Always Magic In The Air
The Bomp and Brilliance
Of The Brill Building
Era
By Ken Emerson
Ken Emerson
fashioned an incredible family portrait of fourteen incredible songsmiths of
that bygone era of the fifties and sixties. The music was all encompassing as
Tin Pan Alley shifted and changed with the times. Incredible craft and no small amount of
competitive spirit merged with Baion Beats, augmented chords, polyrhythms and
nonsense syllables just for fun. This was a multi-cultural melting pot of great
music
Jerry Lieber
and Mike Stoller wrote Youngblood, Searchin’ and Yakety Yak for the Coasters;
Jailhouse Rock and Loving You for Elvis and collaborated with Barry Mann and
Cynthia Weil for the hit On Broadway. They wrote over 70 charted hits
Burt
Bacharach and Hal David worked almost exclusively with Dionne Warwick. She was
a conservatory trained vocalist who helped interpret the writer’s deeper
meanings in the lyrics. All told Warwick scored 38 charting songs written by
her mentors including Walk on By, There’s Always Something There to Remind Me.
They penned hits for Gene Pitney (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence) , My Little
Red Book (Manfred Mann) and Jackie Deshannon (What The World Need Now). They
registered 73 hit records as one of the most successful songwriting teams in
music history
Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman wrote for Hill and
Range Music and composed an incredible body of music that embodied the hit
potential of blued based pop songs such as Turn Me Loose (Fabian), A Teenager
in Love (Dion & the Belmonts), This Magic Moment (The Drifters), Little
Sister and Viva Las Vegas (Elvis). Pomus struggled with post polio syndrome and
often used a wheelchair to enhance his mobility. He performed onstage singing
the blues, his favorite idiom.
Neil Sedaka and Howie Greenfield were partners
in chutzpah. Their early hits were a bit thin, songs like I Go Ape and The
Diary were not well received but he hit his stride with Calendar Girl, Happy
Birthday Sweet Sixteen and his signature song Breaking Up is Hard to Do. By the
time the British Invasion conquered America, Sedaka’s career as a songwriter
and performer stalled. It wasn’t until he collaborated with future members of
10CC on an album entitled Solitaire that Sedaka’s career enjoyed an incredible
resurgence. The comeback was complete as he enjoyed several chart topping hits
such as Love Will Keep Us Together performed by Captain and Tennille as well as
his own success with Laughter in the Rain, The Immigrant and Bad Blood
Gerry Goffin and Carole King were in their
teens when they married and forged a career as songwriters. King was a gifted
arranger and knew how to build a song with hooks and subtle chord
embellishments while her partner was a tuned-in lyricist. They were Aldon Music’s
most bankable asset. They had an incredibly diverse canon of music from Don’t
Let Me Down (The Animals) and Pleasant Valley Sunday (The Monkees) to The
Locomotion (Little Eva) and One Fine Day (The Shirelles). Their union ended up
in divorce as substance abuse and mental illness caused a fracture in their
relationship
Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were a young
married couple in 1961 when they started their ascent at the Brill Building.
They became staff writers at Aldon Music which was owned by Don Kirchner and Al
Nevin. They tended to write songs that
had a layer of social consciousness with such notable sons as Uptown (the
Crystals), We Gotta Get Out of This Place (the Animals), Magic Town (The
Vogues), Kicks (Paul Revere & the Raiders) and Shades of Gray (The
Monkees). Mann and Weill co-wrote You’ve Lost that Lovin Feeling with Phil
Spector. They also took the Righteous Brothers under their wings with two great
songs You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling and (You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.
They continue to write and perform.
Emerson’s
narrative is an interwoven tapestry of life at the Brill Building. His writing
is fluid, and suspenseful, keeping the reader on edge with more suspense and
detail of these pioneers of early rock & roll. The Brill Building
songwriters have been vilified in the past for writing silly songs on cue in
order to sell more disposable product, yet as formulaic as the songs could be, the
truth is that the songs were incredible and have stood the test of time.
Perhaps it is the clash and melding of cultures that never gave a damn about
ethnicity when it comes to great music. The song craft at 1650 Broadway was
essential to the later development of Motown, The Beatles and the British
Invasion. William Wordsworth once talked about nostalgia…
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven
Peace
Bo White
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