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AN INTERVIEW WITH ELLIE GREENWICH 

Our 'American Correspondent', my friend Dave Lincoln Brooks, runs a graphics company in Texas and is, although he'd be the last to admit it,  an eloquent and highly knowledgeable expert on popular music and culture as well as something of an Anglophile. Dave has managed to catch up with music legend Ellie Greenwich, one of the 'team' of great songwriters who provided us with the soundtrack to our youth on both sides of the pond. I have somehow managed to put jealousy aside! I personally can recall so many events and moments in my life that have been lived with Ellie's songs in the background and I always regarded her name on the credits of a song as a guideline of quality. We are thrilled with this interview and would like to thank Dave, Ellie and Bob (her business manager) for their efforts in providing retrosellers with this wonderful, frank, entertaining, informative and fun insight into the songwriter's life and work. Best wishes to all of them for the future. Digger October 2003.

Ellie in London

Interviewer’s preface: To the majority of RETROSELLERS readers, the name Ellie Greenwich is synonymous with pop music. And those who don’t yet know this illustrious singer/songwriter/arranger surely will be familiar with many of her classic hits from the Golden Age of Rock ‘N’ Roll... To name but a few: "Chapel Of Love", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Be My Baby", "Leader Of The Pack", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "River Deep, Mountain High", "Baby I Love You", "Today I Met The Boy (That I’m Going To Marry)", "And Then He Kissed Me", "Take Me Home Tonight (Just Like Ronnie Said)", "Hanky-Panky", "I Can Hear Music", "Maybe I Know", "The Kind Of Boy You Can’t Forget", "People Say", "I Want To Love Him So Bad", and many more. A lifelong New Yorker, Ellie was an integral part of the now-legendary Brill Building stable of young prodigious songwriters... composers and lyricists whose oeuvre has only burnished in lustre over the years until it has firmly ensconced itself in the collective unconscious of not only every Baby Boomer, but generations the world over. With her then-husband Jeff Barry, along with the brilliant-if-eccentric monstre sacré of pop, Phil Spector, (and a little help from engineer Jack Nitzsche), Ellie’s songs gave birth to the "Wall of Sound" production technique-- a thundering orchestral style which, for sheer emotional wallop, has since become the yardstick by which all pop records may be measured. Ellie is also the producer of some of the early career-making Neil Diamond classic hits, and her punchy background vocals and vocal arrangements may be heard on most of the early Neil hits, as well as on most of the great Lesley Gore sides, hits for Lobo, ELO, Blondie, Cyndi Lauper and Robert John. That muscularly soulful, call-and-response girl choir you hear backing up Aretha Franklin on her powerhouse "Chain Of Fools"? It wasn’t arranged by Quincy Jones, Arif Mardin, Thom Bell, Van McCoy or Maurice White III-- it was the handiwork of this pioneering brown-eyed blonde from Levittown.

Ellie graciously gave me an hour of her candid reflections in a telephone chat we shared on Wednesday, 3rd September 2003. 

Dave Lincoln Brooks (DLB): Before we begin, do you wish to comment on Phil Spector’s recent contretemps?

Ellie Greenwich (EG): No.

DLB: Ok. Then, would you concur, given the man’s history, that he was a production genius?

EG: Yes I would.  

The 60's trio is of Ellie's group The Raindrops.  
   Ellie left. The brunette is Ellie's sister, Laura. 
The man is her husband Jeff Barry

DLB: Ellie, your music has meant so much to me, more than you can perhaps imagine...

EG: Thank you.

DLB: I’ve been an enormous fan since I first heard "Chapel Of Love" at age 4....

EG: (in disbelief) Get outta my sight!

DLB: My uncle had "Chapel Of Love" by The Dixie Cups on a Red Bird 45.... I think the flipside was "People Say"-- am I correct?

EG: Ahh... no, that was a follow-up. He might’ve had a copy that had both of them on it, but "People Say" was a follow-up.

DLB: I remember seeing your name on the record: Greenwich/Barry/Spector ... wasn’t it?

EG: Yep.

DLB: And it was only many years later, when I bought the Blondie album EAT TO THE BEAT...

EG: (chuckles) Oh! That’s hysterical...

DLB: ...and fell in love with the song "Dreamin’"-- I love that song-- and saw on the liner notes that you had provided the background vocals to that song. It was at that time that I began to check into you, and began to realize all you had contributed to the world of music. Since then, I’ve just been astonished at your great output and brilliant songs.

EG: Well, thank you. Now that you’ve flattered me, I’ll just hang up and fly around the place here!

DLB: It’s all quite sincere.

EG: I appreciate that.

DLB: The first time I saw your face was on the great 1984 RHINO video production, GIRL GROUPS: THE STORY OF A SOUND. It was a fabulous show that I must’ve watched countless times.

EG: That show was really a lot of fun to do. It really was.

