Jane and Leonard w/Duke Ellington

Lorraine Feather was born in Manhattan. Her parents named her Billie Jane Lee Lorraine after godmother Billie Holiday, her mother Jane (formerly a singer with various bands in New York), her mother's ex-roommate Peggy Lee, and the song "Sweet Lorraine." She is the daughter of the late jazz writer Leonard Feather.

The Feathers moved to L.A. when Lorraine was 12; at 18, after two years as a theater arts major at L.A. City College, she returned to New York to pursue an acting career. Some touring, regional theater, off-Broadway work and the concert and Broadway versions of Jesus Christ Superstar followed, interspersed with many waitressing jobs up and down Manhattan's West Side.

Frequently out of work, and discouraged by more than one employer from pursuing a career in the food service industry, Lorraine decided to try singing. She began working with various jazz and Top 40 bands in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.She sang backup for Petula Clark and Grand Funk Railroad, and finally put her own act together, performing in Manhattan cabarets, then moving back to L.A., where she sang at the Parisian Room, The Little Club, Stage One (with saxophonist Frank Morgan) and Donte's. Drummer Jake Hanna saw her at Donte's and recommended her to Concord Jazz head Carl Jefferson; she did a solo album for Concord. Soon after, she joined producer Richard Perry's vocal trio Full Swing and recorded a big band album with the group for Perry's Planet label, distributed by RCA. She began writing lyrics.

Lorraine spent the '80s with Full Swing; the group did the Monterey, Playboy and Kool Jazz Festivals, traveled to Japan and Brazil and backed Bette Midler. They recorded two more albums, for the Cypress/A&M label. Lorraine wrote lyrics for 23 songs on the group's releases, some for classic pieces like Duke Ellington's "Rockin' in Rhythm," the Yellowjackets' "Ballad of the Whale" and Horace Henderson's "Big John's Special" (later heard in the movie Swing Shift). Full Swing was featured on Barry Manilow's Swing Street album and TV special singing the Feather/Eddie Arkin song "Big Fun."

Augie Johnson, L., Charlotte Crossley
The group's first Cypress album received wide national airplay on New Adult Contemporary radio, and Lorraine's song "2 Good 2 Be 4gotten," written with Morgan Ames and Russ Freeman, became a Top 40 Adult Contemporary single. The next album went to #5 on the NAC chart.

When Full Swing dissolved, Lorraine spent a period of time focused mainly on writing. Songs with her lyrics were recorded on albums by artists such as Patti Austin, Phyllis Hyman, Carl Anderson, Djavan, Yutaka, Eric Marienthal, Jude Swift, Kevyn Lettau, Mark Winkler, David Benoit, Kenny Rankin, Tom Scott & Diane Schuur. Cleo Laine recorded four tracks of her versions of Ellington instrumentals, three of which were released in May 1995 on a Laine/Mercer Ellington album for BMG.

She co-wrote numerous songs for Dinosaurs (the TV show and album - with Ray Colcord), and three for the MGM animated film Babes in Toyland. Lorraine's TV writing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, The Days of Our Lives and Santa Barbara. Her Santa Barbara songs, written with Rick Rhodes and Dominic Messinger, received Emmy nominations in 1992 and '93, the former with her vocal. She has also written lyrics for songs recorded by Japanese singers Tamoko, Hiroko, Sato and Yuki, and dozens for Pioneer Animation.

She sang on the Dick Tracy soundtrack and on the soundtrack album for Bette Midler's For the Boys, also on albums for Michael Feinstein and Eric Marienthal. Her solo performance of Sondheim's "Not While I'm Around" is featured on Sweeney Todd in Jazz,an album by keyboardist Terry Trotter, which was released on the Varese Sarabande label in the summer of '95.

