Lewis Furey
Encyclopedia
Lewis Furey, born Lewis Greenblatt (7 June 1949) is a Canadian composer
, singer, violin
ist, pianist
, actor and director
.
, Quebec
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
. From 1961 to 1965 he studied at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal. He later studied at the Juilliard School
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
-like vocal stylings, a number of songs with gay
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
music.
In 1975, he began a very successful new venture as a composer for films. His first film score, for director Gilles Carle's La Tête de Normande St. Onge (1975), won a Canadian Film Award
. 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
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
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
.
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
, 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
[detailed biography in French Wikipedia]; Tom Robinson
, who recorded Closing the Door and Love Comes; and Petula Clark
. 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
.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, singer, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, actor and director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
.
Career
Born in MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
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
Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal is a symphony orchestra based in Montréal, Québec, Canada, with Montréal's Place des Arts as its home.-History:...
. From 1961 to 1965 he studied at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal. He later studied at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
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
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
-like vocal stylings, a number of songs with gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
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
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
music.
In 1975, he began a very successful new venture as a composer for films. His first film score, for director Gilles Carle's La Tête de Normande St. Onge (1975), won a Canadian Film Award
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 Quebec directors withdrew their participation and prompted a cancellation that year....
. 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
Carole Laure
Carole Laure is an actress and singer from the province of Quebec in Canada.-Career:Throughout most of her career, Carole Laure primarily collaborated with Anglophone singer, songwriter, producer, and director Lewis Furey, whom she met in 1977 and who later became her husband...
. 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
Allan Moyle is a Canadian film director. He is best known for directing the films Pump Up the Volume and New Waterford Girl .-Biography:His first major film was Times Square...
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
Genie Award
Genie Awards are given out to recognize the best of Canadian cinema by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. From 1949-1979, the awards were named the Canadian Film Awards...
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
Maria Chapdelaine
Maria Chapdelaine is a novel written in 1913 by the French writer Louis Hémon, who was then residing in Quebec.-Adaptations:The novel has had three film adaptations, two French and one Québécois: in 1934, by Julien Duvivier, with Madeleine Renaud , and Jean Gabin , partly filmed in Péribonka; in...
, based on the classic Québec-based Louis Hémon
Louis Hémon
Louis Hémon , was a francophone writer best known for his novel Maria Chapdelaine.- Biography :He was born in Brest, France. In Paris, where he resided with his family, he was enrolled in the Montaigne and Louis-le-Grand secondary schools...
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 Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
.
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
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
, who recorded Michael's Song (La ballade de Michel
La Ballade De Michel
"La ballade de Michel" is Céline Dion's second single from the movie soundtrack Opération beurre de pinottes. It was released in 1986 in Quebec, Canada."La ballade de Michel" was issued as a radio single only....
) and Listen to the Magic Man (Dans La Main D'un Magicien
Dans La Main D'un Magicien
"Dans la main d'un magicien" is Céline Dion's first single from the movie soundtrack Opération beurre de pinottes. It was released in 1985 in Quebec, Canada....
) for the film The Peanut Butter Solution
The Peanut Butter Solution
The Peanut Butter Solution is a 1985 family film. The movie was directed by Michael Rubbo and is the 2nd in the Tales for All series of children's movies created by Les Productions la Fête.-Plot:Michael Baskin is an average 11-year old boy...
(1985), both co-written by Eddy Marnay
Eddy Marnay
Eddy Marnay was a French songwriter. In his career, he wrote more than 100 songs, including works for Édith Piaf and Céline Dion. He also wrote the title song for Charlie Chaplin's 1957 film A King in New York....
[detailed biography in French Wikipedia]; Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson is an English singer-songwriter, bassist and radio presenter, better known for the hits "Glad to Be Gay", "2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with his Tom Robinson Band...
, who recorded Closing the Door and Love Comes; and Petula Clark
Petula Clark
Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
. 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
Richard Greenblatt (playwright)
Richard Greenblatt is a Canadian playwright who currently lives in Toronto. He is best known for 2 Pianos, 4 Hands, which he wrote and performed with Ted Dykstra....
, author of the major hit play 2 Pianos, 4 Hands
2 Pianos, 4 Hands
2 Pianos, 4 Hands is a Canadian musical comedy play, written and originally performed by Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt.The two-actor play's central characters are Ted and Richard, two boys who each dream of becoming a famous classical pianist. In the early scenes, each boy learns piano as a...
.
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
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
- La Tête de Normande St. Onge, 1975 (composer)
- L’Ange et la femme, 1977 (composer; actor)
- The Rubber Gun, 1977 (composer)
- Jacob Two-TwoJacob Two-TwoJacob Two-Two is the central character in a series of children's books, Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang , Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur and Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case written by Mordecai Richler, and Jacob Two-Two on the High Seas written by Cary Fagan.Jacob is the youngest child of...
Meets the Hooded Fang, 1978 (composer) - Au revoir à lundi, 1979 (composer; actor)
- Avec... le charme de Carole Laure, 1979 (appears as himself; TV)
- Agency, 1980 (composer)
- FantasticaFantastica (film)Fantastica is a 1980 French-Canadian musical film directed by Gilles Carle. It was entered into the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Carole Laure - Lorca* Lewis Furey - Paul* Serge Reggiani - Euclide Brown* Claudine Auger - Johanne McPherson...
, 1980 (composer; actor) - Maria Chapdelaine, 1983 (composer)
- American Dreamer, 1984 (composer)
- Night Magic, 1985 (director; co-writer with Leonard Cohen; composer)
- The Peanut Butter SolutionThe Peanut Butter SolutionThe Peanut Butter Solution is a 1985 family film. The movie was directed by Michael Rubbo and is the 2nd in the Tales for All series of children's movies created by Les Productions la Fête.-Plot:Michael Baskin is an average 11-year old boy...
, 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 DancingShadow Dancing (1988 film)Shadow Dancing Also Known As La bailarina Venezuelais is a 1988 thriller shot in Toronto Canada.-Plot:Jess is a struggling dancer trying to land a dream role in musical about Medusa. As she practices, the director, who has been haunted for decades by the memory of his former dancer and lover,...
, 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)