Rod McKuen
Rod McKuen ( born April 29, 1933, Oakland, California when Rodney Marvin McKuen ) is an American lyricist, composer and singer-songwriter.
Life and work
McKuen, born in 1933 in Oakland, fled eleven years old before his alcohol- addicted and gewalttärigen stepfather and lived on the U.S. West Coast, among others as a farm assistant, surveyor, Lumberjack, rodeo rider and stuntman. Later he worked as a columnist and participated in the Korean War as a propaganda writer. After returning to the U.S., he joined San Francisco initially with folk songs, later also own songs and played in the late 1950s several albums with Decca Records a. He also sang in Lionel Hampton's band and appeared in such films as Pretty Baby (1956) and Summer Love (1958 ) with.
In the 1960s, McKuen lived in France and translated numerous chansons of Jacques Brel into English. Titles such as If You Go Away and Seasons in the Sun became famous ( sung by Terry Jacks). The singer Scott Walker took several of these adaptations on board. In addition McKuen also translated songs by Gilbert Becaud, Pierre Delanoe, Michel Sardou and others.
In the second half of the 1960s he published books of poetry as Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows, Listen to the Warm and Lonesome Cities, with whom he had great success in the hippie scene, the album Lonesome Cities in 1968 with a Grammy ( Best Spoken Word Recording) excellent. With the arranger Anita Kerr and San Sebastian Strings, he took a series of pop albums from 1967 on, including The Sea (1967 ), The Earth ( 1967), The Sky (1968), Home to the Sea (1969 ), For Lovers ( 1969) and The soft sea (1970). For Frank Sinatra, he wrote the songs for the album A Man Alone.
In the 1960s and 1970s, he also composed several successful film scores. Among other things, the 1969 soundtrack to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 1971 or the original core to Cowboy John - The Last Hero in the Wild West. For the song Jean was nominated for an Academy Award ( Best Song ). Another Oscar nomination brought him the music for the film A Boy Named Charlie Brown ( 1970).
Later McKuen also turned to classical music. He composed symphonies, orchestral suites, concertos and chamber works. His piece The City: A Suite for narrator and orchestra was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for music. He also took more albums like New Ballads (1970), Pastoral ( 1971), and McKuen Country (1976 ) on. In 1977 he published his autobiographical book Finding My Father. In 1998 he published on the website of Rod McKuen / A Safe Place To Land poems, music, photographs, and a daily column. After the site his book A Safe Place To Land was named with new poems and two music CDs.
Overall McKuen took more than 200 albums, and received more than 60 gold and platinum records worldwide and has published more than thirty books of poetry, which have been translated into a dozen languages . His songs have been recorded by artists such as Madonna, Perry Como, Petula Clark, Waylon Jennings, Chet Baker, Pete Fountain, Andy Williams, Percy Faith, Dusty Springfield, Johnny Mathis and Al Hirt.