‘Mean Gene’ Okerlund dies at 76
NORMAN GIMBEL, 1927 - 2018
The announcer and interviewer became a cable TV mainstay alongside WWE’s top talents.
For a few weeks in 1964, the upper reaches of the Billboard record charts were occupied not only by the Beatles, Beach Boys, Four Seasons and Rolling Stones, but by a seductive bossa nova number written for a musical comedy about an alien who visits South America.
The musical, “Blimp,” never took off, although its would-be signature song became an international sensation — by some accounts the second-most-recorded song in history, after the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Written by composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and poet Vinicius de Moraes, it neatly filled a major plot hole: What might cause an extraterrestrial guest to linger in Brazil?
The answer, rendered into English by lyricist Norman Gimbel, was a beautiful woman from Rio de Janeiro.
With help from Gimbel, “The Girl From Ipanema” went on to drive the bossa nova craze in the United States and beyond, introducing millions of listeners to Brazil’s “new wave” fusion of samba and jazz.
Alternately celebrated and mocked, versions of the song were used as elevator music in a scene from “The Blues Brothers” and as a soundtrack to the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Yet the tune was just one of many hits for Gimbel, an Oscar- and Grammy-winning lyricist who co-wrote the theme songs to “Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley,” as well as the charttopping ballad “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”
He was 91 when he died Dec. 19 at his home in Montecito. His son, Tony Gimbel, confirmed the death but did not give a cause.
Born in New York on Nov. 16, 1927, Gimbel co-wrote a pair of Broadway musicals and several 1950s pop hits, including the Andy Williams single “Canadian Sunset,” before adapting foreign songs for English-language listeners.
He moved to the Los Angeles area in 1967 and began collaborating on film and TV scores with composers including Burt Bacharach, Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.
“Norman was an extraordinary lyricist,” said composer Charles Fox, with whom he wrote more than 150 songs, beginning with the score to the 1970 children’s movie “Pufnstuf.” “His words were beautiful, sensitive. He never used an extra word in expressing his feelings or describing the human condition.”
At the close of the 20th century, three of Gimbel’s songs were listed among BMI’s 100 most played songs on radio and TV: “Girl From Ipanema” at No. 58, “Canadian Sunset” at No. 35 and “Killing Me Softly” at No. 11.
“Killing Me Softly” rose to No. 1 on the charts when recorded by Roberta Flack in 1973, and was later covered by hip-hop group the Fugees.
But the origins of the ballad, first recorded by folk singer Lori Lieberman, remained the subject of occasional dispute. According to Fox, he and Gimbel had recorded nine songs with Lieberman when Capitol Records told them, about 1972, that it wanted to release an album as soon as possible, leaving them scrambling to come up with one last tune.
“Norman had a book with some titles and thoughts of lyrics and he had this title, ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song,’ ” Fox told the Los Angeles Times. “He wrote the lyric that day, called me at the end of the day and read me the lyric over the phone. I wrote the music that night and the next day we got together with Lori and she loved it.”
Lieberman, however, often said that the song was based on a poem she had written. She told the New York Times that Gimbel studied her diaries and letters, in an effort to make their songs sound more authentic, and added that he and Fox “were very, very controlling.”
Gimbel’s marriages to Elinor Rowley and Victoria Carver ended in divorce. Survivors include two children from his first marriage, Tony Gimbel and Nelly Gimbel; two children from his second marriage, Peter Gimbel and Hannah Gimbel Dal Pozzo; and four grandchildren.