Jimmy Dunne (songwriter)
Encyclopedia
James Patrick Dunne is an American
songwriter, recording artist, composer, film and television producer, and entrepreneur. His songs have been recorded on 27,000,000 records worldwide and over 1,400 television episodes and film scores. He is best known for writing the National Association of Recording Merchandisers’ “Best Record of the Year” “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” which was recorded by artists such as Whitney Houston
, Jermaine Jackson
, Anne Murray
, and Dave Loggins
.
, the second of seven children. He went to high school at Lyons Township, a public high school in La Grange, Illinois
. He was named Most Valuable Player of the Varsity Tennis
team, feature writer of the school paper, elected President of the School, and voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by his 6,000 classmates.
Dunne attended the University of Kentucky
where he played on the Varsity Tennis Team and was very active in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity
(SAE). Jimmy graduated with double topical majors in Journalism
and Business
and double topical minors in Music
and Advertising
. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, finishing in the top 1% of his graduating class. He was also a feature writer for the “Kentucky Kernel” school newspaper, honored as a member of Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Honorary
, and was a Haggin Scholar. While in college, Dunne began his music career playing concerts throughout the Midwest while he was recording his second instrumental album, “Me and My Song.” He also founded Dunne productions, a music booking agency in Kentucky.
in as the Tutor in Residence for SAE at the University of Southern California (USC)
while taking graduate courses at USC’s Thornton School of Music
. He landed his first job with Happy Days
and soon after he was hired, Jimmy wrote an episode for the show and became the youngest producer at Paramount
just a year later. He continued to work on Happy Days and wrote some of the most memorable episodes of the series.
After Happy Days ended, Dunne became the Producer and Writer of the spin off show, Joanie Loves Chachi
and continued to produce pilots for Ron Howard and other Happy Days colleagues, such as Littleshots. Jimmy also acted in a number of hit series and films including Dynasty, As the World Turns
, Guiding Light
, Santa Barbara, Happy Days, Pretty Woman
, and Hotel just to name a few. He also holds screenwriting credits for a number of feature films with Universal Studios
, Disney/Touchstone
, Columbia Pictures
, Kings Road Films, and HBO.
, Dear God, Heart Like a Wheel, and Pretty Woman, just to name a few. Jimmy also holds songwriting credits in the Pop, Country, and R&B markets with some of the most notable artists in the industry including Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Anne Murray, Dave Loggins, and Kenny Rogers
.
Jimmy’s best known works stretch across the music industry. He wrote the theme song for Joanie Loves Chachi, “You Look at Me.” Dunne also wrote “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” which was made popular by Whitney Houston and Jermaine Jackson in the pop genre and Anne Murray and Dave Loggins in the country market. It was also used as a major story arc in As the World Turns for Betsy (Meg Ryan
) and Steve’s (Frank Runyeon) wedding. “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do” also won the National Association of Recording Merchandisers’ “Best Record of the Year” Award. Jimmy’s music has also been used by Take 6
, for which they won a Grammy.
As a recording artist, Jimmy has recorded many of the most successful CD releases for Sugo Records such as “Summer Stories,” “Cinema,” “Rhythm,” and “Passion, Heart, and Soul.” His latest album, “Sanctuary,” was also released on Sugo Records.
Jimmy Dunne is also the president and founder of Inspire and was formerly the president of Communication Center, a branding and creative services firm in Los Angeles. Before creating Inspire, Jimmy worked with graphic designers, business writers, multi-media artists, photographers, and website designers all across the country.
Inspire took all of those principles and combined it with music, making it one of the most respected and successful music distribution and marketing firms in America. Inspire has partnered with JCPenney, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
, American Greetings
, Visa, UPS
, and Buca di Beppo
Restaurants. Current partnerships include music distribution to Whole Foods Market
and a one-of-a-kind digital marketing campaign with conference-calling company Intercall called the InterCall
Lounge.
