By: Brian Scott Lipton · Aug 26, 2009 · New York Ellie Greenwich, one of the foremost songwriters of the rock 'n' roll era, has died at age 68.
Greenwich's songs were the basis of the 1985 Broadway revue Leader of the Pack, which earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical. She also appeared in the production, alongside Patrick Cassidy, Dinah Manoff, Annie Golden, Jasmine Guy, Darlene Love, and other stars.
In addition to the song "Leader of the Pack," Greenwich wrote such iconic hits as "Be My Baby," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Tell Laura I Love Her" and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." In 1991, she and Jeff Barry, her former husband and songwriting and producing partner, were inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame.
Greenwich's songs were also featured in three other Broadway revues: Uptown, It's Hot!, Andre De Shields' Harlem Nocturne, and Rock 'n' Roll! The First 5,000 Years.
During her career as writer and producer, Greenwich also worked with such top talents as Phil Spector, Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra, Lesley Gore, Bobby Darin, Nona Hendryx, and Cyndi Lauper.
She is survived by her sister, Laura Weiner. Donations can be made to the VH1 Save the Music Foundation.
And more on Ellie...
By Randy Lewis
August 27, 2009
Ellie Greenwich, the New York songwriter behind a
string of 1960s hits that gave effervescent voice to
unbridled teen romance including "Da Doo Ron Ron,"
"Chapel of Love" and "Be My Baby," many of them in
collaboration with producer Phil Spector, died
Wednesday of a heart attack, according to her niece,
Jessica Weiner. She was 68.
She was being treated for pneumonia and "some other
heart issues" at St. Luke's- Roosevelt Hospital Center
in New York when she suffered the heart attack, Weiner
said.
"She was the greatest melody writer of all time," Brian
Wilson told The Times on Wednesday. The chief creative
force of the Beach Boys, whose music was strongly
influenced by many of the hits Greenwich and her
husband Jeff Barry wrote with Spector, has often cited
"Be My Baby" as his favorite record of all time.
"Those songs are part of the fabric of forever," said
songwriter Diane Warren, whose compositions have been
recorded by Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Barbra
Streisand, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige and dozens of
others. "Her songs were written in the '60s, and it's
2010 almost, but they are as relevant and meaningful
today as the day when they were born."
Greenwich and Barry were part of the fabled Brill
Building stable of professional songwriters that also
included the teams of Hal David and Burt Bacharach,
Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia
Weil as well as Paul Simon, Neil Sedaka and Neil
Diamond.
Greenwich also broke ground as one of the first female
record producers, working with Barry in crafting
Diamond's early recordings, including "Cherry Cherry,"
"Solitary Man" and "Kentucky Woman."
Diamond had struggled as a songwriter until he came
under the wing of Greenwich and Barry, who'd already
logged numerous shimmering pop hits for groups such as
the Ronettes, the Crystals, the Dixie Cups and Ronnie
Spector.
After recording some demos of his songs with Greenwich
supplying backup vocals, Diamond recalled her telling
him, "'I think you're pretty good -- maybe you'd like
to meet my husband, and we could sit and talk.' . . .
They got me a contract, as a writer with [Jerry] Leiber
and [Mike] Stoller's Trio Music."
The songwriting-production team of Leiber and Stoller,
who had written many of Elvis Presley's hits and dozens
of other chart-topping '50s songs, had been impressed
with Greenwich's songs and brought her into their
company.
"The songs that they wrote were simple but very
wonderful," Stoller said Wednesday. "She was very gifted
at writing that kind of a song. She was just terrific."
Their collaborations with Wall of Sound creator Spector
are regarded among the greatest singles ever created.
The music publishing rights organization Broadcast Music
Inc. lists more than 200 songs she wrote or co-wrote,
including "Then He Kissed Me" (the Crystals), "I Can Hear
Music" (The Ronettes, Beach Boys), "Hanky Panky" (a hit
for Tommy James & the Shondells), "Maybe I Know" (Lesley
Gore) and the song Spector considered his greatest
recording, "River Deep, Mountain High" (Ike and Tina
Turner).
Greenwich has said that the title phrase of "Da Doo Ron
Ron" was never intended to be part of the song; it was
improvised as a nonsensical space filler until she and
Barry could come up with a real line to follow the
tune's opening lyric: "I met him on a Monday and my
heart stood still."
"We got all the rest of the words and music together, but
we couldn't find anything for this bit," she said in 2005.
"Believe me, it doesn't mean a thing." On the other hand,
when she and Barry wrote "There she goes just a walkin'
down the street" to start another song, she responded
with what she imagined a young girl skipping down a
street would sing: "Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do." "Do
Wah Diddy Diddy" became a No. 1 hit in 1965 for the
British group Manfred Mann.
Eleanor Louise Greenwich was born Oct. 23, 1940, in
Brooklyn, N.Y., to a Catholic father and a Jewish mother.
They moved to Levittown, Long Island, when she was about
11, and she began studying accordion before switching to
piano.
She enrolled at Queens College when she was 17 and in
1958 released a single with two songs she had written,
"Silly Isn't It" and "Cha-Cha Charming." She transferred
to Hofstra University, where she met Barry. She graduated
in 1962, and married Barry the same year.
Their common interest in music also gave birth to a
songwriting team. On a visit to the Brill Building, she
was plunking out notes on a piano while waiting to meet
with another writer, and Leiber looked in thinking he was
hearing Carole King. Greenwich introduced herself, showed
off some of her songs and soon Leiber and Stoller offered
her a songwriting contract at Trio Music.
She and Barry recorded a few songs as the Raindrops, but
their biggest hit reached only No. 17, "The Kind of Boy
You Can't Forget."
Leiber and Stoller also had been working with Spector,
who clicked with Greenwich and Barry and crafted many of
his biggest successes with their help.
"We just got Phil," she said in 2001. "We made him laugh.
And we understood him. We accepted his idiosyncrasies. . .
I think he just felt safe with us. Plus, we turned out
some really good stuff."
Greenwich suffered a nervous breakdown after she and
Barry divorced in 1965, and the hits stopped flowing. The
public's attention was shifting to the Beatles and other
British invasion bands as well as a rising crop of self-
contained singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, putting
many Brill Building pros out of work.
"When my marriage fell apart and my style dropped out of
fashion, it seemed there wasn't anything left," she told
an Australian newspaper in 2005. "It's easy to say I had
plenty left, but that's not how it seems when you're
there."
In the '80s she created a musical titled "Leader of the
Pack" that included many her pop hits and told the story
of her rise to fame and equally steep fall. She bounced
back with new songs, and scored Tony and Grammy Award
nominations for her show.
As recently as 1997 one of her songs, "The Sunshine After
the Rain," became a dance-pop hit in England and
Australia. Cyndi Lauper, Nona Hendryx and Desmond Child
were among artists who recorded her compositions in
recent years.
Greenwich is survived by her sister, Laura Weiner.
Services will be private.
randy.lewis@latimes.com
Copyright C 2009, The Los Angeles Times
