Roxanne Seeman Bio
Roxanne Joy Seeman, also known as Roxy Seeman, is an American songwriter, lyricist, record producer, music publisher, and Broadway producer whose career spans pop, R&B, soul, rock, jazz, classical crossover, and film and television music. Active since 1979, she is recognized for songs recorded by a remarkable range of artists, including Philip Bailey, Phil Collins, Earth, Wind & Fire, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, The Jacksons, The Sisters of Mercy, and international pop figures such as Jacky Cheung and Rainie Yang. Her work has earned two Emmy Award nominations and a Japan Gold Disc Award for International Single of the Year for “Welcome To The Edge” by Billie Hughes.
Seeman is the founder of the publishing company Noa Noa Music and has also extended her producing work to Broadway, where she co-produced the stage productions To Kill a Mockingbird and The Waverly Gallery. Her catalog reflects deep collaborations across continents, including songwriting in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, which has helped position her as a distinctive voice in global popular music.
Early Life and Background
Roxanne Joy Seeman was born in New York to Jewish parents, Murray Seeman, a lawyer and real estate developer, and his wife, Lee Seeman, née Sachs. Her father was a scholar, a World War II veteran, and a former mayor of Great Neck Estates, where the family lived. Her mother, a former member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, is of Israeli descent and from the Getz family of jewelers. The family experienced the Holocaust directly, with thirty-three relatives of the Seeman family killed during that period.
Seeman’s early musical life began at home in New York. She started piano lessons at age ten, took up violin at Saddle Rock Elementary School, and picked up guitar at sixteen. During her high school years, she was an avid fine artist and later studied at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, intending to pursue a career in art. While at Carnegie Mellon, she booked bands to perform on campus as a member of the School Activities Board, took a jazz theory class with Dr. Nathan Davis of the University of Pittsburgh, and studied classical piano in the practice rooms on campus.
Wishing to learn Chinese calligraphy, Seeman enrolled in a Chinese language class, an experience that inspired her to apply as a transfer student to Columbia University in New York. She graduated from Columbia University and Barnard College with a Bachelor of Arts in Oriental Studies, focusing on Chinese arts and language. Her coursework included Chinese, Japanese, and Indian literature and art, as well as a class on Chinese music taught by Professor Chou Wen-Chung.
Path to Music
Seeman’s path into professional songwriting began in New York City, where she spent nights in jazz clubs while working as a temporary secretary at Atlantic Records and Warner Communications. Inspired while lying on a dock over the Long Island Sound in Kings Point, she began writing lyrics for jazz instrumentals. In New York, she met songwriter and session singer David Lasley, who was touring with James Taylor, and he sang demos of her lyrics over the instrumentals.
After relocating to Los Angeles in 1977 for a position at ABC Records, which was sold the next year to MCA Records, Seeman’s career advanced quickly. In 1979, jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater recorded Seeman’s lyric version of the Ramsey Lewis instrumental “Tequila Mockingbird,” composed by Larry Dunn of Earth, Wind & Fire and produced by George Duke. This collaboration led to a partnership with Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire, and together with Maurice White and Eddie del Barrio, Seeman co-wrote “Sailaway” for the Earth, Wind & album Faces.
Roxanne Seeman Career
Early Career (1979-1984)
During her early years in Los Angeles, Seeman produced 24-track recordings at ABC Recording Studios with collaborators including David Benoit, Bobby Watson, Eduardo del Barrio, David Garibaldi, Doug Rodrigues, Terry Reid, Hubert Laws, Sylvia St. James, and Arnold McCuller. She also met recording engineer Gerry Brown at ABC, who went on to mix many of her songs. During this period, she connected with Jermaine Jackson and contributed a demo of “Tahiti Hut,” a Eumir Deodato and Maurice White composition with Seeman’s lyrics, which Jackson recorded during sessions with the band Switch. Switch’s album Reaching For Tomorrow also included “Reaching For Tomorrow,” co-written with Paul Jackson, Jr.
In 1982, Seeman signed an exclusive writer agreement with Intersong Music, the publishing arm of PolyGram. While under contract, she wrote “Walking On The Chinese Wall” with Billie Hughes, though her publisher turned the song down as too unusual and returned it to her. The following year, in 1983, Seeman began her long partnership with recording artist and songwriter Billie Hughes, a collaboration that would shape the next fifteen years of her career.
