Norman Gimbel

Songwriter Norman Gimbel scored his initial major strike authoring lyrics for Toots Thielemans’ 1961 melody “Bluesette”; he consequently had written the English-language version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s traditional “THE LADY From Ipanema,” also adapting compositions by Michel Legrand (“I’LL Await You” and “MONITOR WHAT Occurs,” both from Jacques Demy’s famous film musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and Marcus Valle (“Summer season Samba [So Great]”). With composer Charles Fox, Gimbel had written “Getting rid of Me Softly ALONG WITH HIS Music,” a chart-topping strike for Roberta Flack in 1973 and an eventual champion of the Grammy for Music of the entire year. Gimbel and Fox also had written prolifically for movies: their rating for 1973’s THE FINAL American Hero yielded the Jim Croce strike “I ACQUIRED a Name,” while 1975’s The Additional Side from the Hill presented the Oscar-nominated “Richard’s Windowpane.” The group earned another Academy Award nomination in 1978 for the Barry Manilow-sung “Prepared to Take a Opportunity Once again” (from Bad Play), but their biggest success is at television; they had written a large number of theme tracks, among them Content Times, Laverne and Shirley (“Producing Our Dreams BECOME A REALITY,” a high 40 strike for vocalist Cyndi Grecco), The Like Boat, Wonder Female, and Like, American Design. Gimbel teamed with composer David Shire to create “It Goes ENJOY IT Moves,” the Oscar-winning theme to 1979’s Norma Rae.