Joe Delia

Joe Delia is best known for his extensive work as a composer for feature films and television. Born in Brooklyn New York, the fourth of thirteen children, his family moved to the suburbs in the fifties, and in time began studying piano. By age thirteen a group was formed with his older brothers and thus began a run of about four years of performing and recording. Originally called the Delia Brothers and eventually becoming the Bruthers, the group was signed to Sid Bernstein and then to RCA records, putting out one single called Bad Way to Go, which charted and eventually became a garage classic. Along the way, Joe became the first voice of the Muppets, both singing and co-writing the first Muppet performance on the Ed Sullivan show. Writing and performing jingles for national ads, appearing in national print ad campaigns and eventually being chosen by Bernard Gersten of the New York Shakespeare festival to star in Joseph Papp's production of the the show Lollapalooza which toured throughout the summer of 1967, were among his notable achievements as a teen. When the group disbanded, Delia embarked on a career in the studios of New York as a pianist and arranger. Among the artists he was hired to play keyboards, arrange records and tour with were : Grace Slick, Pat Benetar, Adam Sandler, Richard Belzer, Helen Schneider, Dave Edmunds, Dusty Springfield, Cissy Houston, Cory Daye, Englebert Humperdinck, VIcky Sue Robinson, Little Eva, Chuck Berry, David Johansen, Johnny Thunders, Janice Ian, John Raitt, Stevie Wonder, Martin Short, Nathan Lane, and Bruce Springsteen. Mr. Delia's film scoring career began in the eighties upon meeting director Abel Ferrara, which began a collaboration that lasts until today. The film credits with Ferrara include: The Bad Lieutenant, King of New York, The Addiction, The Blackout, Ms. 45,Fear City, The Funeral, Dangerous Game, Driller Killer, and Subway Stories (produced by Jonathan Demme). He performed in and wrote music for the Dutch Oven episode of Miami Vice which was also directed by Ferrara. Through that decade, Delia also collaborated with Danish superstar Kim Larsen, producing, performing and co-composing two albums that both went gold and platinum in Scandinavia (Jungledreams, and Sitting on a Time Bomb). Academia later came calling, and for two years was named composer in residence at Sarah Lawrence College under the direction of Shirley Kaplan, and June Ekart. He was co-founder and musical director (for six years) of the Buster Poindexter act, yielding the ubiquitous hit Hot, Hot, Hot, and the album of the same title, which he is credited as arranger and musical director. From the nineties to the present day, he has scored full seasons of episodic TV shows including War of the Worlds for Paramount, Digging for the Truth for History Channel, the Dellaventura TV series starring Danny Aiello for CBS, the Emmy award winning documentary series for NBC/Time Life titled Lost Civilizations. Collaborations with long time friend Richard Belzer resulted in comedy specials for HBO and Showtime as well as regular concert tours. Delia also produced a series of Jazz records for Music Masters/BMG for artists Stanley Turrentine, Freddie Hubbard, Jim Hall and Louis Bellson. Other scoring credits include, a number of documentary series' for History and Discovery Channel and multiple episodes of Nova for PBS, produced by Paula Apsell. Delia also composed scores to other feature films including Carlito's Way (rise to power), The Substitute (2), Fever (directed by Alex Winter) and the Sundance award winning film The Tao of Steve produced by Ted Hope. From 2016 to 2018 Joe Delia has composed scores for four new Abel Ferrara titles and is presently beginning to compose the score of Ferrara's up and coming feature titled Siberia, starring Willem Dafoe.