Lewis Furey, born with the name Lewis Greenblatt (7 June 1949), is a Canadian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

, singer,

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

ist,

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

and

director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

Career

Born in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

to French and American parents, Furey trained as a classical violinist, and at age 11 performed as a soloist in the ''Matinées pour la jeunesse'' concert series of the

Montreal Symphony Orchestra The Montreal Symphony Orchestra () is a Canadian symphony orchestra based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The orchestra’s home is the Montreal Symphony House at Place des Arts. History Several orchestras were precursor ensembles to the curren ...

. From 1961 to 1965 he studied at the

Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal The Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal (, CMQM) is a music conservatory located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In addition to the Montreal region, the school takes in students from nearby cities, including Granby, Joliette, St-Jean ...

."Lewis Furey brings Brahms back to life"
Brendan Kelly, ''Montreal Gazette'', 23 October 2016 He later studied at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...

in New York City. In 1972, he began playing and recording his own rock music compositions. In the ensuing years, he produced three albums of pop music: ''Lewis Furey'' (1975, A & M 4522), ''The Humours of Lewis Furey'' (1976, A & M 4594) and ''The Sky is Falling'' (1979, Aquarius AQR-521). Distinguishing features of the albums were Furey's

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Althoug ...

-like vocal stylings, a number of songs with

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

content (particularly the local Montréal radio hit ''Hustler's Tango''), and exotic arrangements featuring unusual uses of violin and banjo as well as elements of

klezmer Klezmer ( or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these wou ...

music. In 1975, he began a new venture as a composer for films. His first film score, for director

Gilles Carle Gilles Carle, (July 31, 1928As fully funny, Carle had pleasure to always give himself one year less, and to let people think wrongly that he was born in 1929, "The Year of the Big World Crash": see on the Quebec French newspapers that many write ...

's ''La Tête de Normande St. Onge'' (1975), won a

Canadian Film Award The Canadian Film Awards were the leading Canadian cinema awards from 1949 until 1978. These honours were conducted annually, except in 1974 when a number of Quebec directors withdrew their participation and prompted a cancellation. In the 1970s ...

. In 1977, he worked on the Gilles Carle film ''L'Ange et la femme'' along with his future wife, the actress and singer Carole Laure. This project involved more than composing alone; Furey and Laure are famously seen performing a sex act in the film. Furey also composed for the

Allan Moyle Allan Moyle (born 1947) is a Canadian film director. He is best known for directing the films '' Pump Up the Volume'' (1990) and ''Empire Records'' (1995). Career His first major film was ''Times Square'' (1980). During the editing of the film h ...

film ''The Rubber Gun'', which despite the risqué-sounding title was about families affected by drug use. Later in the 1970s, Furey and Laure produced a number of successful stage reviews in Paris. Furey also served as producer and frequently also as songwriter for a series of albums by Carole Laure, beginning with ''Alibis'' (1979, RCA KKL-1-0290), a hit in Québec in 1979. In 1980, Furey wrote the music for another Gilles Carle film ''Fantastica'', which starred Laure in the lead role of Lorca. Furey also acted in the film and was nominated for a

Genie Award The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978), known as the "Etrog Awards" for sculptor ...

in Canada for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role." Furey further developed his career in film and television music with productions such as a 1983 Gilles Carle movie, '' Maria Chapdelaine'', based on the classic Québec-based Louis Hémon novel of the same name. His score for this film won a Genie Award. In 1984 he wrote the screenplay for '' Night Magic'', with the script co-written by

Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian songwriter, singer, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, soc ...

. Based in France since the late 1970s, Furey has continued to score film and television work as well as producing and writing for successful albums by Laure, such as ''She Says Move On'' (1991) and ''Sentiments naturels'' (1997). A stage production based on the latter ran for over a month in Paris in 1998. Furey's songs have been recorded by various other artists such as

Céline Dion Céline Marie Claudette Dion (born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Referred to as the " Queen of Power Ballads", Dion's powerful, technically skilled vocals and commercially successful works have had a significant impact on popular musi ...

, who recorded "Michael's Song" ('' La ballade de Michel'') and "Listen to the Magic Man" ("'' Dans La Main D'un Magicien''") for the film '' The Peanut Butter Solution'' (1985), both co-written by

Eddy Marnay Edmond Bacri (18 December 1920 – 3 January 2003), known professionally as Eddy Marnay, was a French songwriter. In his career, he wrote more than 4000 songs, including works for Édith Piaf, Frida Boccara and Céline Dion. He was joint win ...

etailed biography in French Wikipedia

Tom Robinson Living people Thomas Giles Robinson (born 1 June 1950) is a British singer, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist, best known for the hits " Glad to Be Gay", " 2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with hi ...

, who recorded "Closing a Door" ('' Cabaret '79'', 1982) and "Love Comes" (''

North by Northwest ''North by Northwest'' is a 1959 American spy thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason. The original screenplay written by Ernest Lehman was intended to be the basis for ...

'', 1982); and

Petula Clark Sally "Petula" Clark (born 15 November 1932) is a British singer, actress, and songwriter. She started her professional career as a child actor, child performer and has had the longest career of any British entertainer, spanning more than 85 y ...

