Pamela Phillips Oland: Lyricist

INTERESTING CAREER FACTOIDS:

“Nobody Loves Me Like You Do” was first performed by Whitney Houston and Jermaine Jackson on “As The World Turns” to see how it would play!
The Grammy-nominated, Country Music Award - winning (best duet) “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do” as performed by Anne Murray and Dave Loggins, has achieved over 1 million airplays.
Pamela wrote lyrics to the theme from “Burglar” with the Jacksons: Jackie, Jermaine, and Tito, plus Bernard Edwards – and Whoopi Goldberg’s scene on the roof in the movie was filmed to the song.
“Center of My Heart” - the theme to “Blizzard” – nominated for a “best song in a motion picture” Canadian Genie Award (Canada’s version of the Academy Awards) was co-written with the film’s director LeVar Burton and Canadian writer/producer Dave Martin
“Monday Morning Quarterback” – the Frank Sinatra recording that broke open Pamela’s career – was discovered by Sinatra’s producer/arranger Don Costa, who played and sang on a quick piano-voice demo, and gave it to Sinatra’s publisher Sarge Weiss, who drove it to the airport, and put it on a plane to South America where Mr. & Mrs. Sinatra sent out for two “Walkmans” so they could listen to the song! The next day “Mr. S” as he was called, phoned Don and told him “You can’t sing! – but even you can’t ruin this song!”
Terri Nunn of Berlin first met Pamela through a friend who recommended her to coach her on lyrics. They became friends and penned “Turn You On,” which Berlin later recorded.
When Pamela was approached by Leon Sylvers III and Evelyn “Champagne” King to write “Shakedown” Pamela asked “what does that mean?” They said, what do you think it means? She replied, “I don’t know, a police bust?” Evelyn said, “Yeah, but make it a love song!” And that’s how that unusual lyric came about.
“One World,” which was recorded by Earth Wind and Fire, was written in a hotel room at the Hotel Rossiya in Moscow by Pamela and Franke Previte (“I Had The Time of My Life”) , and Estonian writers Sergei Manoukian and Mick Targa, during “Music Speaks Louder Than Words,” the first inter-cultural US-Russian songwriter summit in which 22 American songwriters co-wrote with their Russian peers.
The Silver World Medal was awarded to Pamela in the Best original Music and Lyrics cagegory of the New York Festivals, winning over 16,000 other entries – for her work in the award-winning animated video film “The Legend of the Three Trees,” which features vocals by Marilyn McCoo and Andy Chrisman (of the group 4Him). Narrated by Hal Holbrook, it’s produced by TLC Productions, and won the New York Festivals Gold World Medal in the Children’s Animated Program category. It also won the Silver and Bronze Telly Awards in the Children’s and Religious programming categories
The song “I Am Who I Am” on the recently-released “Oneness: Songs of Hope and Unity” album, was co-written with smooth jazz superstar Brian Culbertson and Santana lead singer, Andy Vargas, during the all-day co-write at the Jim Henson Studios in L.A. (formerly A&M Recording Studios).
“The Kids Ten Commandments,” a 5-video set, features 10 songs with words and music by Pamela, who is known generally for her lyrics. The songs were written at the request of George Taweel and Rob Loos, the wonderful multi-award winning animation team at TLC Productions. Featured all-star voices are: Lou Diamond Phillips, Tim Curry, John Schneider, Tom Bosley, and Jodi Benson.
When Petula Clark rehearsed “All Those Years Ago” with Richard Carpenter for a performance at his Carpenter Center Theater in Southern California, she loved the Carpenter-Oland song so much she insisted on finishing her “Ultimate Collection” album with the song.
When Joseph LoDuca asked Pamela to co-write songs for the acclaimed all-musical episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess" ("The Bitter Suite") the pair came up with 3 songs, “Illusia,” “Hate is the Star” and her very favorite, a sort of tongue-in-cheek oratorio, "War And Peace."
“Spittin’ Image” – a delightful ditty wittily performed by Jason Alexander and Mary Steenbergen was co-written by Pamela with bass legend Marcus Miller and composer Steve Rucker for Lynn Oliver, based on Lynn’s delightful concept for this moment in her feature film, “Trumpet of the Swan.”
When the “Great Railway Adventures” record came out, with songs by, Tom Chase and Steve Rucker, and vocals by Red Grammer, Lionel Trains created a miniature train just for the project. Parents of little boys from across America contacted Pamela through this website saying how the album had inspired the boys to what would probably be a lifetime of enjoying trains.
For the animation films “Mikhail Barysnikov’s Stories of my Childhood,” including “Snow Queen,” “Wild Swans,” and “Pinocchio,” the soundtrack was removed from the picture, and Pamela re-lyriced all the songs in the film to fit the moving Russian animated mouths! Then Tom Chase and Steve Rucker wrote all new music, along with the new score.