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Brill Building-era songwriting teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, and Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman were to rock and roll what Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and George and Ira Gershwin were to Tin Pan Alley.
- The Chiffons – One Fine Day
- Ben E King – Stand by Me
- Bobby Vee – Take Good Care of My Baby
- Elvis Presley – Jailhouse Rock
- The Shangri-Las – Leader of The Pack
- The Righteous Brothers – You’Ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
- The Clovers – Love Potion No9
- Manfred Mann – Do Wah Diddy Diddy
- Dionne Warwick – Walk on by
- The Carpenters – (They Long to Be) Close to You
For the follow-up to their 1963 hit “He’s So Fine,” this New York four-piece girl group turned to Brill Building pop songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Sticking with the “fine” formula, the husband-and-wife songwriting team came up trumps with “One Fine Day.” Almost two decades later, King took the song top 20 for a second time, when she “co...
The unexpected addition of Latin rhythms and sensibilities to what is essentially a southern soul record owes its origins to the Cubano-Ricano club nights around Broadway in New York. Monday Mambo at the Palladium was a haven for the Brill Building songwriters – including Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, who penned this classic that’s been covered by...
The songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King followed up their success with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” on this number one hit for Bobby Vee. Born Robert Thomas Velline, Vee was first noticed as a stand-in for Buddy Holly, and, for a while, boasted a young Robert Zimmerman (later better known as Bob Dylan) as a member of his backing band. This son...
The Brill Building pop songwriting team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller connected with Elvis Presley over a shared passion. As Mike Stoller explained, before meeting Elvis, he and Lieber “thought we were the only two white kids who knew anything about the blues.” In his pioneering work of rock criticism, Mystery Train, Greil Marcus calls Jailhouse...
It may sound morbid, but for a while around the end of the 50s and start of the 60s, there was something of a craze for songs about teenagers dying tragic deaths. These teenage tragedy records were known as “death discs,”or more gruesomely as “splatter platters.” George Morton came up with the idea for this one, which he finished off with Jeff Barr...
After successful appearances on the TV show Shindig, Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield were signed by Phil Spector, who decided they were the perfect act to front his Wagnerian “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,” a deserved smash hit around the world. Written by Spector alongside Mann and Weil, it was chosen by the RIAA as one of the 25 Songs of the Ce...
Hailing from Washington, DC, The Clovers owed a debt to The Coasters stylistically, and even secured a top 30 hit with a song originally written for the latter group. In a first and, presumably, last for pop music, this Leiber and Stoller number tells the bizarre tale of how the singer bought an over-strong aphrodisiac from a gypsy and ended up kis...
As if by way of illustrating that the British Invasion had well and truly usurped homegrown talent in the US, when The Exciters recorded the Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich number “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” it did nothing. But when the London beat combo Manfred Mann covered it shortly after, it became a worldwide hit, topping the chart on both sides of t...
Dionne Warwick recorded one Bacharach and David song after another. “Anyone Who Had a Heart” was her first hit, followed by the devastating heartbreak of “Walk On By,” and a string of others. “The more Hal and I wrote with Dionne, the more we could see what she could do,” explained Bacharach. Hal David added, “There was nothing that Burt could writ...
Proving that a great song refuses to go away, “(They Long To Be) Close To You” was originally released by Richard Chamberlain in 1963, then recorded by Dusty Springfield in 1964, although her version was shelved until 1967. It became a worldwide hit The Carpenters in 1970. As Richard Carpenter explained, “That record, that song, the arrangement, al...
Brill Building Pop (Songwriters) Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Burt Bacharach, is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, pianist, and singer who has composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner ...
Dec 20, 2023 · Prominent Tin Pan Alley composers were Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, George M. Cohan, George and Ira Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Scott Joplin, Cole Porter, and Johnny Mercer. The Brill Building. Source: Wikipedia. The Brill Building Sound.
Before World War II, the Brill Building became a center of activity for the popular music industry, especially music publishing and songwriting. Scores of music publishers had offices in the Brill Building. Once songs had been published, the publishers sent song pluggers to the popular bands and radio stations. These song pluggers would sing ...
- March 23, 2010
- 11
- 175,000 sq ft (16,300 m²)
The assembled talent was a once-in-a-generation roster of songwriters, including Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and Neil Diamond. Together, they produced sophisticated songs that were directly aimed at a new, youthful generation and a powerful rising subculture: teenagers.
Feb 9, 2023 · In honor of legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach, who died on February 8 at the age of 94, we’re re-running this 2014 as-told-to piece where he reflected on writing music at New York City’s...