Jimmy Dunne is also a sought-after speaker on the music industry’s relationship with national retailers, corporations, and charities. He has been a keynote speaker at numerous music industry, branding, and advertising conferences and has also lectured at the University of Southern California, University of California, Los Angeles
, and many others.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
songwriter, recording artist, composer, film and television producer, and entrepreneur. His songs have been recorded on 27,000,000 records worldwide and over 1,400 television episodes and film scores. He is best known for writing the National Association of Recording Merchandisers’ “Best Record of the Year” “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” which was recorded by artists such as Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...
, Jermaine Jackson
Jermaine Jackson
Jermaine La Jaune Jackson is an American singer, bassist, composer, a member of The Jackson 5, older brother of American pop stars Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson and occasional film director...
, Anne Murray
Anne Murray
Morna Anne Murray CC, ONS is a Canadian singer in pop, country and adult contemporary styles whose albums have sold over 54 million copies....
, and Dave Loggins
Dave Loggins
David Allen "Dave" Loggins is a singer, songwriter and musician. He is widely remembered for his 1974 composition "Please Come to Boston", which was a top-10 hit in the U.S. for him, and was subsequently covered by numerous other artists. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame...
.
Early Life and College
Jimmy Dunne was born in Oak Park, IllinoisOak Park, Illinois
Oak Park, Illinois is a suburb bordering the west side of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the twenty-fifth largest municipality in Illinois. Oak Park has easy access to downtown Chicago due to public transportation such as the Chicago 'L' Blue and Green lines,...
, the second of seven children. He went to high school at Lyons Township, a public high school in La Grange, Illinois
La Grange, Illinois
La Grange, a suburb of Chicago, is a village in Cook County, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The population was 15,608 at the 2000 census.-History:...
. He was named Most Valuable Player of the Varsity Tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
team, feature writer of the school paper, elected President of the School, and voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by his 6,000 classmates.
Dunne attended the University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...
where he played on the Varsity Tennis Team and was very active in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity
Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Sigma Alpha Epsilon is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity founded at the University of Alabama on March 9, 1856. Of all existing national social fraternities today, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the only one founded in the Antebellum South...
(SAE). Jimmy graduated with double topical majors in Journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
and Business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
and double topical minors in Music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
and Advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, finishing in the top 1% of his graduating class. He was also a feature writer for the “Kentucky Kernel” school newspaper, honored as a member of Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Honorary
Omicron Delta Kappa
Omicron Delta Kappa, or ΟΔΚ, also known as The Circle, or more commonly ODK, is a national leadership honor society. It was founded December 3, 1914, at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, by 15 student and faculty leaders. Chapters, known as Circles, are located on over 300...
, and was a Haggin Scholar. While in college, Dunne began his music career playing concerts throughout the Midwest while he was recording his second instrumental album, “Me and My Song.” He also founded Dunne productions, a music booking agency in Kentucky.
Film and Television Career
Jimmy Dunne moved to Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in as the Tutor in Residence for SAE at the University of Southern California (USC)
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
while taking graduate courses at USC’s Thornton School of Music
USC Thornton School of Music
The University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, founded in 1884 and dedicated in 1999, is one of the premier music schools in the United States...
. He landed his first job with Happy Days
Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
and soon after he was hired, Jimmy wrote an episode for the show and became the youngest producer at Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
just a year later. He continued to work on Happy Days and wrote some of the most memorable episodes of the series.
After Happy Days ended, Dunne became the Producer and Writer of the spin off show, Joanie Loves Chachi
Joanie Loves Chachi
Joanie Loves Chachi is an American television spin-off of the popular American sitcom Happy Days that was originally broadcast on ABC from March 23, 1982 to September 13, 1983...
and continued to produce pilots for Ron Howard and other Happy Days colleagues, such as Littleshots. Jimmy also acted in a number of hit series and films including Dynasty, As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...
, Guiding Light
Guiding Light
Guiding Light is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running drama in television and radio history, running from 1937 until 2009...
, Santa Barbara, Happy Days, Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman is a 1990 romantic comedy film set in Los Angeles, California. Written by J.F. Lawton and directed by Garry Marshall, this motion picture features Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, and also Hector Elizondo, Ralph Bellamy, and Jason Alexander in supporting roles. Roberts played the only...
