STEPHEN BRAY
Stephen Bray (born December 23, 1956 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American songwriter, drummer, and record producer. He is best known for his collaborations with Madonna. Bray owns and operates Saturn Sound recording studios and the Soultone Records record label. He is married to movie producer Stephanie Allain, who produced Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan. (More from Wikipedia)
Without question, Patrick Leonard is the most prominent ex-bandmember of Trillion and is primarily known as a keyboard player, producer and songwriter in the early part of Madonna’s career. Unlike her first two albums, Madonna wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on her third album, True Blue. Five of these songs were co-written by Madonna and Leonard – including “Open Your Heart”, “Live to Tell” and “La Isla Bonita” – and a sixth song, “Where’s the Party” was co-written by Madonna, Leonard and Stephen Bray, the other producer on the album.
(October 2012)
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Black Russian had some assistance with the lyrics, perhaps because English is not their native language; they hardly spoke the language at all at the time that they defected. Lyricists who lent a hand include Allee Willis, who co-wrote the lyrics for their beautiful first single “Leave Me Now”. Willis has had a long career as a writer, songwriter, set designer, and artist. Her musical credits are as wide-ranging as can be imagined; together with Stephen Bray and Brenda Russell, Allee Willis wrote the music for the 2005 Broadway musical The Color Purple, based on the 1982 novel, The Color Purple by Alice Walker and the 1985 movie, The Color Purple that was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Rae Dawn Chong.
(April 2015/1)
