Vonda Shepard

Vonda Shepard (born July 7, 1963) is an American singer, songwriter, music director and actress. She appeared as a regular in the television show '' Ally McBeal'', as a resident performer in the bar where the show's characters drank, danced and conversed after work. In 1998 she had a hit with the show's theme tune and soundtrack, "Searchin' My Soul". Her version of Kay Starr's Christmas classic " (Everybody's Waitin' for) The Man with the Bag", after it was featured on a season 4 episode of ''Ally McBeal'', became a popular holiday song. She plays piano, bass guitar, and guitar. Vonda has sold over 12 million records worldwide and has won two Golden Globes and two Emmy awards. She has also won two Screen Actors Guild awards. She holds the record for selling the most television soundtrack albums in history and as a result has also won a ''Billboard'' award.

Life and career

Vonda Shepard was born in New York City in 1963. Her family relocated to California when she was a child. She played piano from an early age. Her father was Richmond Shepard, a mime and improvisational actor. She has three sisters.

Vonda has released 15 albums, including eight solo albums, three live albums and four albums for ''Ally McBeal''.  

Throughout her career she has played keyboards and has sung with Jackson Browne, Al Jarreau, and Rickie Lee Jones.

Vonda has sold over 12 million albums. She has won two Golden Globes, two Emmy awards and two Screen Actors Guild awards and the ''Billboard'' award for selling the most television soundtrack albums in history.  

Vonda continues to tour the world, playing her original material and songs from her days on ''Ally McBeal''.  Her latest album is titled ''Rookie.''

After performing as a backing singer for many years, she eventually got her own recording contract. Vonda's first chart appearance was in 1987, when she recorded a duet with Dan Hill entitled "Can't We Try." Before this, she had tried out for the part of Michael J. Fox's sister in ''Light of Day,'' but she lost the part to Joan Jett. She was also poised to sing on Peter Cetera's duet "The Next Time I Fall," but he picked Amy Grant instead. She released her first self-titled album in 1989, but with little fanfare. The album did yield one chart single, "Don't Cry Ilene," a middle-tempo piano-driven jazz-R&B flavored song dealing with the break-up of a relationship between a black woman and a white man, arising from adult peer pressure. The track is sung from the perspective of the woman's white female friend, who harbors a desire to have the man for herself, but keeps her distance out of respect for her friend. The song peaked at Number 17 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart and stayed on the charts for 12 weeks.

After her third album, Vonda was signed up to appear on ''Ally McBeal'' after the show's creator, former attorney David E. Kelley, spotted her performing in a nightclub. While on the show she recorded two full soundtrack albums and was featured on two other ''Ally McBeal'' compilations. The songs that Shepard recorded for the ''Ally McBeal'' soundtrack albums were mainly covers of old songs with lyrics that paralleled what was happening in the title character's life on-screen. However, "Searchin' My Soul," which became the album's biggest hit single after Kelley chose it for the show's titles theme. The song was an original selection jointly written and composed by Vonda and Paul Howard Gordon.

She married music producer Mitchell Froom in 2004; they had their first child in 2006. She is also the stepmother to Froom's daughter, Ruby, from his marriage to Suzanne Vega.

She provided vocals for "I Need You," whose music had been composed by James Newton Howard, for the 2010 film ''Love & Other Drugs,'' which starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway.

Discography

Albums

Studio albums

Soundtrack albums

Live albums

Singles

References

External links

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Vonda Shepard
at Richard De La Font Agency

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shepard, Vonda
1963 births
Living people
American contraltos
American women singer-songwriters
American women pop singers
American television actresses
Singer-songwriters from California
Singers from New York City
Reprise Records artists
550 Music artists
Singer-songwriters from New York (state)
21st-century American women