, and Hotel just to name a few. He also holds screenwriting credits for a number of feature films with Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, Disney/Touchstone
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
, Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, Kings Road Films, and HBO.
Music career
Jimmy Dunne began playing and writing music at a young age. Through college he had recorded several instrumental records and began breaking into the music industry once arriving in Los Angeles. He has written, composed, and scored music for several films and television shows, such as: Happy Days, Joanie Loves Chachi, As the World Turns, ABC Wide World of Sports, NBC Sports, Official Songs of the Olympic Games, Fame, Princess Diaries IIThe Princess Diaries, Volume II: Princess in the Spotlight
The Princess Diaries Volume II: Princess in the Spotlight, released in the United Kingdom as Princess Diaries: Take Two, is the second book in the series The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot and was published in 2001...
, Dear God, Heart Like a Wheel, and Pretty Woman, just to name a few. Jimmy also holds songwriting credits in the Pop, Country, and R&B markets with some of the most notable artists in the industry including Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Anne Murray, Dave Loggins, and Kenny Rogers
Kenny Rogers
Kenneth Donald "Kenny" Rogers is an American singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur...
.
Jimmy’s best known works stretch across the music industry. He wrote the theme song for Joanie Loves Chachi, “You Look at Me.” Dunne also wrote “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” which was made popular by Whitney Houston and Jermaine Jackson in the pop genre and Anne Murray and Dave Loggins in the country market. It was also used as a major story arc in As the World Turns for Betsy (Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan
Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra , professionally known as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and producer. Raised in Bethel, Connecticut, Ryan began her acting career in 1981 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982...
) and Steve’s (Frank Runyeon) wedding. “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do” also won the National Association of Recording Merchandisers’ “Best Record of the Year” Award. Jimmy’s music has also been used by Take 6
Take 6
Take 6 is an American a cappella gospel music sextet formed in 1980 on the campus of Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. The group sings in a contemporary style, integrating R&B and jazz influences into their devotional songs and has 10 Grammy wins, 10 Dove Awards, one Soul Train Award and two...
, for which they won a Grammy.
As a recording artist, Jimmy has recorded many of the most successful CD releases for Sugo Records such as “Summer Stories,” “Cinema,” “Rhythm,” and “Passion, Heart, and Soul.” His latest album, “Sanctuary,” was also released on Sugo Records.
Inspire
Inspire took all of those principles and combined it with music, making it one of the most respected and successful music distribution and marketing firms in America. Inspire has partnered with JCPenney, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is a Los Angeles, California-based coffee chain, owned and operated by International Coffee & Tea, LLC. The first Coffee Bean opened in September 1963. The chain has over 750 locations in 22 countries...
, American Greetings
American Greetings
American Greetings Corporation, Inc. is the world's largest publicly-traded greeting card company. It is based in Brooklyn, Ohio and sells paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products , and electronic expressive content...
, Visa, UPS
United Parcel Service
United Parcel Service, Inc. , typically referred to by the acronym UPS, is a package delivery company. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, UPS delivers more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the...
, and Buca di Beppo
Buca di Beppo
Buca di Beppo is a restaurant specializing in immigrant Southern Italian food. The name roughly translates as "Joe's Basement"...
Restaurants. Current partnerships include music distribution to Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods Market is a foods supermarket chain based in Austin, Texas which emphasizes "natural and organic products." The company has been ranked among the most socially responsible businesses and placed third on the U.S...
and a one-of-a-kind digital marketing campaign with conference-calling company Intercall called the InterCall
InterCall
InterCall, a subsidiary of West Corporation, is a conferencing and collaboration service provider. The company claims a customer base of over 1.7 million individual conference leaders in more than 75,000 organizations, 94% of Fortune 100, 88% of the Fortune 500 and 74% of the Fortune 1000.InterCall...
Lounge.
Jimmy Dunne is also a sought-after speaker on the music industry’s relationship with national retailers, corporations, and charities. He has been a keynote speaker at numerous music industry, branding, and advertising conferences and has also lectured at the University of Southern California, University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, and many others.