Tony Powers
American songwriter
title: "Tony Powers" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1938-births", "living-people", "musicians-from-the-bronx", "american-male-songwriters", "songwriters-from-new-york-(state)"] description: "American songwriter" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Powers" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American songwriter ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Tony Powers |
| birth_name | Howard Stanley Puris |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | The Bronx, New York, US |
| genre | Pop music |
| occupation | Songwriter, performer, actor |
| years_active | Late 1950s – present |
| website | http://tonypowersmusic.com/ |
| :: |
| name = Tony Powers | image = | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = Howard Stanley Puris | birth_date = | birth_place = The Bronx, New York, US | instrument = | genre = Pop music | occupation = Songwriter, performer, actor | years_active = Late 1950s – present | associated_acts = | website = http://tonypowersmusic.com/ Howard Stanley Puris (born 1938), known as Tony Powers or Anthony Powers, is an American songwriter, recording artist, music video artist, and actor. He was responsible for writing or co-writing the hit songs "Remember Then", "Why Do Lovers Break Each Other's Heart", "98.6", "Lazy Day", and many others including "We're The Banana Splits", the Kiss songs "Odyssey" and "The Oath", and Powers' own "Don't Nobody Move (This is a Heist)".
Biography
He was born in Manhattan and grew up in Pelham Parkway in the East Bronx, New York City.
In the mid-1960s, Powers moved to Don Kirshner's Screen Gems publishing company, an arm of Colpix Records. He continued to have success as a songwriter, with hits including Spanky & Our Gang's "Lazy Day", and Keith's "98.6" both co-written with George Fischoff. Other writers with whom Powers shared songwriting credits in the 1960s include Jeff Barry, Artie Kornfeld, Jack Keller, Al Kooper, and Mark Barkan.
During the late 1960s, Powers began to feel that "writing solely for commercial purposes was far too limiting and restrictive", and began writing songs that "concern the 'human condition' seen from a working-class viewpoint... for the most part social and political comments, usually couched in dark humor with a bit of sarcastic anger". He released an album on his own label, Home-Made (My Real Name is Howard Stanley Puris), in 1971.
In 1981, he pioneered shooting the music video as a short movie when he began filming the comedic spoken-word to music cult classic "Don't Nobody Move (This is a Heist)". By 1982, he had created a 26-minute video consisting of "Heist", "Odyssey" (co-starring Lois Chiles), and Midnite Trampoline". He called the piece a MusicFilm, as they were three of the very first Music Videos with a narrative, and shot on film. The trilogy was based around "Don't Nobody Move (This is a Heist)". All three short films were shot around New York with actor friends including Peter Riegert, Treat Williams, Stephen Collins, Marcia Strassman, the then-unknown John Goodman, and others. On its own the "Heist" MusicFilm won several awards, including the Silver Medal at The 26th Annual International Film and Music Festival of New York, the Gold Medal at The 1st International Music Video Festival of Saint Tropez, and was Details Magazine's "Video of the Year". It was subsequently widely shown on HBO and on the US TV show Night Flight.
Credited as Anthony Powers, he started appearing in small acting roles in movies and TV in the early 1980s. His roles have included parts in the TV series The Equalizer, NYPD Blue, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and The King of Queens. He has also appeared in the movies Cadillac Man and Goodfellas (both in 1990), and Catch Me If You Can (2002), as well as in commercials.
He released the self-produced albums Under the Cover of Darkness in 1996, and Who Could Imagine, called "a masterpiece" by Joel Selvin, former pop critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, in 2007.
He has written two novels: Bedloe (A True Fable) (2020) and The Attendant (2022), which has been optioned for film. His third novel, "The Beginning," a memoir as roman à clef, is currently in search of an agent.
References
References
- [http://www.allmusic.com/artist/tony-powers-mn0001766201 Tony Powers at Allmusic.com]. Retrieved 5 June 2014
- In the late 1950s, he started writing and selling songs, and began working for Trio Music, a [[music publisher (popular music)
- With Ritchie Adams, he also co-wrote "We're the Banana Splits", intended as the theme song for ''[[The Banana Splits]]'' TV series in 1968.[http://www.45cat.com/record/32391 "We're the Banana Splits" at 45cat.com]. Retrieved 14 March 2013
- [http://www.45cat.com/45_search.php?sq=Tony+Powers&sm=cm Tony Powers credits at 45cat.com]. Retrieved 14 March 2013
- He began performing his own material in clubs in New York and [[Los Angeles]], where he later settled.Autobiographical notes, and biographical sketch by Penny Stallings, at [http://tonypowersmusic.com/bio.html TonyPowersMusic.com]. Retrieved 14 March 2013
- [http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/12/blogpost26.html ''Home-Made'' at WMFU.org]. Retrieved 14 March 2013
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::