In 2018 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
He’s been nominated for three Grammy awards and five Emmy awards.
He’s written songs for Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Anne Murray, Kenny Rogers and a host of others.
He’s racked up over 40 BMI awards and his songs have charted in five successive decades with number one records in four of those decades.
He wrote the song “Through The Years” which was a hit for Kenny Rogers, “I Just Fall In Love Again” which was a hit for he Anne Murray and “Every Which Way But Loose” which was a hit for Eddie Rabbit. That’s just a small sampling of his catalog of hit songs.
The man behind all those hit songs is Mr. Steve Dorff.
Q -Steve, you’ve said you’ll write a song when inspiration strikes, maybe you’ll hear someone say something and that will be the catalyst or inspiration for you to write a song. Well, do you socialize a lot? Do you go to bars? Are you watching TV or Movies hoping to hear a phrase that moves you? Do you read a lot? How does this whole process work?
A – You know Gary, it comes from all sources, no, I don’t go to many bars. Just in passing conversations. It happened just last night. A person I was talking to said something in kind of a fresh way. I said, you know, there’s a song in there somewhere. So, it can come in just a passing conversation with a friend or stranger. I’ll give you an example; I was at a bank once waiting in line to make a deposit and the teller whose window I went to was someone that I had known for a long time. I was a regular customer. He said, Hey, Mr.Dorff, where are you spending your nights these days? Immediately a bell went off, a whistle went off, fireworks went off in my head and I said there’s a song right there, and went home and I wrote it. I had a Top 10 record with David Frizzell. I never know where it’s going to come from.
Q – I hope you’re not telling any of these people there’s a song in what you just said. They might just come back at you asking for 50% song royalties!
A – (Laughs). You can’t copyright a title or an idea. That’s why there’s been so many songs written with the same title. But yeah, most of the time I’ll think about it and sometimes ones that I think would make great songs end up being a whole lot of nothing after I’ve thought about it and tried to get in angle as to what the story is. But, it’s pretty organic the way that happens.
Q – Do you have to have a quiet environment to work in? I assume you have your own recording studio?
A – I do. By the time I have the idea in my head and I sit at the piano I have to shut everything else out.
Q – Are you always hearing music in your head?
A – Pretty much. I have my mother tells me since the day I was born. Yeah, I’ve had this little mini orchestra in my head from the time I can remember, underscoring everything I did in my life. It’s kind of a curse and kind of a blessing.
Q – You’re not the first guy to tell me something like that. Paul Williams told me essentially the same thing.
A – He’s a very dear friend and we’ve written together. He’s one of the most talented guys I know. Yeah, it’s strange. If I was in a snowball fight or at a Little League game as a kid, everybody else would be cheering, I’d be musicalizing it. (Laughs). It’s hard to describe.
Q – What do you mean by musicalizing?
A – If someone was running around the bases after hitting a home run and everybody was cheering, I would be hearing and orchestra playing a fanfare. That’s the way I experienced it and still do. I’m hearing music in my head underscoring what I’m looking at or what I’m experiencing.
Q – As I’m asking you questions are you hearing music in your head?
A – (Laughs). Not at this minute.
Q – This is a very strange talent you have Steve. Do you ever ask yourself where this songwriting skill comes from?
A – I’ve kind of given up where it comes from. People are always asking me what’s your process? The truth is I really don’t have a set process. The music just comes. Then the hard part is trying to figure out what the story is in the lyrics. That’s why so many of my songs have been collaborative, working with word masters, lyricists.
Q – How old were you when you wrote your first song?
A – Well, I probably wrote my first melodies or orchestrations at three or four years old. I remember telling my mother and she reminded me of this; I would go to the piano and hit the low notes and say “These are the bears.” On, the high notes, “These are the birds.” And so I would actually be composing for lack of a better term musicalizing what I thought that would look like or sound like. My first song per se, I was probably 12 when I wrote a song with words and music, and it was pretty bad. (Laughs).
Q – You got better as time went along.
A – A little bit better.
Q – Sounds to me like you were Mozart reincarnated, at the age of four.
A – Yeah, it’s a gift. Sometimes a great gift and sometimes somewhat of a curse because there is no way I can turn it off. I used to see colors and I still do when I close my eyes and hear music. A shrink friend of mine, told me, oh, you’ve got Synesthesia. And I said, am I going to die? (Laughs). And he said no. It’s very rare. About 10 to 15% of the world’s population has it. It’s kind of a cross breeding of senses where some people can taste coffee and all of a sudden hear certain tones or some people can touch something and all of a sudden they’re ears start ringing. It’s hard to explain.
Q – Typically are you writing music and someone else’s writing lyrics or are you writing both?
