Roxanne Seeman
Roxanne Joy Seeman is an American songwriter and lyricist. She is best known for her songs by Billie Hughes, Philip Bailey, Phil Collins, Earth, Wind & Fire, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, The Sisters of Mercy, The Jacksons, Jacky Cheung, and in film and television. She has two Emmy nominations.
Seeman is a writer and producer of the Japan Gold Disk Award International Single of the Year "Welcome To The Edge" by Billie Hughes.
She has written songs for Chinese artists including Jacky Cheung, Yang Kun, Chen Linong, Super Vocal, Rainie Yang and productions by Zhang Yadong and Gao Xiaosong.
Seeman is a producer of the Broadway shows To Kill a Mockingbird and The Waverly Gallery.
Early life and education
Seeman was born in New York to Jewish parents, Murray Seeman, a lawyer and real estate developer, and his wife, Lee. Her father was a scholar, World War II veteran, and former mayor of Great Neck Estates, where they lived. Thirty-three relatives of the Seeman family were killed in the Holocaust. Her mother, a former member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, is of Israeli descent dating back to the 1800s on her paternal side and from the Getz family of jewelers on her maternal side.At age 10, Seeman pursued piano lessons. She took up violin at the Saddle Rock Elementary School and picked up guitar at 16.
During Seeman's high school years, she was an avid fine artist. Seeman attended Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with the intention of pursuing a career in art. In the practice rooms of Carnegie-Mellon, Seeman found a piano teacher and studied classical piano.
At Carnegie-Mellon, Seeman was on the School Activities Board, booking bands to perform on campus. With a passion for jazz, Seeman attended a jazz theory class taught by Dr. Nathan Davis, Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh where she learned to play "Giant Steps", "Moment's Notice" and "Round Midnight".
Wishing to learn Chinese calligraphy, Seeman attended a class in Chinese language where she learned to write Chinese characters. This motivated Seeman to apply as a transfer student to Columbia University in New York, where she would pursue Asian Studies and be in the music world in New York City.
While on Long Island, Seeman studied piano with Tony Aless, jazz pianist who played with Woody Herman, Charlie Parker, among others. Seeman also took several lessons from Sir Roland Hanna.
Seeman is a graduate of Columbia University and Barnard College, with a B.A. in Oriental Studies, Chinese Arts and Language. She studied Chinese, Japanese and Indian literature, art, and took a class on Chinese music from Professor Chou Wen-Chung.
Career
Songwriting career
Seeman spent nights in New York City jazz clubs while working as a temporary secretary at Atlantic Records and Warner Communications. In between jobs, while lying on a dock over the Long Island Sound in Kings Point, she was inspired to write lyrics for jazz instrumentals. In NY, she met David Lasley, a songwriter and session singer touring with James Taylor, who sang demos of her lyrics to the instrumentals.Seeman relocated to Los Angeles in 1977 for a position at ABC Records, which was sold the next year to MCA Records. In 1979 Dee Dee Bridgewater recorded Seeman's lyric version of the Ramsey Lewis instrumental "Tequila Mockingbird", composed by Larry Dunn of Earth, Wind & Fire and produced by George Duke. This led to a collaboration with Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire, with whom she, Maurice White and Eddie del Barrio wrote "Sailaway", for Earth, Wind & Fire's Faces album.
During this time, she met Carmine Coppola and Italia Pennino and began a collaboration developing themes from Carmine's movie scores into songs, writing lyrics and producing song demos for the themes from The Black Stallion, The Outsiders, and Napoleon.
Seeman began writing originals with David Lasley and others co-writers, producing 24-track recordings at ABC Recording Studios with David Benoit, Bobby Watson, Eduardo del Barrio, David Garibaldi, Doug Rodrigues, Terry Reid, Hubert Laws, Sylvia St. James, Arnold McCuller and ABC staff recording engineers Al Schmitt, Jr. and Zoli Osaze. She met Gerry Brown, a young recording engineer and tape librarian at ABC. He had mixed one of her songs and was listening so enthusiastically, she told him he could mix all of her songs.
While recording at ABC Recording Studios, she met Jermaine Jackson and gave him a demo of the Eumir Deodato - Maurice White composition "Tahiti Hut", an instrumental with her lyrics sung by David Lasley. "Tahiti Hut" was recorded during Jermaine Jackson's sessions with the band Switch, along with the track "Reaching For Tomorrow", co-written with Paul Jackson, Jr and Seeman. "Reaching For Tomorrow" became the title track of Switch's subsequent album, while "Tahiti Hut" remained unreleased until issued as a bonus track on an expanded digital edition of the album in 2019.
In 1982, Seeman signed an exclusive writer agreement with Intersong Music, PolyGram Publishing. While under contract, she wrote "Walking On The Chinese Wall" with Billie Hughes, which her publisher turned down as too unusual, giving her back the song. However, by 1984, Earth, Wind & Fire co-frontman Philip Bailey expressed interest in recording the song, which became the title track of his subsequent solo album Chinese Wall and also a minor pop hit that cracked the Billboard Hot 100, accompanied by a music video.
Seeman has maintained her own publishing company, Noa Noa Music, named after the Tahitian words "noa noa" she used in her lyrics for "Tahiti Hut". She has attended international conferences, spoke as a panelist at the Live at Heart Film & Music Festival Seminar in Örebro, Sweden, NAMM 2025 and was interviewed twice by Ray Cordeiro on All the Way with Ray on RTHK Radio 3, Hong Kong.
