Laurie Maitland - We're Gonna Make Our Dreams Come True (1998) - disco cover version of the Laverne & Shirley tune

released February 1, 1998 

Produced by Jim Morgan & Terri Forte 

Executive Producer: Debra Forte 

Mixed By – Queen Village Recordings Studios 

Recorded By – Queen Village Recordings Studios (tracks: 1)

Rhythm Arrangements By – John Luongo 

String & Horn Arrangements By – David Van DePitte 

Backing Vocals – Laurie Maitland, Peter Bice, Timothy Foster 

Bass – Dennis Belfield 

Drums - Paul Leim 

Electric Piano – Joel Bryant, Robbie Buchanan 

Glockenspiel – Vincent Montana, Jr. 

Gutars – Paul Jackson Jr. 

Handclaps – Cathi Leveille, Colleen Heather, Eric Lipman, Frank Simon, Jane Sofman, Janice Kahn, Laurie Maitland, Marina Ebbert, Pam Sindaco, Robert P. Brown, Sonia Lonon, Wally Hayman 

Lead Vocals – Laurie Maitland 

Percussion – Paulinho Da Costa 

Piano – Laurie Maitland 

Written-By – Charles Fox & Norman Gimbel, Ellen Weston, Laurie Maitland

Here is the story:

This was the theme, performed by pop singer Cyndi Grecco and her sound-alike Beach Boys sunshine-pop harmonious male backing vocal group, The Ron Hicklin Singers with group members Ron Hicklin himself, Tom Bahler and Jim Haas from the TV series Laverne & Shirley, starring Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. 

It was written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox; they wrote a variety of songs together, including the themes from the TV shows Happy Days (Laverne & Shirley was a spin-off from this show) and Angie.

In our interview with Charles Fox, he told us: “Happy Days, one episode had these two young women, Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney. They were kind of brought on as love interests of the Fonz and Ron Howard. ABC had a lot of calls, cards, and letters about these two girls on the show, and they decided to make a quick pilot to see if that could go right behind Happy Days. Happy Days was already a number one show by that time, and our song was climbing up the charts, too. They shot not a whole pilot first; they just made a quick presentation, about 20 minutes that Garry Marshall came up with. Norman Gimbel and I were asked to write the song, but what we knew about the girls was very little. All we knew about them —because there wasn’t even a pilot script yet — we knew that they were blue collar workers, they worked in a factory in Milwaukee in a brewery, and they had hopes and dreams and ambitions about getting out and seeing life and doing things. So we wrote kind of a gentle song that was called ‘Hoping Our Dreams Will Come True.’ And we played it for the producers, and they said, ‘You know, it’s really a nice song, but this is not our characters. Our characters are not going to 'wish and hope.’ They’re going to take the bull by the horns; they’re going to make life happen. It’s two strong-minded girls.‘ So we made a change, and Norman wrote instead of 'hoping our dreams will come true,’ ‘making our dreams come true.’ And that, of course, is a whole different song. It required a different lyric; it turned a different melody, a different characterization. So there’s just one example of something that was so new, the idea of the two girls, that it wasn’t until the producers heard the song that they could tell that it did not personify these girls.” 

22-year-old Brown-eyed soul/pop star and studio backing vocalist Laurie Maitland did a soulful disco remake of that catchy tune, re-titled, “We’re Gonna Make Our Dreams Come True” from that family sitcom in a Donna Summer style, taken from her 1998 self-titled debut album, with the ballad intro that starts off with “Give us any chance, we’ll take it” and picking up the speed to a fascinating ‘70s disco beat with added music and lyrics by herself and Lesley’s Gore’s songwriting friend, Ellen Weston, who wrote “Love Me By Name”.