[1] In addition to Dirty Dancing hits for Bill Medley, Jennifer Warnes and Eric Carmen, he has also written songs with and for Eddie Money, John Waite, Kristine W, Steve Holy, Jeannie Kendall, Sugar Jones, Annie Haslam, Bernie Worrell, The Sighs and Martin Briley.
[2][3] A native of Amityville, New York and a longtime resident of Greenwich Village, DeNicola began his musical career as a bass player with "Flight", a band which recorded for Motown in 1980 and was sampled by Erikah Badu on her hit song "Back in the Day".
Although his songwriter portfolio includes music written for and performed by other artists, he is best known for his collaboration with Franke Previte and Donald Markowitz on the award-winning songs for Dirty Dancing.
[5][6] DeNicola shared an imprint, Omad/Paradigm Records, through which he produced a number of albums, before creating his own studio, Jake's Kitchen Sink.
Also included is "In God's Shadow" which he wrote with John Waite, Anthony Krizan and lyrics by Keith Reid (Whiter Shade Of Pale) with Mickey Madden (Maroon 5) on bass.