Charlotte Caffey
Charlotte Caffey | |
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![]() Caffey (2008) | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Charlotte Irene Caffey |
Born | Santa Monica, California, U.S. | October 21, 1953
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Years active | 1977–present |
Associated acts |
Charlotte Irene Caffey (born October 21, 1953) is an American musician and songwriter, best known for her work in the Go-Go's in the 1980s, including writing "We Got the Beat".
Career[]
Caffey began her musical career playing bass guitar in the early Los Angeles punk band The Eyes before joining the Go-Go's in 1978.[1] She remained friends with fellow band member Belinda Carlisle after the initial breakup of the Go-Go's and wrote songs for Carlisle's solo albums.
From 1988 until 1992, she led her own band, The Graces, with Meredith Brooks and Gia Ciambotti, who released the album Perfect View in 1989. Caffey also co-wrote the theme song to the television series Clueless with Anna Waronker, and played piano on the album version of "Foolish Games" by Jewel, as well as co-writing the No. 1 U.S. country hit "But for the Grace of God" with Keith Urban.[1]
Caffey wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Lovelace: A Rock Musical with Anna Waronker. The rock musical debuted at the Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles in 2008. A new production of Lovelace: A Rock Musical made its United Kingdom debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2010. A number of her songs were featured in the 2018 debut of the Broadway musical Head Over Heels, with a story suggested by Philip Sidney's Arcadia set to the songs of the Go-Go's and Belinda Carlisle.[2]
Personal life[]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/The_Go-Gos_-_Charlotte_Caffey_on_keyboards.jpg/220px-The_Go-Gos_-_Charlotte_Caffey_on_keyboards.jpg)
She grew up in Glendale, California, and graduated from Immaculate Heart College. She is also in Ze Malibu Kids with her husband, the Redd Kross singer and guitarist Jeff McDonald. Their only child, a daughter named Astrid McDonald, was born in 1995 and is a singer and model.
She was the third of thirteen children born to Ann (née Gorey) and Michael Caffey (died 2017), a well-known and always in demand American network television series episode director from the mid-1960s on into the 1990s (The Virginian, Dukes of Hazzard, Barnaby Jones, MacGyver, CHiPs, T.J. Hooker).
Charlotte semi-retired from regular performances in the late 1980s because of crippling carpal tunnel syndrome.[2]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b Charlotte Caffey (August 20, 1996). "SongFacts: Charlotte Caffey". M.songfacts.com. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012. Retrieved March 1, 2012.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Go-Go's Musical Head Over Heels Eyes Summer Broadway Bow at the Hudson Theatre". Playbill. January 10, 2018. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
External links[]
- 1953 births
- Living people
- Musicians from Glendale, California
- Immaculate Heart College alumni
- American rock guitarists
- Songwriters from California
- Writers from Glendale, California
- The Go-Go's members
- Lead guitarists
- American new wave musicians
- American female singer-songwriters
- American rock songwriters
- American female rock singers
- American female pop singers
- Guitarists from California
- Alumni of Immaculate Heart High School, Los Angeles
- 20th-century American women singers
- 20th-century American women guitarists
- 20th-century American guitarists
- 21st-century American women guitarists
- 21st-century American guitarists
- 21st-century American women singers
- Germs (band) members
- The Graces (band) members
- 20th-century American singers
- 21st-century American singers
- American singer-songwriters