Partnership with Billie Hughes
Seeman's partnership with recording artist and songwriter/composer Billie Hughes, began in 1983 until his death in 1998.With Hughes, she wrote "Walking On The Chinese Wall" by Philip Bailey, "If You'd Only Believe" by The Jacksons, "Night And Day" by Bette Midler, "Under The Gun" by The Sisters of Mercy and numerous songs by Billie Hughes in film and television."Walls Of Love" and "I Love The Way You Make Me Feel" performed by Hughes appeared in the original 1989 Baywatch series and were of the only original songs that remained in the 2019 Baywatch HD Remastered series, Season 1 E11 Shelter Me and E12 The Reunion.
Together they wrote and produced Hughes' "Welcome to the Edge" which was nominated for an Emmy. In the same year "Welcome To The Edge" was appearing as a love theme in the television show "Santa Barbara", it appeared as the theme song in the Japanese primetime television show "I’ll Never Love Anyone Anymore" .
"Welcome To The Edge" was a #1 single in Japan, remaining on the Billboard's Japan Top 10 chart for four months, selling 520,000 copies. It was also the title track of their album "Welcome To The Edge" by Billie Hughes.
Hughes performed "Welcome To The Edge at the NHK Japan Grand Prix Gold Disk Awards where they were up against MC Hammer in the best international single category. Hughes received #1 International Single of the Year.
Seeman and Hughes were nominated for a second Emmy for their song "Dreamlove".
Phil Collins later included Philip Bailey's version of "Walking on the Chinese Wall", which Collins had produced, in his box set Plays Well with Others.
Working at Twentieth Century-Fox Films and casting
Seeman held the position of Executive Assistant to Scott Rudin, President of Production for 20th Century Fox in the mid-1980s. In 1987, she worked on the film Off Limits, starring Willem Dafoe and Gregory Hines, on location in Bangkok and is credited for Thai casting.Broadway producer
Roxanne Seeman & Jamie deRoy are co-producers of Scott Rudin's Broadway productions of "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "The Waverly Gallery". The nominees for the 73rd annual Tony Awards were announced on April 30, 2019, with 9 nominations for "To Kill A Mockingbird" and 2 nominations for "The Waverly Gallery" including Best Revival of A Play and Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play by Elaine May."The Waverly Gallery" won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of A Play and the Drama League Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play. Elaine May won the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Drama League Award for her performance.
Songwriting career 1998 to present
In 1998, Terry Reid recorded "In Love and War" for the finale episode of the Conan the Adventurer TV series scored by Charles Fox with music by Fox and lyrics by Seeman.Seeman wrote the English lyrics "Come Back To Me" for "Gel Ey Seher", a poem by Fikret Goja set to music by Polad Bülbüloğlu. The song became a hit song for Bulbuloglu in the late 1960’s. In 1998, Paul Buckmaster was commissioned to write a new arrangement for Bulbuloglu, then Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan, recommending Seeman for an English version.
In 1999, Barbra Streisand released "Let's Start Right Now", an adaptation of the Brazilian song "Raios de Luz" with Roxanne Seeman's original English lyrics, recorded with a 72 piece orchestra arranged and conducted by Jorge Calandrelli. It was included as a bonus CD single in a limited edition of Streisand's A Love Like Ours album and as a bonus track on the international CD single release of Streisand's duet with Vince Gill.
In 2002, Seeman wrote English lyrics for Alejandro Sanz' Quisiera Ser onstage Grammy duet with Destiny's Child, performed in Spanish and English, with Beyoncé singing Seeman's English lyrics in the bridge.
In 2003, Jermaine Jackson performed "Let's Start Right Now" on The View.
Seeman participated in the 2003 Songwriters Summit at Henson Studios along with Lamont Dozier, K.C. Porter, and Narada Michael Walden, sponsored by the Oneness organization. Oneness organization whose goal was to inspire songs promoting social and racial unity.
For Sarah Brightman, Seeman wrote "Harem", original English lyrics for "Cancao do Mar", a Portuguese fado made famous by Amalia Rodrigues. "Harem" was a dance club chart single, video and title of Sarah Brightman's Harem album, which stayed in the Billboard Top 10 Crossover Classical chart for over 80 weeks.
In December 2008, Daniel Lindstrom, first Swedish Pop Idol winner, released "Caught In That Feeling", written by Seeman, Lindstrom, and Samsson, as the second single from his D-Day album.
In March 2009, Seeman and Philipp Steinke began a writing collaboration while Steinke, from Berlin, was in Los Angeles. In the same year, Alejandra Guzmán, Mexico's "Queen Of Rock", released "Amor En Suspenso ", written by Seeman and Steinke with Spanish lyrics by Guzman and Fernando Osorio, on Guzman's Único album on EMI Latin.
Seeman and Steinke wrote "Everyday Is Christmas" and "Which Way, Robert Frost?" for Jacky Cheung's "Private Corner" album. Earth, Wind & Fire covered "Everyday is Christmas" on their "Holiday" album released in 2014. In 2016, Nils Landgren covered "Everyday Is Christmas" on his Christmas With My Friends V album.
Austrian blues-rock singer Saint Lu released "Falling For Your Love", written by Saint Lu, Seeman, and Jimmy Messer for Saint Lu's 2 album released in 2013. A live acoustic video of the song premiered on YouTube.
December 2015, Argentinian tenor Eduardo Bosio, recorded Seeman's lyrics "Part Of Me", adapting Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" into a new song.
June 2018, The Stanley Clarke Band released the album "The Message" with "Lost In A World", written by Stanley Clarke, Beka Gochiashvili, Cameron Graves, Mike Mitchell, Seeman, Skyeler Kole and Trevor Wesley.