Singer, songwriter, guitar and piano player who has been nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording for her memoir, “Elvis, Rocky, & Me,” and next year it will come out on film as a documentary. She is perhaps best known as the lead vocalist on the Teddy Bears’ single, “To Know Him Is To Love Him,” which was written by her bandmate, the legendary producer Phil Spector. Her best-known contribution as a songwriter is co-writing the song “Gonna Fly Now” for the 1976 movie Rocky, for which she shared an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. Also among her songwriting credits is the 1980 Billy Preston & Syreeta duet, “With You I’m Born Again,” which reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. She also wrote and performed songs for several films and has a star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.
“I'm in the shower and it's a wonderful place for ideas to come to you, a car or a shower. I think it's because you're by yourself.”
“I made five hundred dollars up front. Bill Conti made two thousand. The entire music budget of our film was eighteen thousand dollars. The film was nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Nobody knew it would be a hit. I bought my house in Beverly Hills on the backside of that particular song.”
“I was in Fairfax high school when it came out. I recorded it in between going from Louis Pasteur junior high to high school… The next thing you know, I had the number one record in the world.”
“(Elvis Presley) fell in love with my voice and the people that were around him were known as the Memphis Mafia. And he said to the Memphis Mafia – those were all his cousins and friends and whatever – … ‘I love that girl's voice. I would love to meet her one day’.”
“I take notes, I write down what they say because somewhere in those discussions there are little gems of what they're really looking for, for what the film should say. I listen to everything… to be a good songwriter you must be a great listener, just to be a good songwriter.”
“All I thought about really was the process of writing the song and what could I bring to the film.”
“I was doing a film… and the producer kept saying, ‘Oh, if only we could get, we have to get a voice like Sarah Vaughan. We have to get a voice like Sarah Vaughan.’ I said, ‘Why don't you just ask Sarah Vaughan?’ And they said, ‘We can't do that.’ I said, ‘Oh yes you can!’ She recorded the song. It's one of my Emmy nominations.”
“The way I can describe (the current GRAMMY nomination), … if everything that you ever wished for, wanted, dreamed of, needed, thought of, hoped for, was coming true before your eyes, once again I'm dancing on stars and I'm over the moon.”
“Always take credit when credit is due. Never ever take credit when it doesn't belong to you.”
“My life is my music, and my music is my life.”
“Gonna Fly Now” (Rocky theme) (Bill Conti)
“To Know Him Is to Love Him” (The Teddy Bears)