The Brill Building

Ellie Greenwich died last week at the age of 68. I don't expect that you've heard of her; her's isn't exactly a household name. With her husband, Jeff Barry, she was a hit song writer of the early 1960s. She is most famous for such truly great girl group songs as "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Chapel of Love". Do yourself a favor and listen to these.

But I digress. Because reading about Ellie Greenwich put me in mind of the Brill Building, an 11 story office building at 1619 Broadway in New York City. Even before the 1950s, the Brill Building was home to pop music publishers and composers who wrote for the great swing bands of the 40s. But in the late 1950s into the early 60s, the Brill Building became the venue for the hottest and most influential commercial music ever produced. This stream of music, influenced by Latin music and rhythm and blues, gave rise to such songwriters as:

Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Neil Diamond

Gerry Goffen and Carole King

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil

Laura Nyro

Paul Simon (under the name Jerry Landis)

Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield

Phil Spector

Among the hundreds of hits produced by these and other composers are Yakety Yak, Save the Last Dance For Me, The Look of Love, Calendar Girl, The Loco-Motion, We Gotta Get Out of This Place, River Deep Mountain High, Be My Baby, and Natural Woman. Be My Baby, written by Greenwich and Barry, for a while was the only song that played on Beach Boy Brian Wilson's home jukebox

Carole King, quoted in Wikipedia, described the atmosphere of the Brill Building:

"Every day we squeezed into our respective cubby holes with just enough room for a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair for the lyricist if you were lucky. You'd sit there and write and you could hear someone in the next cubby hole composing a song exactly like yours. The pressure in the Brill Building was really terrific...."