March 8: Groovy Kind of Songwriter

Song lyricist Carol Bayer Sager, whose first pop hit, “Groovy Kind of Love,” recorded in 1966 by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, was written (with Tony Wine) while she was still a student at the High School for Performing Arts, was born in New York on this date in 1947. Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, Sager wrote lyrics for other hit recordings including the Beach Boys’ “I Can Hear Music,” Patti LaBelle’s “On My Own,” Diana Krall’s “Why Should I Care,” Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better,” the Doobie Brothers’ “How Do the Fools Survive?” and songs by Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Bette Midler, Michael Jackson, Sheena Easton, Peter Allen, Dolly Parton, and dozens of others. Sager has also had a string of romantic partners, including record-producer Andrew Sager, Marvin Hamlisch, Burt Bacharach, and film producer Robert Daly, her husband since 1996. She has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globes. To see her singing her own song, “You’re Moving Out Today,” look below. To see the Beach Boys playing their Sager hit, look below that.

“I still get excited every time I turn on the radio and hear one of my songs. How could I ever give that up?” —Carole Bayer Sager