. His first two albums became hits in Japan and are available on CD only as Japanese re-releases. He is abundantly represented on the Japanese-language internet (search on ルイス･フューレイ). A CD version of ''The Sky is Falling'' was released in France. He is the brother of Canadian playwright/actor/pianist Richard Greenblatt, author of the major hit play '' 2 Pianos, 4 Hands''.

Discography

Albums

*''Lewis Furey'', 1975 *''The Humours of Lewis Furey'', 1976 *''The Sky is Falling'', 1979 * Carole Laure/Lewis Furey ''Fantastica'', 1980 * Carole Laure/Lewis Furey ''Enregistrement Public au Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin'', 1982 * Carole Laure/Lewis Furey ''Night Magic'', 1985 * "Haunted By Brahms", 2017/2018

Singles

*Lewis Furey: ''Lewis is crazy''/ ''What a sad summer'', Gamma, 1972 (Canada) *Lewis Furey: ''Hustler's tango'' / ''Last night'', A & M, 1975 (USA) *Lewis Furey: ''Lullaby'' / ''Who's got the bag'', A & M, 1976 (USA) *Lewis Furey: ''Top ten sexes'', A & M, 1976 (USA) *Lewis Furey: ''Waiting on you'' / ''The sky is falling'', Aquarius, 1978 (Canada) *Lewis Furey& Carole Laure: ''See you Monday'', RCA / Saravah, 1979 (original soundtrack of the film ''Au revoir... à lundi'') (France) *Lewis Furey& Carole Laure: ''Fantastica'' / ''What's wrong with me'', RCA / Saravah, 1980 (original soundtrack of the film ''Fantastica'') (France) *Lewis Furey& Carole Laure: ''I should have known better'' / ''Slowly, I married her'', RCA / Saravah, 1982 (France) *Lewis Furey& Carole Laure: ''Fire'' / ''Angel eyes'', RCA / Saravah, 1985 (original soundtrack of the film ''Night Magic'') (France)

Participations

* 2007: '' Plaza Musique'', L'amour et l'Occident, vocals on I Want To Be Your Friend

Filmography

*''

Normande The Normande is a breed of dairy cattle from the Normandy region of north-west France. It is raised principally for its milk, which is high in fat and suitable for making butter and cheese, but also for its meat, which is marbled and good-fla ...

(La Tête de Normande St-Onge)'', 1975 (composer) *'' The Angel and the Woman (L'Ange et la femme)'', 1977 (composer; actor) *'' The Rubber Gun'', 1977 (composer) *'' Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang'', 1978 (composer) *'' Bye, See You Monday (Au revoir à lundi)'', 1979 (composer; actor) *''Avec... le charme de Carole Laure'', 1979 (appears as himself; TV) *''Agency'', 1980 (composer) *'' Fantastica'', 1980 (composer; actor) *'' Maria Chapdelaine'', 1983 (composer) *'' American Dreamer'', 1984 (composer) *'' Night Magic'', 1985 (director; co-writer with Leonard Cohen; composer) *'' The Peanut Butter Solution'', 1985 (composer) *''Sauve-toi, Lola'', 1986 (composer) *''Champagne for Two'', Shades of Love series, 1987 (director; composer; TV) *''Lilac Dream'', Shades of Love series, 1987 (composer; TV) *''Midnight Magic'', Shades of Love series, 1987 (composer; TV) *''The Rose Café'', Shades of Love series, 1987 (composer; TV) *''Sincerely, Violet'', Shades of Love series, 1987 (composer; TV) *''The Emerald Tear'', Shades of Love series, 1988 (composer; TV) *''Little White Lies'', Shades of Love series, 1988 (composer; TV) *''The Man Who Guards the Greenhouse'', Shades of Love series, 1988 (composer; TV) *''Moonlight Flight'', Shades of Love series, 1988 (composer; TV) *'' Shadow Dancing'', 1988 (director) *''Sunset Court'', Shades of Love series, 1988 (composer; TV) *''Tangerine Taxi'', Shades of Love series, 1988 (composer; TV) *''Rats and Rabbits'', 2000 (director; writer) *''Une fille dans l'azur'', 2001 (composer; TV)

References

External links

*
Very comprehensive overview, Vivonzeureux Fanzine, in French

Lewis Furey's Personal Web Site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Furey, Lewis 1949 births 20th-century Canadian composers 20th-century Canadian male musicians 20th-century Canadian violinists and fiddlers 20th-century Canadian classical pianists 20th-century Canadian classical violinists 21st-century Canadian composers 21st-century Canadian male musicians 21st-century Canadian pianists 21st-century Canadian violinists and fiddlers 21st-century Canadian classical pianists 21st-century Canadian classical violinists Anglophone Quebec people Best Original Score Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners Best Original Song Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners Canadian classical violinists Canadian film score composers Canadian male film actors Canadian male singers Canadian record producers Canadian male violinists and fiddlers Film directors from Montreal Jewish Canadian film people Jewish Canadian musicians Living people Male actors from Montreal Canadian male classical pianists Canadian male classical violinists Canadian male film score composers Musicians from Montreal Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal alumni