Shire began scoring for television in the 1960s and made the leap to scoring feature films in the early 1970s. He was married to actress Talia Shire, for whose brother Francis Ford Coppola he scored The Conversation, perhaps his best known score, in 1974. He has since been known for creating interesting and effective scores for a wide variety of genres, including All the President's Men, The Hindenburg, Farewell My Lovely, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, and Return to Oz. He composed original music for Saturday Night Fever, and also worked on several disco adaptations including "Night on Disco Mountain." He won an Oscar in 1980 for Best Song for his title song for Norma Rae, "It Goes Like It Goes." He was also nominated the same year in the same category for "The Promise (I'll Never Say Goodbye" from the motion picture The Promise. In 1981 his song "With You I'm Born Again", recorded by Billy Preston and Syreeta, was a top five international hit and stayed on the pop charts for 26 weeks. In 2007, he returned to the spotlight with his score for David Fincher's film Zodiac.
The Conversation featured an austere score for piano, with a catchy bluesy main theme. On some cues Shire took the taped sounds of the piano and distorted them in different ways to create alternative tonalities to round out the score. The music is intended to capture the isolation and paranoia of protagonist Harry Caul (Gene Hackman). The score was released on CD by Intrada Records.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is one of Shire's most effective scores. Shire composed a tone row and placed it against a funky beat for his main theme. It is intended to evoke the bustle and diversity of New York City, and is an unofficial theme for the 6 subway line (the local Lexington Avenue Line that is depicted in the film). The soundtrack album was the first ever CD release by Film Score Monthly. The end titles contain a more expansive arrangement of the theme. Shire received two Grammy nominations for his work on the film.
Shire's musical theatre work, always in collaboration with lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr. includes the two off-Broadway reviews Starting Here, Starting Now (Grammy nomination for Best Cast Album) and Closer Than Ever (Outer Critic's Circle Award for Best Musical) and the two Broadway shows Baby (Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Score) and Big (Tony nomination for Best Score). All of these shows have had hundreds of regional and stock productions worldwide. A new musical entitled Take Flight is scheduled to premiere in London at the Menier Chocolate Factory in the summer of 2007.
Shire's television scores have earned six Emmy nominations. He has scored over a hundred television movies, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, Raid on Entebbe, The Kennedys of Massachusetts, Serving in Silence and The Heidi Chronicles. He also composed themes for TV series such as "Alice" and "McCloud".
Shire's individual songs have been recorded by Barbra Streisand, Melissa Manchester, Maureen McGovern, Johnny Mathis, Billy Preston, Jennifer Warnes, John Pizzarelli and Pearl Bailey, among many others.
Shire has been married to actress Didi Conn since 1982. He has two sons, Matthew (with Talia Shire), a Los Angeles screenwriter, and Daniel (with Didi Conn).
- Wikipedia.org
Shire began scoring for television in the 1960s and made the leap to scoring feature films in the early 1970s. He was married to actress Talia Shire, for whose brother Francis Ford Coppola he scored The Conversation, perhaps his best known score, in 1974. He has since been known for creating interesting and effective scores for a wide variety of genres, including All the President's Men, The Hindenburg, Farewell My Lovely, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, and Return to Oz. He composed original music for Saturday Night Fever, and also worked on several disco adaptations including "Night on Disco Mountain." He won an Oscar in 1980 for Best Song for his title song for Norma Rae, "It Goes Like It Goes." He was also nominated the same year in the same category for "The Promise (I'll Never Say Goodbye" from the motion picture The Promise. In 1981 his song "With You I'm Born Again", recorded by Billy Preston and Syreeta, was a top five international hit and stayed on the pop charts for 26 weeks. In 2007, he returned to the spotlight with his score for David Fincher's film Zodiac.
