NEW YORK (Top40 Charts/
Lucy Schwartz Official Website) - LUCY SCHWARTZ is a singer/songwriter with an "old soul" that belies her young age of eighteen. Although her influences are varied, the result is a truly original and timeless musical voice. This month she'll make her major motion picture debut as the only artist to appear with two songs on The Women movie soundtrack, due
September 9 on Verve.
The film, which hits theaters on September 12 and features an entirely female, star-studded cast including Meg Ryan, Jada Pinkett Smith, Candice Bergen, Eva Mendes, Annette Bening, Bette Midler and Debra Messing, also highlights on its soundtrack all women artists, and introduces Lucy Schwartz performing her new songs "Beautiful" and "Count on Me" which she wrote for the opening and closing scenes.
Schwartz came to the attention of Chris Douridas, the film's music supervisor this past December. "A guy was jogging by my house and he stopped me on my front step (I am a radio DJ here in LA) and says 'You're Chris, right?" states Douridas. "I nodded. He said, 'I've got a CD I want to give you. Is it cool if I drop it by later?' 'Of course,' I said and an hour later I found a disc in my mailbox by a young female singer."
The singer turned out to be Lucy Schwartz, still then a senior at Palisades High School in Los Angeles, and the CD was her self-released album Winter In June. Since then, Douridas has playing songs from it on his weekly KCRW radio show to great response. In January, he approached Lucy to write a song for The Women (produced by Mick Jagger and Victoria Pearman). The film's director and writer Diane English passed over many established female artists to pick two new songs written for the film by Schwartz.
"One of the most rewarding experiences of the entire filmmaking process was the opportunity to introduce audiences to songwriter/ singer Lucy Schwartz," writes English in the film's soundtrack liner notes. "One day my music supervisor, Chris Douridas called me to say he had heard a new young artist and could he bring her into the editing room to view the movie. Little did I know she was a senior in high school! Nevertheless, this graceful and unassuming young woman delivered what I was searching for - "Count on Me" is a simply expressed anthem about the importance of friends. A week later she nailed it again with "Beautiful". What are the odds of an 18-year old girl writing and performing the opening and closing songs of a major motion picture? We put her in the hands of the legendary Mitchell Froom who produced "Count On Me", and with my music heroes Walter Becker (Steely Dan) and Larry Klein who made "Beautiful" sound so, well, beautiful." Schwartz will perform both songs and more at the film's premiere event tonight (Thursday, September 4) in Los Angeles.
Lucy Schwartz is the 2007 WINNER of the International Songwriting Competition (ISC) in the teen category for her song "I Don't Know a Thing" and was voted favorite artist in the October 2007 BMI podcast featuring Los Angeles songwriters. Her songs have been featured on the TV series "Reaper" and "Cashmere Mafia," and her singing can also be heard on various TV shows including re-runs of the Emmy award- winning series "Arrested Development." Now it can be told, the voice "Mr. F" the show is, in truth, the voice of Lucy Schwartz. In addition, she can be found performing with her band at L.A. area clubs and this summer she also played the Palo Alto Music & Film Festival, Central Park's Harlem Meer Music Festival and opened for Guggenheim Grotto at the Canal Room in NYC.
