The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993 directed by HENRY SELICK and On the set, Tim Burton with Danny Elfman, composer (photo)
Photo © DILTZ/Bridgeman Images
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Kaldaras, Apostolos
Leonidas Economou
(b Trikala, Greece, April 7, 1922; d Athens, Greece, April 8, 1990). Greek composer and lyricist. He was of middle-class origin and finished high school in 1941. He became fascinated with rebetiko and the music of the refugees from Asia Minor, and he was also influenced by religious Byzantine and folk music. From 1941 until 1947 he worked as a bouzouki player in taverns and nightclubs in Trikala and especially Thessaloniki. He was lauded for his first recorded compositions, made in 1947 and including the emblematic laïko song Nychtose choris fengari (‘The Night Fell with No Moon’), which were invested with various social and political meanings as a result of the civil war. In the following years he cooperated with several important laïko creators, and had dozens of hits in the late rebetiko style with singers like Haskil, Tsaousakis, and Bellou, and in grieving or Indian style with singers like Kazantzidis, Gavalas, Angelopoulos, Menidiatis, and Lydia. From ...
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Kalmar, Bert
Article
Shaffer, Paul
Craig Jennex
(b Thunder Bay, ON, Nov 28, 1949). Canadian pianist, composer, musical director, actor, producer, and bandleader. He has been musical director for David Letterman’s late-night shows since 1982. Prior to working with Letterman, Shaffer was a featured performer on “Saturday Night Live.” He has served as musical director and producer for the Blues Brothers and cowrote the 1980s dance hit “It’s raining men.” He has served as musical director for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony since its inception in ...
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Sherman, Richard M.
(b New York, NY, 12 June 1928). Popular songwriter. He is known for his collaborations with his brother Robert B. Sherman (b New York, NY, 19 Dec 1925; d London, 5 March 2012). Their father was the songwriter Al Sherman. In the 1950s they wrote the hit song “You’re sixteen” for Johnny Burnette and songs for Annette Funicello, which gained them the attention of Walt Disney, for whom they subsequently wrote the songs for the film The Parent Trap (1961). From the early 1960s, as staff writers for Disney, they contributed songs to films including The Sword in the Stone (1963), which began a long-term association with the feature-length animated film. In the same year they wrote “It's a small world” for the 1964 World's Fair, a song which has subsequently become identified worldwide with Disneyland. They went on to contribute the now classic score to ...