In 1996 Lorraine began working extensively with TV and film composer Mark Watters. They worked on a continuing basis for MGM Animation, and also wrote the finale to the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympics, "Faster, Higher, Stronger." It was sung by soprano Jessye Norman, and in the closing ceremonies by the Morehouse Choir. Lorraine and Mark received two Emmy nominations in 1997, for the "All Dogs Go to Heaven" theme (Daytime) and for "Faster, Higher, Stronger" (Primetime). They wrote all the songs for An All Dogs Christmas Carol, a full-length video stores released in Christmas of '98.

Lorraine received her fifth Emmy nomination in 1998, for an All Dogs song called "Take the Easy Way Out," with music by Scooter Pietsch. Her sixth and seventh nominations were for The Lionhearts and a song from the last All Dogs Go to Heaven episode, written with Watters.

Lorraine's album The Body Remembers, released in March of 1997 on the Bean Bag label, was written with various co-writer/producers, including her husband, drummer Tony Morales, and composer/producer Eddie Arkin. Some of the album's musical guests were Russ Freeman, David Benoit and Don Grusin.

In 1999 Lorraine began a year-long project, the compositions of Fats Waller with her lyrics and vocals. The album featured Dick Hyman, Mike Lang and Fats Waller himself, in sampled form, on piano. It was released in July of 2001 on Rhombus Records, received glowing reviews and was played on 150+ radio stations nationwide. Lorraine's last three CDs have been on Sanctuary. She completed Cafe Society in the summer of 2002; this was a compilation of original songs in a classic jazz motif, with music by Duke Ellington, Johnny Mandel, Don Grusin, Eddie Arkin, Russell Ferrante and David Benoit. In 2003 her Such Sweet Thunder CD came out. This project featured the music of Duke Ellington with her added lyrics, and received a four-star review in Down Beat and a description of "pure genius" from Jazz Times. Her new album Dooji Wooji was released in early 2005 and also received enthusiastic reviews.

Lorraine's last feature film credits were the 2003 hit The Jungle Book II, a Disney movie for which Lorraine wrote four songs with composer Paul Grabowsky and Joel McNeely, and 2004's The Princess Diaries 2, in which Julie Andrews sang "Your Crowning Glory," with lyrics by Lorraine and music by Larry Grossman. This was Ms. Andrews' first onscreen singing performance in many years. The movie was a huge box office success and the soundtrack album reached Billboard's Top 20.

In 2004, entertainment lawyer Marsha Brooks saw Lorraine performing in New York with Dick Hyman, at the Jazz in July concert series; this led to a meeting between Lorraine and the firm's client Stefania de Kenessey, a composer to whom Tom Wolfe had recently granted the rights to do an opera of his book The Bonfire of the Vanities. Lorraine was commissioned to write the libretto, work on which continues. She also began working as a lyricist for the firm's client John Moores, whose Canum Entertainment has optioned several properties now in various stages of production, including The Thief (from the Russian film, which received an Oscar nomination) and The Twelve Chairs.

For several years Lorraine has been writing with Mark Watters for S.D. Entertainment, an animation company started by Paul Sabella and Jonathan Dern, with whom Lorraine and Mark worked at MGM. S.D. has produced the Make Way for Noddy show for PBS and the Candy Land and My Little Pony films. Besides creating songs for these projects, Lorraine and Mark recently wrote several new songs for My Little Pony -- The World's Biggest Tea Party, which toured the country throughout 2007.

Lorraine's most recent solo project is Language, which is coming out in April of 2008 on the Colorado label Jazzed Media. The songs were written with contemporary composers Shelly Berg, Russell Ferrante, Bill Elliott, Eddie Arkin, Michael B. Nelson, Terry Sampson and Tony Morales.

Lorraine and Tony moved from Southern California to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s, then relocated to the San Juan Islands, off the coast of Washington State, in the summer of 2007. They have no children but have adopted dogs and cats on a continuing basis throughout their marriage. The current pair are Sterling and Brava, scooped up from Petfinder and The Milo Foundation respectively.