and the Chief Executive Officer of Warner's Sunset Records soundtrack label in 1992.
It was now time for his comeback album - his first since 1964, appropriately titled "Romance the Screen," which was a Blue Note CD. This 1994 release revealed he had not lost any of the conviction he brought to his vocal presentation.
After working with him on several films, Clint Eastwood included LeMel in a Carnegie Hall jazz concert in 1998 he produced. He is heard singing "'Round Midnight," on the Malpaso CD, released by Warner Bros. The same year he returned to Carnegie Hall to perform in a tribute to Frank Sinatra.
The year of 1997 marked the release of "Love Strokes," on Signature Records, another fine album of ballads pairing LeMel with the pianist and composer Bill Marx. Their renditions of the likes of "But Beautiful," "My Funny Valentine," and others caused some disc jockeys to refer to it as "poetry."
His 1999 Atlantic CD release, "Moonlighting," was LeMel's tribute to his idol, Bobby Darin. It was the culmination of his attempt to develop a Darin film biography, a project actor Kevin Spacey eventually succeeded in making and is set for Xmas 2004 release. He commissioned the brilliant pianist, Roger Kellaway, Darin's former accompanist, to write the arrangements. There is an underlying jazz sensibility to this tribute with LeMel's smooth delivery riding on top. The notable contribution of such jazz musicians as tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker and his brother, trumpeter, Randy, plus trumpeter Lew Soloff, guitarist Steve Khan, and drummer Elvin Jones and singer Paula Cole also made notable contributions. As LeMel noted, "The more the vocals became a part of the ensemble, the more unique the project became. The music's coming from an honest place." Indeed, sincerity and conviction have long been the keynotes of LeMel's recordings.
Two years later he recorded this second album for Atlantic, "Lost In Your Arms," once again consisting of a batch of standards written by George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, and Carol Bayer Sager. As LeMel pointed out, "When you're raised as an artist, that never goes. If I didn't go back to [recording] music in some way, I was going to die…"
His current CD, "The Best of Times" is just that - a kind of "Best of Gary LeMel" vocal retrospective, since it contains selections from several of his previous albums. A new album idea is currently in the works for possible recording during 2004. In the meantime, there are the major summer releases of Warner Bros, "Troy," the epic adventure starring Brad Pitt, and the next installment of the continuing saga, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
LeMel continues to devote time to such important charities as MAP (Musician Assistance Program) and the drug treatment program at Phoenix House, gives occasional lectures at both UCLA and USC, and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Arizona. He is a man who has accomplished considerable in his musical career, while continuing to contribute to furthering the efforts of the creators of music of high standards.