John DeNicola

John DeNicola (born October 4, 1955) is an American songwriter and producer. He is best known for co-writing the song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", for which he won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as receiving a Grammy nomination, in 1988. In 1989 he was the co-winner of ASCAP Awards' "Most Performed Songs from Motion Pictures" for "Time of My Life" as well as for "Hungry Eyes", another song from the film.^[1] In addition to Dirty Dancing hits for Bill Medley, Jennifer Warnes and Eric Carmen, he has also written songs with and for Eddie Money, John Waite, Kristine W, Steve Holy, Jeannie Kendall, Sugar Jones, Annie Haslam, Bernie Worrell, The Sighs and Martin Briley.^[2][3]

Songwriter and producer

A native of Smithtown, NY and a longtime resident of Greenwich Village, DeNicola began his musical career as a bass player with "Flight", a band which recorded for Motown in 1980 and was sampled by Erikah Badu on her hit song "Back in the Day".^[4] He played with several other acts before changing his career. Although his songwriter portfolio includes music written for and performed by other artists, he is best known for his collaboration with Franke Previte and Donald Markowitz on the award-winning songs for Dirty Dancing.^[5][6]

DeNicola shared an imprint, Omad/Paradigm Records, through which he produced a number of albums, before creating his own studio, Jake's Kitchen Sink. Kara's Flowers, who went on to become Maroon 5, are among the artists he has produced for.

DeNicola continues to write songs and works with new musical talent.^[7]

References

External links

• John DeNicola official website
• John DeNicola Myspace page
• John DeNicola at the Internet Movie Database