TEAM `PURPLE' VALLEY'S TONY-NOMINATED COMPOSERS KNOW THE SCORE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

A pop song makes a point and repeats it. A musical theater tune moves the story or the character forward without needing to end where it began.

If they weren't aware of these stylistic differences before they set to work on the Broadway musical ``The Color Purple,'' the composing team of Allee Willis, Brenda Russell and Stephen Bray sure know it now.

``I think we're all going to be thinking a lot more broadly than we did,'' says Willis.

Willis has sold more than 50 million albums. Even so, the Valley Village-based writer of such '80s hummables as ``Boogie Wonderland,'' ``September'' and the ``Friends'' theme song, ``I'll be There for You,'' has found breaking the rules of songwriting to be liberating. Russell, a pop and jazz artist (``Piano in the Dark,'' ``Get Here'') with eight solo albums to her credit, is inclined to agree.

``There's a huge lyrical difference,'' says Willis. ``Musically, we all found it really freeing that you didn't have to constantly return to the same musical place all the time. Me especially. I'm a huge fan of incongruity, the fact that something could make an extreme left turn.''

``We call it `Willis-ville,' '' interjects Russell.

`I'd be doing something and they would both look at each other like, `There she goes,' '' continues Willis. ``In pop music, if you do that, you're losing all your chart possibilities.''

With Oprah Winfrey producing, ``The Color Purple'' had possibilities all its own. Bray, Willis and Russell are up for a Tony Award for best original score tonight (one of 11 nominations for the musical), and the soundtrack album produced by EMI/Angel Records was released in January. A national tour is scheduled to kick off in April 2007 in Chicago.

Inspired by Alice Walker's novel and Steven Spielberg's film, ``The Color Purple'' is the story of 14-year-old Celie's quest for identity and redemption in turn-of-the-century rural Georgia.

When producer Scott Sanders requested spec submissions for the composing assignment, he called Willis and asked her opinion of Russell as a potential candidate. As fate would have it, Russell was, at that moment, headed to Willis' house. The two women and Bray were working on the score to ``Fat Girl'' and ``Driving While Black,'' a pair of animated series created by Willis.

Willis gave Sanders an enthusiastic recommendation, and she also decided to ``mooch in on the gig.''

``The three of us competed for a chance with, like, seven or eight other writers,'' says Willis. ``We just felt it was right from the second we had our first discussions. All three of us felt that we were carried through by some force.''

The animated series had been a no-paycheck labor of love, adds Russell, but the collaborative harmony among the three artists counted for plenty.

``When we started working together, there was something going on there,'' says Russell, a Woodland Hills resident. ``I think I might have said, `We need something bigger.' We just put it out into the universe, and it came back -- bam! There wasn't a moment of hesitation even though we've never done anything like this before.''

Walker's story begins in 1909 and spans 40 years. Musically, the period allowed its composers to select from a pastiche of front-porch gut-bucket rhythms -- gospel, blues and jazz. All three composers agreed that the soundtrack should not resemble a revue-like tour through the music of the era.

Composing and lyric writing were, according to Willis and Russell, equally split among the three writers, with any member of the team working on several different sections at once. Bray, who wrote and produced many of Madonna's early hits, did much of the coordinating while Willis and Russell tinkered with melodies.

``We're all musical and lyrical people,'' says Russell. ``Mainly my job is at the piano because I fumble the best. We all came from totally different musical places, and the balance was great.''

``It doesn't matter to me if it's the last note in a fade or an idea for an intro, a lyric or a string line,'' adds Willis. ``Whoever felt it at that moment would get up. Everyone would contribute as long as you had ideas for that section.''

A slightly rude awakening in transitioning from pop to Broadway was what Russell terms ``the rewrite factor.'' Instead of submitting a song for an album and having it be accepted or rejected as is, the creative team would routinely ask a ``Purple'' tune to be changed, rewritten or otherwise adjusted to fit an evolving scene.

How many versions of ``Dear God'' did the team write before settling on the two that made it into the show? About 97, Willis estimates.

``Some of them, I think were really superior songs,'' says Willis, ``But you have to just divorce yourself from that and do what's right for the whole. You can't look at it from a songwriting place. You're not doing your job if you do that.''

The team followed the production from its out-of-town tryout in Atlanta to New York. Winfrey, the production's marquee-topping name, was present to give notes, but nothing egregious or overly interfering where the score was concerned, according to Willis and Russell.

``When we all met her for the first time, she basically told us that she felt like she had been chosen to do this,'' recalls Willis. ``She had been brought into this extraordinary family and set of circumstances. She said, `I know you all know what I feel.' ''

``And she's right,'' adds Russell. ``The `Purple' energy is divine, and it can change your life.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

TONY AWARDS

What: 60th anniversary of the Broadway stage awards, hosted by Oprah Winfrey.

Where: CBS (Channel 2).

When: 8 tonight.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Longtime musicians Allee Willis, bottom, and Brenda Russell can now add ``Broadway composers'' to their resumes for their work on ``The Color Purple.''

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer