Jeff Paris (born Geoffrey Brillhart Leib) is an American vocalist, keyboardist and guitarist who has primarily performed in the

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

/ heavy metal genre. Still performing under the name Geoffrey Leib, Paris began his career as a session musician in the 1970s, appearing on albums by such acts as

Jay Gruska Jay Gruska (; born April 23, 1952) is an American songwriter and composer best known for his film and television scoring, and for writing hit songs for a variety of artists. He has composed musical scores for dozens of TV dramas, with over 500 ...

(''Gruska on Gruska'') and

Bill Withers William Harrison Withers Jr. (July 4, 1938 – March 30, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He had several hits over a career spanning 18 years, including "Ain't No Sunshine" (1971), "Grandma's Hands" (1971), " Use Me" (1972) ...

('' Naked & Warm'', '' 'Bout Love''). His initial band was the jazz/soul/disco quartet, Pieces, who released an album in 1979, following which he had a stint with the disco band L.A.X., who released two albums in 1979 and 1980. Paris/Leib started his hard rock career as songwriter on 1984 albums by

Lita Ford Lita Rossana Ford (born 19 September 1958) is an English-born American guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. She was the lead guitarist for the all-female rock band the Runaways in the late 1970s, before embarking on a successful glam metal solo ...

and Y&T. His credits included "Gotta Let Go" (Ford) and "Lipstick & Leather" (Y&T). He went on to work as session musician on

Cinderella "Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsi ...

's 1986 debut album, playing keyboards. Around the same time, he signed with

PolyGram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

, releasing two solo albums ''Race to Paradise'' in 1986,''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' - December 27, 1986, p. 71, "Finally, Poly- Gram's Jeff Paris was in working on his upcoming album with producer/engineer Tony Piat" and ''Wired Up'' in 1987, but both failed to make commercial impact. In the 1990s, Paris released more three solo albums: ''Lucky This Time'' (1993), ''Smack'' (1997) and ''Freak Flag'' (1998) and also continued working as a session musician and songwriter. In this session player/songwriter role, Paris worked with different bands and artists such as, in addition to the abovementioned

and Y&T, the female rock band

Vixen Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

Michael Sembello Michael Andrew Sembello (born April 17, 1954) is an American singer, guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, composer and producer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sembello was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his 1983 song " ...

, XYZ,

Stevie Salas Stevie Salas (born November 17, 1964) is a Native American guitarist, author, television host, music director, record producer, film composer, and former advisor of contemporary music at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. ...

, Mr. Big, and many others, primarily as keyboardist and backing vocalist. As a songwriter, he co-wrote many hits around late 1980s and early 1990s such as the song " Waiting for Love," which became a successful single for the band

Alias Alias may refer to: * Pseudonym * Pen name * Nickname Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Alias'' (2013 film), a 2013 Canadian documentary film * ''Alias'' (TV series), an American action thriller series 2001–2006 * ''Alias the ...

in the early 1990s. Also, the songs "One Night Alone", "Charmed Life" and "Cryin" from Vixen's self-titled debut album were all covers of Paris songs, that had originally appeared on his ''Wired Up'' album (a fourth Paris composition, "Give It Away," which he had first featured on ''Race to Paradise'', was also included as a bonus track on the same Vixen album). "Cryin'" became one of the ''Vixen'' album's two big hits (following up their first hit single, "Edge of a Broken Heart"). He also penned the song "Let It Out" for Y&T's '' Ten'' album and "Road To Ruin," recorded by Mr. Big, who also recorded his song "CDFF-Lucky This Time" for their album '' Lean Into It''; two years later, Paris re-recorded the latter song for his 1993 album.

Discography

Studio albums

* ''Race to Paradise'' (1986) * ''Wired Up'' (1987) * ''Lucky This Time'' (1993) * ''Smack'' (1997) * ''Freak Flag'' (1998) * ''Broken Chain'' (2011)

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American musicians {{US-singer-stub