Tom Whitlock, the songwriter and musician best known for co-writing Kenny Loggins’ Top Gun hit, “Danger Zone,” has passed away at age 68. According to The New York Times, Whitlock died in Gallatin, Tennessee and his passing was confirmed by Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home. His cause of death was not revealed. Whitlock wrote songs that were used in over 100 movies and shows, but his claim to fame was creating music for Top Gun. In fact, he won an Academy Award in 1987 for writing the Top Gun classic “Take My Breath Away,” which was performed by Berlin.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Whitlock and composer Giorgio Moroder created five songs together for Top Gun. Throughout his career, Whitlock also wrote songs that were performed by Bonnie Tyler, Ray Charles, and Graham Nash. He is also credited for writing the lyrics for the theme songs for the 1988 Summer Olympics as well as the 1990 FIFA World Cup. The songwriter was born in Springfield, MO on February 20th, 1954. In an interview with RediscoverThe80s.com back in 2018, Whitlock revealed he started playing the drums at age 11 and began working with artists when he was just a teenager.
“Starting at age 15, I spent a lot of time at the piano writing songs,” Whitlock told the site. “Lots of gigs, lots of sessions and lots of not very good songs. I dropped out of college after my first semester and went to Los Angeles where I had a deal with a major film company’s music publishing company – no success, so I went back to college to study music theory. In 1976, my friends and I had a band that was signed to Mercury Records – that had a 2+ year run. So, by now you see the pattern: a bit of education and then some kind of action. In January of 1983, a friend and I headed back to L.A. to start a band with another pal who was living there.”
Whitlock ended up working with Moroder after a chance meeting led him to fix the composer’s car breaks. He was then hired to do odd jobs around Davlen Sound Studios before he began creating music with Moroder.
He shared of working on Top Gun, “Top Gun came to Giorgio’s studios (Oasis Recording Studios) for several reasons. The producers, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, had just had massive success with Giorgio on Flashdance and because Harold Faltermeyer (an alumnus of Giorgio’s Musicland Studios) was going to do the score. The producers and the Music Supervisor (Michael Dilbeck) came to the studio with over 300 songs to audition against various scenes. There was a Sony TV in the studio and they would run footage and play bits of songs against various scenes. Nothing seemed to be working very well so (if I remember correctly) Jerry asked Giorgio to write something. Giorgio came up with the track that became ‘Danger Zone.’”
Whitlock is survived by his sister, Mary Whitlock Schweitzer, his former wife, Hollie Whitlock, and her daughter, Yohanna Sherman. Our thoughts are with his family at this time.
