Rick Nowels

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Rick Nowels is a record producer and songwriter who is known for his work with Stevie Nicks, Belinda Carlisle, Madonna, Darren Hayes, Kim Wilde, Amber, Dido, Sonique, Ronan Keating, Sandra, New Radicals, k.d. lang, Melanie C, Geri Halliwell, All Saints, Craig David, Nelly Furtado, Santana and many others.

Nowels' interest in music began early. As a middle school student in the Northern California town of Los Altos, he and a friend began singing together at local events. While the duo did not last, Nowels continuted to play guitar, sing and write. In the early '70's he enrolled in UC Berkeley as a music student but, frustrated with the school's conservative pedagogical approach, did not graduate, leaving after 3 years to pursue work in both live performance and composition for stage productions.

It was as a composer for several productions of John Lion's innovative Magic Theater, most notably the works of playwright and actor Sam Sheppard, that Nowels first gained serious attention. It was during this period that he was nominated for an Obie for his musical score to Shepard's "Buried Child."

In the late '70's, Nowels hooked up with singer/violinist Naomi Eisenberg, formerly of Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks to form what was to become a hot local 5-piece band known as The Dadas. Comprised of Nowels (guitar, vocals) Eisenberg (violin, guitar, vocals), Jeff Unger (bass, vocals), Jimi James (guitar) and Johnny Tempo (drums, percussion, vocals), the band won numerous fans and packed San Francisco bars and nightclubs. After approximately three years, however, plagued by management difficulties and internal disagreements, the group disbanded.

Kylie Minogue recently recorded one of his unreleased Madonna songs but has so far chosen not to release it. She recorded his song "Whenever You Feel Like It" for the Scooby-Doo film soundtrack, and released as a single only in Hong Kong it was a top five hit.

Since the mid 1990s Nowels' most frequent songwriting partners have been Billy Steinberg and former New Radicals front-man Gregg Alexander, which whom he wrote such hits as "You Get What You Give", "The Game of Love" and "Crazy People Rock".

Recently, Nowels produced Yusuf Islam's (a.k.a Cat Stevens) new album titled "An Other Cup", the album was released by Polydor Records in November 14, 2006.

Nowels is married to singer Maria Vidal who is most famous for her pop/dance hit "Body Rock", from the movie of the same name, which was a major hit in 1984.