Ellie Greenwich
'Leader of the Pack' for '60s Pop Tunes
The following story courtesy of The Wall Street Journal
By STEPHEN MILLER
Her music was the soundtrack of the early 1960s.
Ellie Greenwich wrote some of the era's biggest hits, from "Chapel of Love" to "Be My Baby" to "Leader of the Pack." Working with collaborators including Phil Spector and Jeff Barry, Ms. Greenwich became one of early pop's most prolific writers, known for creating catchy, saccharine songs for all-female groups like the Crystals and the Dixie Cups.
Ms. Greenwich, who died Wednesday at the age of 68, was one of many pop composers working in the early 1960s at New York City's Brill Building, a hub of activity for the pop music industry. Her neighbors there included Carole King, Burt Bacharach and the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who eventually hired Ms. Greenwich to write songs full time.
"She had this uncanny ability to write very simple," says Mr. Stoller. "The tunes for 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and 'Chapel of Love' -- they get in your head and they stay there."
In the hothouse environment of the Brill Building, it seemed anything might happen. In 1963, Ms. Greenwich overheard a conversation about the royalties being enjoyed by the author of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and came up with her own confection, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" -- recorded by Darlene Love and later by many others, including Mariah Carey, U2 and Death Cab for Cutie.
"If it wasn't for those songs she wrote, I wouldn't have a career," says Ms. Love, who recorded "Chapel of Love" and "Wait 'Till My Bobby Gets Home," among other Greenwich tunes.
Ms. Greenwich came to write for all-female groups after having performed in one herself, the Jivettes, which she formed while still in high school in Levittown, N.Y.
She wrote her first songs on the accordion, after a family friend gave her the instrument as a child. One early composition was "Who You Gonna Love This Winter, Mr. Lifeguard?" She later said that the best advice she received during that time was to stay in school.
She had just graduated from Hofstra College, as the school was then known, when she came to the attention of Messrs. Leiber and Stoller. The pair at first paid Ms. Greenwich by the song and gave her office space, in return for the right of first refusal for anything she wrote. Her first hit, the doo-wop-inflected "Why Do Lovers Break Each Other's Hearts," cracked the top 50 on the pop-music charts in 1963. She said that she was so astonished to hear the song on the radio for the first time that she crashed her car into a toll booth.
In addition to writing for other performers, Ms. Greenwich was a sought-after singer for back-up vocals throughout her career. She worked with some of the biggest pop stars of the period, including Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin and Neil Diamond.
But it was as a writer that she had her most lasting impact. In the mid-1960s, she turned out a wave of hits that became iconic tunes of the era: "Then He Kissed Me," "Hanky Panky," "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," "Baby I Love You" and "River Deep, Mountain High." She and her husband, Mr. Barry, divorced in 1965, but continued to write songs together.
By the late 1960s, the era of bubble-gum pop gave way to harder-edged rock, and Ms. Greenwich's work was less in demand.
Ms. Greenwich released a couple of solo albums before leaving the music business for a time. Later, she turned to writing and singing advertising jingles, including "Ooh-La-La-Sasson" for women's jeans. She also performed as a backup singer on albums by Blondie and Cyndi Lauper. She later described how the music world's changing tastes, coupled with personal setbacks, contributed to the severe depression that she suffered during the 1970s.
After being out of the spotlight for more than a decade, Ms. Greenwich found new career success in 1985, when she played herself on Broadway in "Leader of the Pack," a musical about her life. The show was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical.
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Associated Press news story
By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer
NEW YORK -- Ellie Greenwich, who co-wrote some of pop music's most enduring songs, including "Chapel of Love," "Be My Baby" and "Leader of the Pack," died Wednesday, according to her niece. She was 68.
Greenwich died of a heart attack at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, where she had been admitted a few days earlier for treatment of pneumonia, according to her niece, Jessica Weiner.
Greenwich, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, was considered one of pop's most successful songwriters. She had a rich musical partnership with the legendary Phil Spector, whose "wall of sound" technique changed rock music. With Spector, she wrote some of pop's most memorable songs, including "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "River Deep, Mountain High." But Spector wasn't her only collaborator.
She also had key hits with her ex-husband Jeff Barry, including the dynamic song "Leader of the Pack" (years later, Broadway would stage a Tony-nominated musical with the same name based on her life).
"He was the first male I could actually harmonize with," she once said.
Greenwich was a native of Brooklyn. While she garnered her greatest success as a songwriter, Greenwich started out as a performer. She performed in talent shows as a child, and by the time she was a teen, she had her own group, called The Jivettes.
She went to college, where she met Barry, and shortly after graduation, began working for songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, where she got her break. She had her first chart success with the Jay and the Americans song "This Is It," which she wrote with Doc Pomus and Tony Powers.
She also had success with Barry as the duo The Raindrops with the songs "What a Guy" and "The Kind of Boy You Can't Forget."
Greenwich also worked as an arranger and singer, a role that saw her working with artists including Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
She is also credited with helping Neil Diamond get his start and was a co-producer
continued...Ellie Greenwich
October 23, 1940 - August 26, 2009
Memory Book
“ Thanks for the beautiful music. My condolences to the family and friends who are left behind. ”
Posted by: Tom
