Rupert Holmes

Rupert Holmes , actually David Goldstein , (born February 24, 1947 in Northwich , Cheshire , England ) is an American - British composer , songwriter and author in the field of drama , novel and essay . Particularly well known are his hit Escape (later The Piña Colada Song subtitled) in 1979 and his with the Tony Award award-winning musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) by Charles Dickens .

life and career

Rupert Holmes was born in Northwich , Cheshire , England , but grew up in the north of New York City in the suburb of Nanuet , New York State (~ 16,000 inhabitants (2000)), and attended the nearby Nyack High School and the Manhattan School of Music (Major in clarinet ). He is a British and a US citizen. His father was a US Army officer and band leader , his mother was English and both were musical. Holmes 'brother, Richard, is an opera singer and the first baritone employed by the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players in New York City, and Holmes' brother has also performed with the Metropolitan Opera . Holmes' daughter, Wendy, died suddenly in 1986 at the age of ten of an undiagnosed brain tumor. He has two sons, Nick and Tim (who is autistic ).

Songwriter and contract artist

In his twenties, Holmes, who also sings and masters some instruments, was a studio musician who led sessions, wrote and arranged songs. He wrote jingles and pop melodies for Gene Pitney , the Platters , the Drifters and for television ( The Partridge Family ). As a contract artist, Holmes had his breakthrough in 1974 with the album Widescreen on Epic Records , which introduced him as an interpreter of highly romantic, well-orchestrated songs with a witty narrative style, supported by clever rhymes with comedic hints. Barbra Streisand discovered this album and started a request to record songs from it; she sent Rupert Holmes on a successful career. She used some of his songs in the movie A Star Is Born . His second album (1975), bearing his own name, prompted Rolling Stone magazine to compare him to Bob Dylan for unprecedented originality that deserves attention.

Holmes talent in production was also in demand during this time, and he took this opportunity for Lynsey De Paul on her album Tigers and Fireflies , which became the radio hit Hollywood Romance . De Paul and Holmes wrote a song on this album together: the bluesy Twas .

Escape was released from his fifth album Partners in Crime . The song reached number 1 in the United States in late December 1979; it was the last song to top the US charts in the 1970s. Escape dropped to # 2 in the first week of January 1980, and popularity returned to # 1 the following week, making Holmes the only artist to have hit US # 1 in two different decades with the same song. Another popular song from the album was Him .

Holmes wrote a song called Timothy for The Buoys , which is probably the only cannibalism song to ever hit the US Top 40. Holmes wasn't a member of The Buoys , but he played the piano on the song. For the band he also wrote Give Up Your Guns , The Prince of Thieves , Blood Knot , and Tomorrow . Timothy reached US # 17 and Give Up Your Guns # 84. In 1986, Holmes' composition You Got It All (also called You Got It All Over Him ) was a hit with the Jets and was later featured by Britney Spears on their album Oops! … I Did It Again (2000) covered.

In the 1980s and 1990s Holmes also played on cabaret stages and in clubs where professional comedians perform ( comedy ), mostly in New York City, where he told autobiographical anecdotes - accompanied by his songs.

playwright

Later, Holmes was one of the few playwrights of the Tony Award winning both the book and the music: for the Broadway -Musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood , 1986), which on the novel of The Secret Edwin Drood based by Charles Dickens . For this he won another three prizes: a Drama Desk Award and an Edgar Award for music and song texts . Holmes also wrote the score for Edwin Drood , one of the few composers who wrote specifically for Broadway. Because the book remained unfinished after Dickens' death, Holmes came up with an idea for this novel: it offered alternative final versions of every character suspected of murder and the audience was allowed to vote each evening who the murderer should be.

Holmes also wrote Say Goodnight, Gracie (2003), which was nominated for a Tony Award and ran the longest this Broadway season. The play was based on the life of George Burns . Holmes Musical Curtains is currently running at the Al Hirschfeld Theater on Broadway .

Screenwriter and novelist

In 1996, Holmes created the television series Remember WENN , he wrote all 64 episodes. In 2003 he published his first novel Where the Truth Lies ( filmed as True Lies by Atom Egoyan ), followed in 2005 by Swing , a multimedia publication combining a novel with a music CD with clues to the riddle in the novel.

Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1979	Partners in Crime	-	-	-	-	US33 gold (31 weeks)US	First published: October 5, 1979

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

more publishments

• 1974: widescreen
• 1975: Rupert Holmes
• 1976: Singles
• 1978: Pursuit of Happiness
• 1980: Adventure
• 1981: Full Circle
• 1994: Scenario
• 1994: Epoch Collection
• 1998: The Best of
• 2000: Greatest Hits
• 2001: The Collector's Edition
• 2005: Cast of Characters - Songbook

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1978	Let's Get Crazy Tonight Pursuit of Happiness	-	-	-	-	US72 (6 weeks) US	First published: August 1978
1979	Escape (The Piña Colada Song) Partners in Crime	-	-	-	UK23 gold (7 weeks)UK	US1 gold (21 weeks)US	First published: September 1979
	Him Partners in Crime	DE32 (12 weeks) DE	-	-	UK31 (7 weeks) UK	US6 (17 weeks) US	First published: December 1979
1980	Answering Machine Partners in Crime	-	-	-	-	US32 (11 weeks) US	First published: April 1980
	Morning Man Adventure	-	-	-	-	US68 (7 weeks) US	First published: October 1980
1981	I don't need you adventure	-	-	-	-	US56 (7 weeks) US	First published: March 1981

More singles

• 1974: Terminal
• 1974: Talk
• 1974: Our National Pastime
• 1975: I Don't Want To Hold Your Hand
• 1975: Deco Lady
• 1976: Weekend Lover
• 1976: Who, What, When, Where, Why
• 1978: Bedside Companions
• 1981: Blackjack
• 1981: Loved By The One You Love
• 1982: The End

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Canada 1980: for the album Partners in Crime 1980: for the single Escape (The Piña Colada Song)

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Canada (MC)	2 × gold2	-	125,000	musiccanada.com
United States (RIAA)	2 × gold2	-	1,500,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	gold1	-	400,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	5 × gold5	-

Other works

theatre

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Eng. The Secret of Edwin Drood )
• Twelfth Night
• Accomplice
• The Hamburger Hamlet
• Solitary confinement
• Goosebumps
• Say goodnight, Gracie
• Thumbs
• Marty
• Curtains
• Swango
• The Picture of Dorian Gray

Television films

• Remember IF
• Hi Honey I'm Home
• No small affair
• Five Savage Men
• A star is born
• Art in Heaven

Books

• swing
• Where The Truth Lies
• False information

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE UK US

Web links

• Rupert Holmes - Official Website (English)
• Sparks - Sparks "Big Beat" LP - produced by Rupert Holmes
• New York Magazine Interview (2003 )
• Rupert Holmes in theInternet Movie Database(English)
• Rupert Holmes in the Internet Broadway Database (English)
• Review of the new musical Curtains (English)
• Review of a 1990 cabaret performance by Holmes (English)