Nadia's Theme

"Nadia's Theme" is a piece of music composed by Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr. that serves as the theme music to the American television soap opera The Young and the Restless.

Origins

The melody, originally titled "Cotton's Dream," was composed, and lyrics were written for it, by De Vorzon and Botkin Jr. as incidental music for the 1971 theatrical film Bless the Beasts and Children. Two years later, Botkin Jr. composed a rearranged version of the music for The Young and the Restless; the show debuted on March 26, 1973. The melody was later renamed "Nadia's Theme" after the ABC television network's sports summary program Wide World of Sports lent the music for a montage of Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci's routines during the 1976 Summer Olympics ^[1]; despite the title, Nadia never performed her floor exercises using this piece of music. Instead, she used a piano arrangement of a medley of the songs "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" and "Jump in the Line."

Release

About one month after the 1976 Olympics, the song was released as a single by A&M Records (the B-side had an instrumental of De Vorzon's song "Down the Line.”) The recording was identical to "Cotton's Dream," with a repeat from the bridge to the end edited in to lengthen the piece. It soared up to number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart by December 1976, in part because of its association with Comaneci. However, A&M Records failed to credit De Vorzon as the co-writer on the first pressings of the single; he successfully sued the record label for $241,000 USD. The single was never actually released on CD until Eric Records included it on the CD Hard-To-Find Orchestral Instrumentals II.

Alternate versions

Other versions of "Nadia's Theme" have been recorded, including easy listening renditions by such artists as Ronnie Aldrich, Ray Conniff, Ferrante & Teicher, the orchestra of The Lawrence Welk Show, and James Galway; a semi-rock version by The Ventures; and David Hasselhoff's vocal rendition, which incorporated De Vorzon's and Botkin Jr.'s lyrics, for his 1997 album Lovin' Feelings.

Awards

Grammy Awards:

• Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement, 1978 ^[2]

References

1. ^ Nadia Comăneci at Olympic.org
2. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Awards_of_1978