Biddy
Schippers
As a songwriter,
arranger, programmer, producer and co-owner of DRC Entertainment/Music
Avenue Records, Biddy Schippers is living her dream of a life
in music. She's also winning acclaim in an area she hadn't
intended to pursue-as a recording artist in her own right.
With the truly original musical creation "Alice In Wonderland,"
a dance chart hit at record pools and clubs nationwide, Schippers
builds on the success of Randell & Schippers, the moniker
under which she and collaborator and husband Denny Randell
perform.
Featuring Biddy on the lead vocals, "Alice" is full of wit
and whimsy, narrating the adventures of the song's title heroine
with infectious lyrics and an irresistible groove. Other stand-out
singles written and performed over the years by the duo of
Randell & Schippers include "Let's Go For It" and "Love Jam,"
which the U.K.'s Blues & Soul Magazine called, "Quite simply,
a modern masterpiece." When the pair first started recording
together in the mid-'80s on their own Ear Candy label (later
sold to a group including BMG Records), they called themselves
Fantasy-"Our music as artists is kind of surreal," explains
Biddy. While the name was a good fit for their dreamy, funky
sound, Randell & Schippers soon stuck as the official name
of their act together.
Schippers' passion for music began in childhood, and her journey
in realizing it has been an extraordinary one. Raised in an
unincorporated town of about forty people outside of Hartford,
WI (itself a satellite of Milwaukee), she started playing
piano at age six, guitar at age nine and composing songs at
age eleven. Biddy excelled in varsity swimming and mathematics
competitions, and went on to earn a B.A. degree at Stanford
University in political science/pre-law; her studies also
included a semester at Oxford University in the U.K.
After graduating, Biddy waited tables and crammed for law
boards until, partly inspired by a Stanford professor who
highly praised her poetry, she opted to forgo a law career
and become a songwriter. "It really was a bungee jump," she
says. Schippers enrolled in the music program at San Francisco
City College--"I was still very academically focused at the
time, very much into theory and musical harmony writing,"
she remembers. She roomed with a lawyer/opera singer, and
they worked out a schedule so each would have dedicated hours
on the apartment's prized piano, set in a room with a spectacular
view of San Francisco Bay. Biddy began performing around the
city, and her unique blend of pop, opera, rock and theater
music developed a loyal niche following.
Schippers'
next leap of faith came when, "I decided I was ready to write
commercial music, so I got rid of everything I owned and moved
to Los Angeles." She continued with school to expand her range-"When
you're a classical pianist, you're not used to a lot of changes,
you're reading music. I wanted to loosen up, and throw myself
into more improvisational jazz and pop-oriented situations.
Her demo tapes and early collaborations quickly found favor
with music publishers, and she sold her very first song, "When
We Make Love," to a Paramount-affiliated firm in 1985. Subsequent
songs became hits in Japan and Europe, and an independent
publisher Biddy was working with suggested she meet with Denny
Randell, thinking they'd be good writing partners.
"At
first, I was really nervous," says Biddy, "to have only been
in town for a year and a half, and to be writing with someone
of Denny's caliber. Then we started to talk, and we both happened
to be people who wrote music and lyrics--we connected on that.
When we got together, we did a first round of songs, a variety
of things, and it was just an instant, intimate, good collaboration."
Biddy
Schippers and Denny Randell were ahead of the curve on incorporating
synthesizers and drum machines into their music, still a pioneering
sound in 1986. It was also around this time that Biddy's incarnation
as a songstress began after Denny listened to a demo she'd
once made when a singer she'd hired for a recording session
didn't show up. "Denny just really loved my voice," she remembers.
"He said, 'I think you have a hit sound. I think we should
make a record and put it out.' At first I wasn't sure, having
boycotted chorus in the 8th grade, but we went for it." Self-released,
their first "Randell & Schippers" side leapt onto dance charts
in New York City, later making its way across the country
with notoriety at top dance pools and mix radio. A recording
contract with Scotti Brothers/CBS Records followed, and the
"R&S" sound made a splash on both sides of the Atlantic, impacting
dance charts in the U.K. as well.
Going
forward from there, Biddy Schippers and Denny Randell made
the decision to diversify and start their own company, DRC
Entertainment--including DRC Music Group, Music Avenue Records
Group and Cyber MC Webcasting-and continue to write and produce
for a collective of artists instead of solely focusing on
Randell & Schippers.
The mix of developing and
producing projects for other artists notwithstanding, the
success of "Alice In Wonderland" attests to the ongoing popularity
of Randell & Schippers, a sonic duo that will live on through
inventive new material that Biddy and Denny are currently
writing.
As
naturally suited to composing a wonderfully original song
as she is to engineering it in the studio and getting behind
the microphone to embellish it with her distinctive vocals,
Biddy Schippers' dynamic balance of "left brain" and "right
brain" talents is a partnership as innovative and winning
as her ongoing artistic duet with Denny Randell. After several
years juggling an east coast studio in Orlando, FL with musical
roots in L.A., Biddy is thrilled that she and Denny are back
in Southern California full time now, with new headquarters
for DRC Entertainment…and every manner of wondrous project
that they'll dream up!
