Warren Schatz, born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, is a prominent producer,

arranger In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

and

orchestra conductor Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as an orchestral or Choir, choral concert. It has been defined as "the art of directing the simultaneous performance of several players or singers by the use of gesture." The primary ...

during the 1970s. Warren Schatz is famous for composing, producing, arranging, and conducting the orchestra for such mid- to late-1970s disco recording artists as

Frankie Valli Francesco Stephen Castelluccio (born May 3, 1934), better known by his stage name Frankie Valli, is an American singer, known as the frontman of the Four Seasons beginning in 1960. He is known for his unusually powerful lead falsetto voice. ...

Vicki Sue Robinson Vicki Sue Robinson (May 31, 1954 – April 27, 2000) was an American theatre and film actress, and singer, closely associated with the disco era of late 1970s pop music; she is most famous for her 1976 hit, "Turn the Beat Around". Early life Bor ...

, The Brothers, Revelation, Evelyn King, and Gordon Grody. He started as a delivery boy at Associated Recording in 1957 and by the time he was 14 he started his career as an engineer, recording song demos with Paul Simon, Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Dionne Warwick, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Carole King and Gerry Goffin. During this time he started recording himself under the name Ritchie Dean, The Whispers, The Warmest Spring, The American Youth Choir, The Petrified Forrest, and Warren Schatz. Recording for Swirl, Imperial, Cameo/Parkway, Laurie, Tower (Capitol), Mercury, Polydor, Warner Bros. In 1968 he and his partner, Stephen Schlaks, produced Wilkinson Tricycle for Columbia's

Date Records Date Records was a sub-label of Columbia Records which had two different incarnations. The first incarnation was a short-lived rockabilly label in 1958 which included a release by Billy "Crash" Craddock. The more significant incarnation was relau ...

, Banshee for Atlantic, and

Yesterday's Children Yesterday's Children were an American psychedelic rock band formed in Cheshire-Prospect, Connecticut, outside of New Haven, in 1966. The group's earliest release was the psychedelic rock-influenced single "To Be or Not to Be". Though, at fir ...

for Map City. In 1970 he signed with managers, Rachel Elkind and Walter Carlos, who just had a big hit with "Switched On Bach" and released and album in Columbia Records. During a performance at

Budokan Hall The , often shortened to simply Budokan, is an indoor arena located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It was originally built for the inaugural Olympic judo competition in the 1964 Summer Olympics. While its primary purpose is to host martial arts con ...

in Tokyo, he became friends with Jukka Kuoppamaki, who brought him to Finland to tour with him. While living in Helsinki, he represented the U.S. At the Sopot Music Festival in Poland, where he won the Press Prize. For the next two years he toured throughout Eastern Europe and produced an album for Jukka on EMI and his second album for Love Records, which was also released by EMI in Sweden, Holland, Global Records in Germany, Polskie Nagrania "Muza" in Poland, Electrecord in Romania and Beverly in Brazil. When he returned home to the U.S., he was hired as arranger by Hank Medress and Dave Appel for

Tony Orlando Tony may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer * Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leag ...

's "To Be With You" then

album for Private Stock Records, which included his hit "

Our Day Will Come "Our Day Will Come" is a popular song composed by Mort Garson with lyrics by Bob Hilliard. It was recorded by American R&B group Ruby & the Romantics in early December 1962, reaching #1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Ruby & the Romantics' orig ...

". During that time

Allen Stanton Allen 'Al' Stanton (November 23, 1924 – March 11, 2015) was an American music executive and record producer best known for his production work for The Byrds on their third album, ''Fifth Dimension (album), Fifth Dimension'' (1966). Early caree ...

hired him as a song plugger at RCA's publishing company, Sumbury/Dunbar, where he signed and/or recorded

, The Brothers,

Evelyn "Champagne" King Evelyn "Champagne" King (born July 1, 1960) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. She is best known for her hit disco single "Shame", which was released in 1977 during the height of disco's popularity. King had other hits from ...

, Fandango featuring Joe Lynn Turner, and The New York Community Choir. While "Turn Turn The Beat Around" was climbing the charts he was tapped by RCA's NBC network to become the on-air audio engineer for the first season of Saturday Night Live, where he stayed for nine months before he fully resumed his position at Sunbury/Dunbar. With great success he was promoted the National VP of A&R at RCA in 1976 and was responsible for all artists on the RCA roster, from

Roger Whittaker Roger Henry Brough Whittaker (born 22 March 1936) is a British singer-songwriter and musician, who was born in Nairobi to English parents. His music is an eclectic mix of folk music and popular songs in addition to radio airplay hits. He is bes ...

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. He signed

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, Machine, Kristy and Jimmy McNichol. All had hits. He moved on to become COO and Senior VP at Ariola America, BMG's first label in the U.S.where he signed Viola Wills and Krokus, who both had hits. After Ariola he started Perfect Sound Studios, Inc. where he continued to produce Vicki Sue Robinson for Prelude and Profile. Viola Wills for Hansa, Menage's "Memory" also for Profile. He created the successful "What If Mozart Wrote" series for RCA Red Seal. The first album, ''What If Mozart Wrote Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas''. Warren was nominated for a Grammy for writing and producing the music video for "Get a Job" from the second "What If" album. He also recorded with

Ann Hampton Callaway Ann Hampton Callaway (born May 30, 1958) is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and actress. She wrote and sang the theme song for the TV series ''The Nanny''. Career A native of Chicago, her father, John Callaway, was a journalist and her mot ...

Frankie Laine Frankie Laine (born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio; March 30, 1913 – February 6, 2007) was an American Singing, singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned nearly 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to hi ...

, John O'Conor, Julie Budd, and

Barbara Carroll Barbara Carroll (born Barbara Carole Coppersmith; January 25, 1925 – February 12, 2017) was an American jazz pianist and vocalist. Early life and career Carroll was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. She began her classical training in piano at ...

. Perfect Sound also started creating projects for corporate communications and had CitiBank, Chemical Bank, Xerox, Hess Oil, as clients. In 1999 Warren went to work at TVT, TommyBoy and Urban Box Office as head of manufacturing and distribution. Moving into video in 2007, he started creating video content and marketing Support for "Big Data" companies, Opera Solutions, MIT, Connotate, He is currently Executive VP at Penalty Entertainment, the classic Hip-Hop label relaunched by his friend Neil Levine. In 1965 the Swedish garage pop group

Ola & the Janglers Ola & the Janglers were a garage rock and beat group, founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 1962. Its lead member was Ola Håkansson. Guitarist Claes "Clabbe" af Geijerstam wrote many of their hits. He was later a member of the duo Nova (Swedish name ...

recorded a Warren Schatz composition, "Tomorrow's On Your Side", only available on two EPs, GEP-66 (Ola & the Janglers EP) and JSEP-5547 (various artists EP) in Sweden. Warren Schatz has also recorded obscure cover versions of Finnish singer

Irwin Goodman Antti Yrjö Hammarberg (14 September 1943 – 14 January 1991), professionally known as Irwin Goodman, was a popular Finnish rock and folk singer. In the late 1960s he was widely known as a protest singer. He recorded over 300 songs, most of which ...

's songs, released on two ultra-rare CBS singles in the early 1970s: CBS 1405: "Don't You Go Away Again" ("Tositarkoituksin") with "I've Been Wonderin" ("Ei Tippa Tapa") on the flip side and CBS 8344: "Boing, Boing, Boing" with "Tomorrow On My Own" on the flip side.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schatz, Warren American male composers 21st-century American composers American record producers American music arrangers Living people Musicians from New York (state) Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American male musicians