A – I’ve written both. Depending on who I’m collaborating with, the charge is somewhat there. Most of the time I would say 99% of the time I’m doing the music and some of the words. If I’m writing with a pure lyricist who comes to me with the already written idea; a good example of that is Marty Panzer who would give me a finished lyric and I’d look at and as I’m reading it, I’m hearing the melody. We wrote “Through The Years That Way”.
Q – What goes through your mind when you hear someone singing the words to a song you’ve written?
A – it’s the greatest feeling possible for someone like me because I’m not a performing songwriter so to Billy Joel or Paul Simon who sang their own songs. The applause I get is when a great voice or great talent or great artist records one of my songs. I’m the guys behind the curtain guy who’s written the soundtrack of people’s lives and nobody really knows who we are. I’m not the face of my songs. The artists who made them famous is really the face of the song. I’m just the guy who created it and put it in their mouths.
Q – How do you get the songs you right into the hands of the people who would record them? Do you have a song plugger?
A – Yeah. Through the course of the years meeting people and networking and having success of course breeds more success. When you have a big hit all of a sudden artists pay attention to that. So, I’ve met so many managers and publishers and producers and artists over the years, if I have something that’s really an appropriate song for them, I’ll pitch it to them or my song plugger will. I always tell people there’s no substitute for networking. That’s really at the very crux of it all. Writing the song is one thing. 50% of the process is what to do with it after you have it.
Q – “Through The Years” which became such a hit for Kenny Rogers was rejected by Glen Campbell, Mac Davis and Barry Manilow. In your travels, did you ever run into any of those people and throw it up to their faces and say, “Hey, you could have had a hit with that song?”
A – (Laughs). No. The truth is; let me give you an example,”I Just Fall In Love Again” was originally recorded by Karen Carpenter. You can’t get much better than Karen. They (the Carpenters) put it on their album and it didn’t become a single. It wasn’t a hit for them. Dusty Springfield heard it on the Carpenters album and she recorded it and it was on her album two years later and was never released as a single. Then two years later Anne Murray hears it on Dusty’s album, records it and it becomes song of the year, wins the Juneau, the Canadian Grammy, gets nominated for a Grammy. To answer your question, I would never say to Karen, “Hey, you missed it!” Actually, Richard Carpenter said to me years later, “Boy, we should have put that out as a single. That would’ve been a monster hit for Karen.” It’s that marriage of the right voice and the right song that makes the magical connection that make it a hit. It’s timing like anything else. Right place, right time, right song.
Q – But, how much of an influence did the Carpenters have with their record company, in this case, Herb Alpert and A&M Records in saying we want this song released as a single? It’s really a business decision by other people isn’t it?
A – Yeah. Richard could have put it out. Maybe at that time he just didn’t feel like it was the right choice. In fact, I know that for a fact. At the time that album was out he just didn’t feel like….They thought about it, but for one reason or another they chose another song. That happens a lot. I mean, I’ve had songs on albums they’ve told me this is going to be such a big hit and it’s going to be the first single and it never ends up being the single. So, there are a lot of factors. Promotion men weigh in. You’re correct in saying record company heads weigh in and what they like. So, it’s kind of a crapshoot.
Q – You told Billboard Magazine “Loss affects everything in your life.” Have you ever noticed that some of the people you admire, like John Lennon and Paul McCartney lost their mother as teenagers? How do you think that would have affected your songwriting ability or you can’t say?
A – I certainly can, say. I lost my son Andrew 5 ½ years ago. It deeply, deeply affected my writing in two ways: I didn’t write a song for almost a year and a half after his passing and then all of a sudden I came out of it, out of that fog, out of the denial, and that devastation that a parent feels when they’ve lost a child, into writing some of the best songs I’ve ever written in my life. So, it definitely has a profound effect and in a lesser way losing a relationship, breaking up with a girlfriend, going through a divorce, losing a parent. Of course it’s going to have an effect on your life. When you’re defined by songwriting like I am it’s going to have a profound effect on my writing.
Q – Do you listen to much music of today?
A – Yeah now, I try. I pretty much do what I do. I’m not really inspired, I’ve never been one of those songwriters or composers that listen to someone else’s song and say I got to write something like that. When I’m in the car I’m usually listening to news or sports radio. And, when I’m home and when I’m working it’s generally on stuff, projects that I’m working on. So, I really don’t make a habit of listening to what else is out there.
Q – Do you ever see yourself saying, that’s it. I’ve written enough songs. I’m retiring? Or is it this the kind of thing that doesn’t lend itself to retirement?
A – Retirement is nowhere in my vocabulary. I think writing, arranging and producing which I do is something that I’m just so passionate about. I wake up every day blessed to have the friends I have and that the phone keeps ringing for people that want to work with me. It’s a blessing that I will never get tired of.
Official website: www.stevdorff.com
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