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| One of the coolest things hanging on the wall at Rick Nowels' recording studio is a framed letter from George Harrison, written in 1989, telling Rick that he "hopes he likes his guitar work because he a got a blister on his finger playing it." He was referring to the song "Leave A Light On" that Nowels wrote and produced for Belinda Carlisle that year.
Rick Nowels got his first big break in the music business with Stevie Nicks' "I Can't Wait." That song became a top-ten hit and Rick Nowels, songwriter, became Rick Nowels, songwriter/producer. He produced five songs on her Rock a Little album.
A year later, Nowels began a successful four-year run with Belinda Carlisle that cemented his career as a pop producer/writer. Writing with Ellen Shipley, he created 11 worldwide hits for Carlisle, starting with "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and "Circle in the Sand."
When Rick heard a tape by a young 16-year old fresh from Detroit, he was blown away and so began a long, successful relationship with Gregg Alexander. Rick got him a record deal and produced his first album Michigan Rain. Years later they would end up writing the successful and much admired "You Get What You Give" together for the New Radicals' (Gregg's band) first single and went on to write hits for Ronan Keating and Texas. This year he wrote and produced the worldwide Santana smash "The Game of Love," featuring Michelle Branch, which became a Billboard top-ten hit single.
Rick Nowels has been writing songs since he was 13 years old. Coming from the Bay Area he was weaned on late sixties eclectic rock from listening to KFRC and KYA radio.
Jump to 1997… Rick is standing in line in New York City at Barneys buying a tie to wear to the Grammy Awards that night. He happens upon Madonna there, goes up to her and introduces himself. A meeting between them ensues and they ended up writing 9 songs together, 3 of which (including "The Power of Goodbye") made it onto her Grammy Award- winning album Ray of Light. He also won a Grammy that night for Celine Dion's Falling into You (which he co-wrote and co-produced with Billy Steinberg and Marie Claire D'Ubaldo)
Rick has written and/or produced hits for Dido (of which he wrote 5 songs on her new album with the first single on the charts being "White Flag."
He has also written songs for Fleetwood Mac "Everybody Finds Out," N 'SYNC, Jewel "Sweet Temptation," Mel C "On The Horizon," Sonique, KD Lang, Amber etc. In addition, Rick has written songs for "American Idol" stars Justin Guarini and Clay Aiken.
He also plays guitar, keyboards and bass and has worked with some of the greatest singers, musicians, programmers and orchestrators from all over the world. He divides his time between London and Santa Monica, California. |
Jody Gerson
