Today (September 7, 2010) is the 54^th birthday of songwriter extraordinaire Diane Warren. Her songs have received seven Grammy nominations (including one win) and six Oscar nominations. She has been named the ASCAP Songwriter of the Year six times, Billboard's Songwriter of the Year four times and, in 2001, was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Warren's songs have been featured in over 70 films or television shows over the years. Her first hit was the song "Solitaire" which Laura Branigan took to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983.

Other 80s hits written by Diane Warren include "Rhythm of the Night" by DeBarge(1984), "I Get Weak" by Belinda Carlisle(1987), "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship(1987), "Look Away" by Chicago(1988), "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Cher(1989) and "Blame It On the Rain" by Milli Vanilli(1989). Her list of 90s hits is much more impressive, but her contributions to the 80s are still significant. When the last song on that list, "Blame It On the Rain" reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in November of 1989, it knocked another Diane Warren out of the #1 spot making her the first female songwriter to have back-to-back #1 hits. The other song that was knocked out of the top spot was "When I See You Smile" by Bad English which had held the #1 position for two weeks prior.

Bad English was sort of a super-group that formed in 1988 when former Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain brought fellow former Journey guitarist Neal Schon to reunite with Cain's former The Babys bandmates singer John Waite and bassist Ricky Phillips. Though Bad English only released two albums before tensions amongst the members led to the band's dissolution by 1992, they did have one major hit in 1989 with Warren's beautiful ballad. This week's Flashback Video is "When I See You Smile" by Bad English...

Some people don't realize that it is John Waite handling lead vocals on that song. His 1984 solo hit "Missing You" is one of my favorite songs of the decade. Bad English drummer Deen Castronovo later went on to join a reformed Journey along with Neal Schon and Jonathan Crain.

Diane Warren's massive success as a songwriter has offered her the opportunity to support a number of charitable causes. She is a Buddy For Life at AIDS Project Los Angeles and an honorary committee member of PETA. She has been a key donor to the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance and has founded the David S. Warren Weekly Entertainment Series at the Jewish Home for the Aging, a program she established in memory of her father. Because of her success, SCAP and VH1 joined forces as part of VH1's Save the Music campaign to launch the Diane Warren "Music of My Heart"/ASCAP Foundation Music Education Project in 2002. Her publishing company Realsongs, was named one of the top 5 music publishing corporations and is the most successful female-owned and operated business in the music industry. You can find out more about what Diane Warren is up to at the official Realsongs website http://www.realsongs.com/" title="http://www.realsongs.com/" target="_blank"http://www.realsongs.com/.

That's all for another issue of Kickin' it Old School. Thanks for reading. If you are interested in reading any of my other 80s related issues, please click there for a summary of those. If you want to see the past issues of Flashback Videos, just type that into the Google Search Box at the top of the right hand column and it should give you a list of all of them. You can also always click on the Archives in the upper left hand column or use that Google Search Box to find any past issues or topics you may have missed. If you are a fan of Kickin' it, PLEASE CLICK ON THE FACEBOOK LOGO in the upper right hand column. This will take you to the Fan Page where I ask you to then click on the "Like" button. Even if you are not a Facebook member yet, please consider joining and registering as a fan at that page. You can also follow Old School on Twitter by clicking on the FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER LOGO also in the upper right hand column. This will take you the page and you can just click on the box that says "Follow". Even though the blog only updates a couple times a week, I try to send out daily 80s tweets. Let other 80s fans know about it as well! Peace and much love.