Anthony “Tony” Moran is a two-time Grammy nominated remixer/producer/singer-songwriter and DJ known for remixing popular songs. In 2007, he hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart twice with “Walk Away” featuring Kristine W and “Keep Your Body Working” featuring Martha Wash. As a remix producer Moran has worked with top dance/pop artists including Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Neyo, and many others. Other singles as a solo artist is the dance anthem “If I Was Your Boyfriend” performed with Anastacia, and his most recent hit, “Free People”, his second hit with Martha Wash, went to number one on the US dance chart.
Moran began his career back in 1981, when he and friend, Albert Cabrera, teamed up. Together they were “The Latin Rascals”, whose re-edited versions of hit songs spliced together enjoyed major air-play on New York dance radio WKTU’s popular mix show. The radio exposure led to a deal from Shakedown Studios who hired the duo to restructure popular hit radio songs into viable dance club hits. Shortly thereafter, they were contracted by another studio, Fever Records, to write and produce a song for one of their new acts, The Cover Girls. The result was Show Me, a song that not only became Tony Moran’s first Top 40 gold record, but also helped to usher in the freestyle era of music. This opened the doors for new artists including TKA, Sa-Fire (“Boy, I’ve Been Told”), and Lisette Melendez (“Together Forever”), all of whom benefited from the skillful hands of Moran and Cabrera.
Tony Moran credits his freestyle background for the pop sensibility he incorporates into his music, today. “Playing music that generates a feel-good energy is what I love about being a DJ/mix master,” explains Tony. He eschews the strict underground house mentality preferred by many of his contemporaries and instead prefers to impart his remixes and productions with a hook-laden commercial appeal that is both radio friendly and dance floor-ready. Tony measures a successful dance floor with the number of hands in the air, and the number of people dancing and singing along.
Moran currently is considered one of the most well-known DJs in the house/electronic music genre, playing to massive crowds at events throughout the world. He continues to produce music and has produced some major hits played in dance clubs such as “Put Your Hands Up”, “Cafe Con Alegria”, and “The Promise”. He also produced “Body to Body, Heart to Heart” for Cher’s Living Proof album and was nominated for two Grammys for his production of Gloria Estefan’s “Don’t Let This Moment End” and “Heaven’s What I Feel”. Another major production was Donna Summer’s “You’re So Beautiful”, which appeared on her greatest hits album entitled The Journey: The Very Best of Donna Summer. in December 2012, Tony also released another original production with the late Donna Summer entitled “Valley of the Moon” which was recorded at the same time as “You’re So Beautiful”. He has produced four dance hits for Deborah Cox: “Easy as Life”, “House Is Not a Home”, “Everybody Dance (Clap Your Hands)” and “Tenderness”.
The thunderous beats of New Yorker Tony Moran have resonated throughout clubs and arenas around the world, and have dominated the Billboard dance charts for decades. When artists like Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Mary J Blige, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Lopez want to tear up the dance floor, they call upon the top-ranked DJ and Grammy™ nominated producer and remixer for The Moran Sound — hard hitting tribal house anthems infused with the latest cutting edge sounds in electronica.
Tony Moran, however, is more than a man that works the DJ booth and studio. An accomplished singer and songwriter, he has released a number of independent singles and CDs throughout his three-decade long (and counting) career. His latest offering, entitled MAGIC is a universal embrace of soul, sympathy and conviction. MAGIC has been two years in the making, and follows hot on the heels of his previous tour de force double dance CD, THE EVENT. The lead single from MAGIC is You Are, an original Moran composition featuring powerful vocals by Frenchie Davis.
EARLY ROOTS Drawing strength from the challenges of his childhood surroundings in Brooklyn, Tony Moran capitalized on the melting pot of creativity that lay before him in the form of music. It’s hard to say whether Tony Moran discovered music or music discovered Tony Moran, but after naturally gravitating to the DJ tables and attracting partygoers by the hundreds to his gigs, Tony Moran himself got discovered by a program director of a prominent radio station in New York City in the early 80s.
Buoyed by local buzz, Tony Moran, at age 19, struck a fateful collaboration with producer Albert Cabrera. Dubbed The Latin Rascals, the pair fused the latest dance beats with hints of their Latin heritage into an explosive freestyle mix of club music. The result: the million-plus selling dance topper and pop smash, Show Me by the Cover Girls.
This success opened the floodgates to producing and remixing work for a variety of artists ranging from Run-DMC and LL Cool J to The Beach Boys and Diana Ross, who struck gold on the dance floor with the Latin Rascals’ magic touch. The duo, with Moran on lead vocals, also busied themselves performing live in clubs and stadiums across the country.
FLYING SOLO Heeding the call to develop himself artistically as an individual, Tony Moran went on to write, remix and produce albums and songs for a range of acts as diverse as Michael Jackson, Gloria Estefan, Cher, Luther Vandross, Patti LaBelle, Celine Dion, Jennifer Holiday, Jon Secada, Barry Manilow, Kenny G and even the London Symphony Orchestra.
Not to be left out, of course, are club queens Deborah Cox, Kristine W, Suzanne Palmer and Inaya Day, who have all churned out dance smash after dance smash with Tony Moran at the helm.
With more than 800 titles, dozens of Top 40 pop hits and countless No. 1 dance singles to his credit, the two-time Grammy-nominated Tony Moran shows no signs of slowing down. Driven as ever, but imbued with the creative freedom to develop and evolve his trademark sound on his own terms, Tony Moran — like his contemporaries and role models Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto, Bob Sinclair and David Guetta — is taking his music across the globe from the Americas to Europe to Asia and back.
With Tony Moran, the beat goes on…