Breakthrough (1984-1998)
The year 1984 marked Seeman’s breakthrough into mainstream popular music. Philip Bailey, the Earth, Wind & co-frontman, recorded “Walking On The Chinese Wall,” which became the title track of his solo album Chinese Wall and a minor pop hit that cracked the Billboard Hot 100, accompanied by a music video. The song was later included in Phil Collins’ box set Plays Well with Others. Around this period, Seeman also held the position of Executive Assistant to producer Scott Rudin, President of Production at 20th Century Fox, and in 1987 she worked on the film Off Limits, starring Willem Dafoe and Gregory Hines, in Bangkok, where she is credited for Thai casting.
Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Seeman and Hughes wrote a string of widely recorded songs. Their “If You’d Only Believe” was performed by The Jacksons, with the song featured in the finale of The Jackson Family Honors live ABC telecast from Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Hotel in February 1994 alongside Michael Jackson and Celine Dion. They also wrote “Night And Day” recorded by Bette Midler and “Under The Gun” recorded by The Sisters of Mercy, as well as “Walls Of Love” and “I Love The Way You Make Me Feel” performed by Hughes, two of the only original songs that remained in the 2019 Baywatch HD Remastered series.
Television work expanded Seeman’s reach further. “Welcome To The Edge,” written and produced with Hughes, was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Original Song in the TV drama Santa Barbara in 1991. The song was a number-one single in Japan, remaining on Billboard’s Japan Top 10 chart for four months and selling 520,000 copies, while also serving as the theme for the Japanese primetime television show I’ll Never Love Anyone Anymore. Hughes received the Japan Gold Disc Award for Number One International Single of the Year for the track. The pair earned a second Emmy nomination for “Dreamlove” in the TV drama Another World in 1994.
Notable Works and Milestones
Among Seeman’s signature achievements are the Philip Bailey hit “Chinese Wall” (1984), the Japan Gold Disc Award-winning “Welcome To The Edge” (1991), and Sarah Brightman’s “Harem” (2003), for which Seeman wrote original English lyrics adapted from the Portuguese fado “Cancao do Mar.” The “Harem” single was a dance club chart hit and title of Sarah Brightman’s Harem album, which stayed on the Billboard Top 10 Crossover Classical chart for over eighty weeks. Seeman has also co-written songs recorded by Barbra Streisand, including an adaptation of “Raios de Luz” recorded with a seventy-two-piece orchestra arranged and conducted by Jorge Calandrelli, and contributed to film and television projects ranging from Spike Lee’s Get On The Bus to Stuart Little 2 and the Netflix Marvel series Daredevil.
Roxanne Seeman Award Nominations
Across her career, Roxanne Seeman has received two Emmy Award nominations for Best Original Song. Her first nomination came in 1991 for “Welcome To The Edge,” co-written and produced with Billie Hughes, which appeared as a love theme in the television drama Santa Barbara. Her second Emmy nomination followed in 1994 for “Dreamlove,” also written with Hughes, for the television drama Another World. In 1996, Seeman received Special Recognition for Musical Contribution from the daytime drama Guiding Light, in connection with the Emmy Award won by music director Jonathan Firstenberg.
Roxanne Seeman Awards Won
Roxanne Seeman and Billie Hughes received the Japan Gold Disc Award for International Single of the Year for “Welcome To The Edge,” following the song’s number-one status in Japan and its extended run on the Billboard Japan Top 10 chart. Beyond the Gold Disc Award, Seeman’s songwriting has earned recognition through public broadcasting honors, including the Special Recognition for Musical Contribution from the daytime drama Guiding Light, tied to the Emmy Award won by music director Jonathan Firstenberg. Her work has continued to receive industry acknowledgement through invitations to speak and perform at international events, including panelist appearances at the Live at Heart Film & Music Festival Seminar in Örebro, Sweden, and NAMM 2025.
Roxanne Seeman Family
Roxanne Seeman was born to Murray Seeman, a lawyer, real estate developer, scholar, World War II veteran, and former mayor of Great Neck Estates, and Lee Seeman, née Sachs, a former member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. Her mother’s family is of Israeli descent dating back to the 1800s on the paternal side and from the Getz family of jewelers on the maternal side. The Seeman family lost thirty-three relatives in the Holocaust, a history that has informed Seeman’s advocacy work, including her tribute performance of “In Love And War” for the Veterans History Project 20th Anniversary Event Celebration, honoring her father’s military service.
Personal Life
Roxanne Seeman was in a long-term relationship with recording artist and songwriter Billie Hughes from 1983 until his death in 1998. The two shared a deep professional partnership, co-writing hits recorded by Philip Bailey, Bette Midler, The Jacksons, The Sisters of Mercy, and others, while also collaborating on Hughes’ own recordings. Seeman has maintained her own publishing company, Noa Noa Music, named after the Tahitian words “noa noa,” meaning “fragrant scent,” that she used in her lyrics for the song “Tahiti Hut.”