Larry Dvoskin

Larry Dvoskin is a Grammy-nominated American songwriter, musician, arranger, and producer. He is the President of Cool Guy Music and Miracle Music Inc.^[1]

Dvoskin has worked with artists including Robert Plant, Sammy Hagar, Sean Lennon, Bad Company, Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), Joe Lynn Turner, Meredith Books, Uli Jon Roth, Desmond Child, the Muppets, Annabella Lwin (Bow Wow Wow), Paul O’Neill (Transiberian Orchestra), Beach Boys co-founder Al Jardine,^[2] MGMT, and Neal Schon (Journey).^[3]

Early life and career

Larry Dvoskin was raised in Dumont, New Jersey. He enrolled in Ramapo State College, double-majoring in music and business, but dropped out following his freshman year to join local rockers Fandango.^[3]

From 1978 to 1981, Dvoskin played keyboards under the stage name “Larry Dawson” for Fandango's second, third and fourth albums for RCA Records. Fandango also featured Joe Lynn Turner of Rainbow and Deep Purple. Fandango had one modest-selling hit single “Last Kiss,” which Dvoskin co-wrote.^[4] They toured as both opening acts and headliners alongside Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Outlaws, Heart, and The Allman Brothers Band.^[5]

Upon relocating to London in 1983, Dvoskin played keyboards with Electric Sun, alongside original Scorpions guitarist Uli Jon Roth and Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker.^[6]

Songwriting

Dvoskin was signed by Martin Bandier and Charles Koppelman to The Entertainment Company publishing firm and was mentored by Clive Davis, Jimmy Ienner, Richie Cordell, and Neil Portnow.^[7]

In 1992, Dvoskin co-wrote Sony’s Deborah Blando’s “Innocence,” a 12-week Number One in Brazil.^[8][9] He performed additional production and remixing duties for Bad Company on "Walk Through Fire," from their double platinum-selling Holy Water album on Atlantic Records. The song rose to number one on the Billboard AOR Chart and was nominated for the Grammy for Best Rock Song.^[5] Dvoskin co-wrote “My Only One” for Bad Company’s Here Comes Trouble collection, which went on to be certified gold.^[10]

Dvoskin signed to Famous Music. His song “Animal Heart” was released by pop sensation Glass Tiger on Capitol Records and spent six weeks at number one in Canada, with its parent LP Simple Mission being certified quadruple platinum, signifying sales of four million units. Dvoskin also received a Best Rock Song award from the Canadian Music Publishers Association.^[11]

After working on original material with Robert Plant^[5] and Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander,^[12] Dvoskin teamed up in 1993 with Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow and co-wrote and produced “Car Sex,” a dance hit in England.^[13][14] He co-wrote “Naturally” on 4 P.M.’s 1995 album Now’s The Time album for London/Polygram Records. The album, including the Number One single “Sukiyaki”^[15], went gold and platinum in Canada, England, and Japan.

In 1997, Dvoskin co-wrote three songs on Meredith Brooks’ Blurring The Edges album, which sold over six million copies worldwide and was nominated for two Grammy awards. Dvoskin signed with Warner-Chappell Music^[1] and co-wrote Kim Sozzi's Billboard Dance Chart Top Five hit "Feeling Me."^[16] In 1999, Dvoskin co-wrote Sammy Hagar's “The Love” and “Returning Of The Wish” for Hagar's album Red Voodoo. “The Love” was also co-written by Journey guitarist and co-founder, Neal Schon.^[17] The next year, Hagar also released the Dvoskin co-penned “A Deeper Kinda Love” on his Ten 13 album.^[7]

In 2012, Dvoskin co-wrote and produced Beach Boy Al Jardine’s “Waves Of Love” for his debut solo album A Postcard From California, released via UMe. He also co-produced Alec Baldwin’s spoken word performance on “Tidepool Interlude” from the same album.^[11] In July 2013, MGMT lead vocalist Andrew Van Wyngarden tapped Dvoskin for additional production and remixing on "Plenty Of Girls In The Sea," and "I Love You Too, Death" from their self-titled third Sony Records album.^[3][18] In February 2014, Dvoskin remixed "Love is a Curious Thing" from Spacehog's album As It Is On Earth, the latest Spacehog album.^[19]

Recording

In 1999, Dvoskin released a collection of artist demos entitled Beside Me, under the moniker “Larry D.” on his own Cool Guy Records imprint, distributed by The Orchard distribution company.^[7]

On November 26, 2009, Dvoskin released his second solo album Life Is Strange. Chicago co-founder and keyboardist Robert Lamm of Chicago appeared as a guest vocalist on the track "Journey Through Life.” ^[5]

In June 2013, Dvoskin conceived, produced and sang on an a cappella remake of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s iconic peace anthem "Give Peace A Chance" with Sean Lennon and Al Jardine for www.one.org, the charity organization founded by U2 frontman Bono to fight global poverty.^[20]

In April 2014, Dvoskin began recording his third solo album with Billy Joel drummer Chuck Burgi, Spacehog frontman Royston Langdon, and Sam Kogon.

Writing and academic work

Since 1997, Larry Dvoskin has been a professor of songwriting at New York University’s School of Continuing Education and Professional Studies, teaching courses on “Songwriting,” “Advanced Songwriting,” and “Four Week Fast Track To Songwriting Success.”^[21] He also gives lectures and master classes around the world.^[3][22]

Dvoskin is the author of the personal growth memoir and songwriting textbook Do What You Love: Songwriting.^[23][3]

Since 2014, Dvoskin has written on music and travel for the Huffington Post.^[24]

Television

In 2011, Dvoskin co-wrote and co-produced the single "The Tough Go Shopping" for former Queer Eye for the Straight Guy star Carson Kressley. The single was released in conjunction with Kressley's reality television series Carson Nation on the Oprah Winfrey channel OWN.^[25]

In 2011, Dvoskin’s song “Dancing Over The Edge” became the official charity song for “Artists Charity Night”—the biggest AIDS relief organization in Switzerland. The song was performed live from Zurich on Swiss television, with Dvoskin joining the gala finale performance with an array of music stars.^[26] A single and concert album were released on EMI Records and is available via iTunes in Europe.^[27]

References