Twyla Herbert (born Twila Moody; July 27, 1921 – July 11, 2009) was an American
songwriter
A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...
known for her long songwriting partnership with the singer
Lou Christie
Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco (February 19, 1943 – June 17, 2025), known professionally by his stage name Lou Christie, was an American pop music, pop and soft rock singer-songwriter known for several hits in the 1960s, including his 1966 US ch ...
.
Beginnings
Twila Moody was born in
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. As of the 2020 census, the city has a population of 314,998. It is the most populous city in th ...
, and as a child moved with her parents to Pennsylvania, where she married Earle Herbert (d.1982). In the late 1950s, Lou Christie was 15 years old when he met Herbert, a "bohemian gypsy, psychic, and former concert pianist," at an audition in a church basement in his hometown,
Glenwillard, Pennsylvania. Over 20 years older than he was, with flaming red hair, she was a self-described
clairvoyant
Clairvoyance (; ) is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to ...
and
mystic who allegedly predicted which of their songs would become hits.
Collaboration
The pair co-wrote the great majority of Christie's hits, including "
The Gypsy Cried", "
Two Faces Have I", "
Rhapsody in the Rain", "She Sold Me Magic", and most famously, "
Lightnin' Strikes", a song later
covered
Cover or covers may refer to:
Packaging
* Another name for a lid
* Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package
* Album cover, the front of the packaging
* Book cover or magazine cover
** Book design
** Back cover copy, part of ...
by such
artists
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
as
Del Shannon
Charles Weedon Westover (December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990), better known by his stage name Del Shannon, was an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known for his 1961 number-one ''Billboard'' hit " Runaway", which was covered la ...
and
Klaus Nomi
Klaus Sperber (January 24, 1944 – August 6, 1983), known professionally as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor noted for his wide vocal range and an unusual, otherworldly stage persona.
In the 1970s, Nomi immersed himself in the East Villag ...
. Christie discussed their songwriting relationship: "Twyla is a genius. She was going to be a concert pianist but we started writing
rock 'n' roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...
. The hardest part was that we had too many ideas. If we wanted to write a song, it would never stop."
Herbert and Christie also composed for his
backup singers, a girl group named
the Tammys, a handful of songs, including the eccentric
single, "
Egyptian Shumba," which with its over-the-top, savage vocals and faux-
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
ern
melody
A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...
, has become a
cult
Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...
classic.
Herbert died in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...
in 2009, at the age of 87.
Twyla Herbert, ''Legacy.com''
Retrieved September 4, 2022
References
External links
* Twyla Herbert on Allmusicbr>A Photograph of Twyla Herbert with Lou Christie (archived)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herbert, Twyla
Songwriters from California
1921 births
2009 deaths
Musicians from Pittsburgh
Clairvoyants
Songwriters from Pennsylvania
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women pianists
21st-century American women
20th-century American songwriters