Grammy-nominated producer Rick Chertoff has had hits on Cyndi Lauper, the Hooters, Joan Osborne, and Sophie B. Hawkins, among others. The Great Neck, Long Island, NY, native met his longtime music business partners Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian of the Hooters while attending the University of Pennsylvania.

While an executive at Columbia Records, Chertoff found his biggest success with Portrait/Epic artist Cyndi Lauper. Her platinum single Girl Just Want to Have Fun hit number two pop in late 1983 on Billboard's charts. Lauper's album She's So Unusual sold five million copies and went to number four pop in early 1984. It included Time After Time (a gold number one pop single), All Through the Night (number five pop), and the number three pop hits Money Changes Everything and She Bop.

Chertoff's other Columbia albums include the Hooters' two-million selling album Nervous Night and the gold LP One Way Home from summer 1987 and 1996's Hooterization, British pop trio the Outfield's 1986 double-platinum Play Deep, and Joan Osborne's number four pop hit One of Us from her 1995 multi-platinum Relish. He also worked with Air Supply on their two-million selling 1980 Arista LP Lost In Love, whose title track peaked at number three pop in early 1980; Rex Smith's 1981 album Everlasting Love, whose title song was a hit for both Robert Knight and Carl Carlton, was a hit duet single by Smith and Rachel Sweet in summer 1981; the eight-man group Breakwater's 1980 LP Splashdown, which yielded the R&B charting singles Work It Out, Splashdown Time, Say You Love Me Girl, and the steppers cut No Limit; and General Johnson's self-titled 1976 album that boasted three R&B charters, Don't Walk Away, We the People, and All in the Family -- both on Arista Records. Chertoff's '90s releases include Sophie B. Hawkins' Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover and the 1998 multi-artist set Largo that's based on Dvorak's New World Symphony for his Blue Gorilla imprint. ~ Ed Hogan, Rovi