| Vonda Shepard | |
| Background: | solo_singer |
| Birth Date: | 7 July 1963 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Origin: | California, U.S. |
| Instrument: | Vocals, piano, guitar, bass guitar |
| Occupation: | Singer, pianist, songwriter, actress |
| Years Active: | 1987 - present |
| Label: | Reprise/Warner Bros. Records 550 Music/Epic/SME Records VesperAlley Records |
Vonda Shepard (born July 7, 1963) is an American singer, songwriter, music director, and actress. She is perhaps best known for her starring role as a fictionalized version of herself on the television series Ally McBeal (1997–2002), for which she recorded five soundtrack albums as well as the series' theme song "Searchin' My Soul", which saw international commercial success.[1] [2] Shepard has otherwise released nine studio albums and three live albums. She received a Screen Actors Guild Award as a cast member of Ally McBeal in 1999 among two additional nominations, and received a Billboard award for selling the most television soundtrack albums in history.
Vonda Shepard was born in New York City in 1963.[1] Her family relocated to California when she was a child, and she played piano from an early age. Her father was Richmond Shepard, a mime and improvisational actor. She has three sisters. After performing as a backup singer, Shepard received her own recording contract and made her first chart appearance in 1987 with her duet with Dan Hill, "Can't We Try." Her self-titled debut studio album followed in 1989. It saw the moderate commercial success of the single "Don't Cry Ilene", which peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart and remained there for 12 weeks.[3]
While promoting her third studio album It's Good, Eve (1996), Shepard performed at the Key Club in Hollywood, California, and at one point she invited Michelle Pfeiffer and her husband David E. Kelley to come watch her perform. Kelley decided during the performance that he wanted Shepard to record the soundtrack for his forthcoming television series Ally McBeal, having been looking for a singer to be the voice and inner thoughts of the character. Her biggest commercial success while starring on the series was the theme song "Searchin' My Soul", an original selection that originally appeared on her second studio album The Radical Light (1992), jointly written and composed by Shepard and Paul Howard Gordon.[1] Her version of Kay Starr's Christmas classic "(Everybody's Waitin' for) The Man with the Bag", after it was featured on a season 4 episode of Ally McBeal, became a popular holiday song.[4] [5] [6]
Shepard went on to record four soundtrack albums and one compilation album for Ally McBeal. Additionally, she released nine solo studio albums and three live albums to date. She married music producer Mitchell Froom in 2004; they had their first child in 2006. In 2010, she provided vocals for "I Need You," whose music had been composed by James Newton Howard, for the film Love & Other Drugs.[7]
| Year | Title | Release date | Label | Peak chart positions | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUS [8] | UK [9] | |||||
| 1989 | Vonda Shepard | August 1, 1989 | Reprise | — | — | |
| 1992 | The Radical Light | April 8, 1992 | Vesper Alley | — | — | |
| 1996 | It's Good, Eve | January 23, 1996 | Vesper Alley | — | — | |
| 1999 | April 20, 1999 | Jacket | 96 | 39 | ||
| 2002 | Chinatown | September 24, 2002 | Jacket | — | — | |
| 2008 | From the Sun | September 2, 2008 | Bos | — | — | |
| 2011 | Solo | December 6, 2011 | Hotelè/PanShot | — | — | |
| 2015 | Rookie | July 10, 2015 | Hotelè | — | — | |
| 2022 | Red Light, Green Light | September 21, 2022 | Hotelè | — | — | |
| Year | Title | Release date | Label | Peak chart positions | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUS | UK | |||||
| 1998 | Songs from Ally McBeal | May 5, 1998 | 550 | 1 | 3 | |
| 1999 | November 9, 1999 | 550 | 17 | 9 | ||
| 2000 | Ally McBeal: A Very Ally Christmas | November 7, 2000 | 550 | — | — | |
| 2001 | Ally McBeal: For Once in My Life | April 23, 2001 | 550 | 5 | — | |
| 2009 | The Best of Ally McBeal: The Songs of Vonda Shepard | October 6, 2009 | Legacy | — | — | |
| Year | Title | Release date | Label | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Live: A Retrospective | September 1, 2004 | Navarre | |
| 2010 | From the Sun Tour: Live in San Javier | November 2, 2009 | Galileo | |
| 2019 | Vonda: Live | September 6, 2019 | Hôtele |
| Year | Song | Chart positions | Album | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US AC | AUS | CAN | CAN AC | SPA | UK | ||||
| 1987 | "Can't We Try" | 2 | 41 | 14 | 2 | — | — | Dan Hill | |
| 1989 | "Baby, Don't You Break My Heart Slow" | — | — | — | — | — | — | Vonda Shepard | |
| "I Shy Away" | 37 | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| 1990 | "Don't Cry Ilene" | 17 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1992 | "Wake Up the House" | — | — | — | — | — | — | The Radical Light | |
| 1998 | "Searchin' My Soul" | 22 | 82 | 6 | 22 | 1 | 10 | Songs from Ally McBeal | |
| "Hooked on a Feeling" | — | — | — | — | 7 | — | |||
| 1999 | "Maryland" | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "Tell Him" | — | — | — | — | 29 | — | |||
| "Baby, Don't You Break My Heart Slow" (with Emily Saliers) | 21 | — | — | 8 | — | 76 | Heart and Soul: New Songs from Ally McBeal | ||
| "Read Your Mind" | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| 2000 | "Someday We'll Be Together" | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 2001 | "Chances Are" (with Robert Downey, Jr.) | — | — | — | — | — | — | Ally McBeal: For Once in My Life | |
| 2002 | "Rainy Days" | — | — | — | — | — | — | Chinatown | |