Kara DioGuardi

Kara DioGuardi
Background information
Birth name	Kara Elizabeth DioGuardi
Born	December 9, 1970 (1970-12-09) (age 40) Ossining, New York, U.S.[1]
Origin	New Rochelle, New York, U.S.
Genres	Pop rock, dance, R&B[2]
Occupations	Songwriter, record producer, A&R, music publisher, singer, television personality, musical arranger
Instruments	Vocals, piano, guitar[3]
Years active	1999–present
Labels	Interscope, Rocket (Platinum Weird) Warner Bros. (A&R)
Website	KaraDioGuardi.com

Kara Elizabeth DioGuardi (pronounced /ˈkærə diːɵˈɡwɑrdi/;^[4] born December 9, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, music publisher, A&R executive, composer and TV personality. She writes music primarily in the light pop-rock, dance, and R&B genres. DioGuardi has worked with many popular artists^[5] and is credited on over 120 album releases.^[6]

DioGuardi served as a judge on American Idol for its eighth season and ninth season . She is executive vice president of talent development at Warner Bros. Records, where she was appointed in 2008 and has signed Jason Derülo and Iyaz.

Early life

DioGuardi was born in Ossining, New York.^[1] She is of Arbëresh ^[7][8] and Italian^[9] descent. Her father is former Republican Congressman Joseph J. DioGuardi.^[1] She is a distant cousin of the veteran TV personality Regis Philbin.^[10] Her mother Carol died in 1997 after a 7-year battle with ovarian cancer.^[11]

Kara grew up in the Wilmot Woods section of suburban New Rochelle, New York,^[12] and attended kindergarten at the Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Scarsdale, New York, followed by The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, New York, before earning a degree in political science at Duke University.^[1] After graduating from college, she worked for Billboard magazine as an assistant to Timothy White and Howard Lander and later as an advertising sales representative.

Career

Professional songwriter

DioGuardi has a songwriting catalog of several hundred songs, of which over 279 have been released on major labels worldwide, and over 169 have appeared on multi-platinum selling albums. She has had nearly 50 international charting singles over the course of her career, and her songs have helped propel 58 albums into the Top Ten of the Billboard 200. Her songs have been featured in major motion pictures, television shows, film soundtracks, and radio spots, as well as national and international commercial campaigns.

She collaborated with Christina Aguilera on her album Back To Basics in 2006, co-writing 12 of the 13 tracks on disc one of the album, among them being "Ain't No Other Man", and "Back in the Day".

In 2007, DioGuardi worked with many notable artists, one of which was Britney Spears. DioGuardi wrote and produced two songs ("Ooh Ooh Baby" and "Heaven on Earth") on Spears' album Blackout. DioGuardi also contributed a majority of songs on Hilary Duff's third studio album, Dignity

Since American Idol Season 8, DioGuardi returned to songwriting and producing, and has worked with number of artists, including Pink's "Sober," Kelly Clarkson's "I Do Not Hook Up," Cobra Starship ft./ Leighton Meester "Good Girls Go Bad," Katharine McPhee's "Had It All", Carrie Underwood's "Undo It", and Theory of a Deadman's "Not Meant to Be" among other new releases.

She has also written multiple tracks for Hannah Montana 3, The Hannah Montana Season 3 Soundtrack. She Wrote "Mixed Up", "He Could Be The One" and "Don't Wanna Be Torn".

Among DioGuardi's projects is the song "Not Meant To Be", which appears on Theory of a Deadman's 2008 album, Scars & Souvenirs.^[13] DioGuardi co-wrote the song with lead singer Tyler Connolly, and is also featured as the love interest in the music video which was released on March 10, 2009. This was her debut in the music video industry.^[14]

DioGuardi also wrote and sang the backup vocals for Demi Lovato's song "The Middle" for her first album, Don't Forget.

In 2010, Kara wrote "If I Can't Have You" for Meat Loaf's album, "Hang Cool Teddy Bear" and recorded the vocal as a duet with Meat Loaf.

Music publishing

DioGuardi co-owns Arthouse Entertainment, a publishing company that is a resource business for record companies and other music entities seeking compositions, productions, artists, and related music services. Arthouse has been a part of many chart-topping hits including Cassie's "Me & U" (written and produced by Ryan Leslie), Jim Jones' "We Fly High" (produced by Zukhan Bey), Nick Lachey's "What's Left of Me", David Archuleta's single "Crush" (written and produced by Emanuel Kiriakou), Mika's "Grace Kelly", OneRepublic's "Apologize" and "Stop and Stare" (all produced by Greg Wells), Faith Hill's "Lost" (written and produced by Kara DioGuardi and Mitch Allan), "Sober" by P!nk, "Pieces of Me" by Ashlee Simpson, and "He Could Be The One" by Hannah Montana.

Reality television

In July 2006, DioGuardi was a judge in an "Idol"-like TV show called The One: Making a Music Star. The show debuted on ABC with the second-lowest rating ever for a premiere on a major American network and was abruptly canceled after just two weeks.^[15]

She joined the hit Fox television show American Idol as a fourth judge for the show's eighth season in 2009.^[16]

She returned to Idol for its ninth season.^[17] She has had Idol connections in the past: in 2000, DioGuardi and former Idol judge Paula Abdul co-wrote the UK number-one single "Spinning Around", performed by Kylie Minogue. She has written many songs sung by Idol winners and alumni such as Kelly Clarkson, Allison Iraheta, David Archuleta, Carrie Underwood, Diana DeGarmo, Katharine McPhee, Kris Allen, Danny Gokey, and Adam Lambert. She co-wrote the American Idol season 8 single, "No Boundaries", which was performed by both finalists during the competition.

Kara also co-wrote with Jason Reeves a song called "Terrified" for Katharine McPhee's album Unbroken^[18], which was covered by Didi Benami, an American Idol contestant from Season 9, during Hollywood week. DioGuardi also recorded a video of herself singing "Terrified" with Jason Reeves on YouTube, which currently has over 1,200,000 views. Other than that she appeared on Hannah Montana as herself, in episode "Judge Me Tender".

Awards and nominations

In 2003, DioGuardi won a BMI Cable Award for co-writing and performing, "Somethin' To Say", the theme to the Lifetime Television series For the People, which starred Lea Thompson, Debbi Morgan, A. Martinez and Cecilia Suárez. Kara has been awarded 15 BMI Awards for having co-written the most performed songs on the radio. One of the industry's most highly sought after songwriters and producers, DioGuardi's songs have appeared on records that have sold more than 150 million copies combined.

In 2007, DioGuardi was nominated for a Latin Grammy in the category of Song of the Year for her writing on the Belinda single, "Bella Traición" along with co-writers Belinda, Ben Moody, Nacho Peregrin and producer Mitch Allan. In November 2007, Kara was awarded the TAXI A&R award for Humanitarian of the Year at their annual Road Rally Convention.^[19]

Discography

As a vocalist

With MaD DoLL:

• Mad Doll^[20] (1999)

With Platinum Weird:

• Make Believe (2006)
• Platinum Weird (2006)

Personal life

She is married to teacher-turned-general contractor Mike McCuddy; they were wed on July 5, 2009 in Maine.^[21] Terri Seymour was one of the bridesmaids. McCuddy has a teenage daughter.^[22] The two met while he was working on a home adjacent to her property in Maine.^[23]

DioGuardi works with the Phoenix House, a non-profit substance abuse service organization; she contributes to recording studios in the facilities and helps teach the teens how to operate the equipment.^[19]

In February 2010, she joined former American Idol contestant Elliott Yamin in a charity trip sponsored by ExxonMobil to Angola where they visited malaria prevention and treatment projects as part of Idol Gives Back.

DioGuardi splits her time between Los Angeles, California and Gouldsboro, Maine.^[24]

Footnotes

References

• Widran, Jonathan. "Kara DioGuardi Co-Writes Top Hits for Ashlee Simpson, Hilary Duff and Enrique Iglesias". SongwriterUniverse Magazine. http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/dioguardi.htm. Retrieved 2004-12-14. 
• Reynolds, J.R. (March 2002). "On the Scene: Kara DioGuardi". BMI MusicWorld. http://www.bmi.com/musicworld/onthescene/200203/kdioguardi.asp. Retrieved 2004-12-14. 
• Lee, Chris (2005-12-25). "Spinning all that angst into pop gold. Lindsay. Hilary. Celine. Pink. Kara DioGuardi's first-person songs pushed them all up the charts. And now it's her turn to shout". Los Angeles Times: p. E1.  Guest Co-host; (ABC Television) The View | Oct. 15, 2009

External links

• Media related to Kara DioGuardi at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website
• Kara at All Music Guide
• Official YouTube channel
• Kara DioGuardi at the Internet Movie Database
• LiveDaily - Platinum Weird's Dave Stewart and Kara DioGuardi interview