DLB: Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d meet two of the key interviewees in that film, first Mary Wilson of the Supremes, and now you! Ellie, what was your upbringing like? You were born in Brooklyn...

EG: Yes. And I still talk that way. I don’t sing that way. I’ve never lost that Brooklyn accent.

DLB: I adore it; it sounds very "showbiz" to me.

EG: Yes, it doesn’t really faze other Americans, but when you talk to, say, someone from England or Australia, they kind of look at you and go, "What is that?" (Laughs.) Yes, I was born in Brooklyn, spent eleven years there. It was kind of an interesting place...

DLB: How so?

EG: It was such a... family neighborhood, you know. People took care of each other-- literally. Nobody had to lock their doors. And there were, like, these little old ladies on the corners in their little chairs. No countryside there-- it was all trees and cars-- and they’d be doing their knitting and watching everything go by. They just... watched out for you. It was so wonderful. Then we moved to Levittown, Long Island.

DLB: Now this is the famous Levittown, right? The developer William Levitt got the idea in the late ‘Forties to create a new kind of suburbia especially designed to house the G.I.’s who were returning from World War II, and their families...

EG: Right.

DLB: So you came from a solid, middle-class background. I know that some of the Brill Building people-- Bacharach, Carole King and Lesley Gore come to mind-- came from decidedly affluent backgrounds... and I know that Neil Sedaka, by his own accounts, came from a quite tough working-class neighborhood...

EG: My dad had worked in the Navy shipyards, and he just wanted to see what it’d be like to have, you know, your own little house, your own lawn, your own trees on your own little lane... I was destined, wasn’t I?

DLB: Yes you were. I know you have a sister, Laura, who would join you and Jeff [Barry] to form your first really chart-topping group, The Raindrops [Their biggest hit would be "He’s The Kind Of Boy You Can’t Forget"]

EG: Yes. She was younger than I was.

DLB: Did you have any other siblings?

EG: No.

DLB: So your parents were blessed with two beautiful and talented daughters, one a brunette; the other, strawberry-blonde. I love the photo of you on your official homepage, of you as a delicately pretty teenager seated at the piano, your hair in that pretty bob...

EG: Yes, it was, well, more "dirty-blonde", actually!

DLB: You would eventually leave The Raindrops to have massive hits with other songwriters... was there ever any, you know, sibling rivalry between you and Laura?

EG: No, not really. What you’ve got to understand about my sister is, she is very much a Caretaker. She very much wants fairness in the world. She’s a "take-carer". So she actually is a Special Ed. Teacher. She’s been that way all her life. She does dream of what it would have been like had she followed her real love in life-- being a dancer... a dancer on the stage-- but that never was.

But then I, on the other hand, did what I did, but never got my social life together, or the marriage thing together, or had kids. Which is my biggest loss.

DLB: Yes, I think that was intimated to me in that recent A&E documentary about the Brill Building about two years ago... that you do have some regrets there....

EG: I totally regret that I never had kids. I would’ve been a great Mom. I would’ve been a fun Mom. Love kids. I love how their minds work. I would’ve been a Mom that always stayed a Mom, but then who became a friend when it was necessary?

DLB: I totally believe that.

EG: Really I would have. But now I’m totally like a second mother to my niece and nephew. Maybe that was meant to be: that they could have such an incredible aunt! [chuckles.]

DLB: Those are Laura’s kids?

EG: Yes. And they’re just the best. I’m just their "Crazy Aunt". Nothing makes them happier than to see my songs out there. And the show is going on now [Ellie’s acclaimed musical stage revue of her songs, LEADER OF THE PACK, now being performed worldwide] , and I would have thought that they were born a little bit late-ish to appreciate it, but—

DLB: Kids today know your songs. I’m a high school teacher, and recently played a tape of your songs for my kids-- The Crystals, The Ronettes, The Shangs-- they loved it! And knew most of them.

EG: It’s amazing. And I think one of the best things is, my niece is the little one, you know, and I remember when she was in Sixth Grade or thereabouts, and one night she was sitting at the dinner table and quietly said, "I have to tell you something. We’re playing "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" with the band!" And I’m, like, "Oh, cool!" And then she added, "I went up to my teacher and told him, ‘My aunt wrote that song.’ And he didn’t believe me. Could you come to school and tell him that you really wrote it?"

DLB: [Laughs]

EG: I loved that! You know, they do LEADER all over the country; a lot of schools do it, and I get these emails... So I am actually at the moment writing a book: A THANK-YOU LETTER TO MY FANS. [emphatically:] These letters have made me so happy. And there have been other situations in which, say, kids would be doing LEADER, and they’d write a letter to Bob [Weiner, Ellie’s longtime manager and trusted assistant], and Bob would set it up with the director so that I could address them over their intercom during one of their rehearsals... and the kids didn’t know about it beforehand! If you could have been a fly-on-the-wall! I mean, I can’t tell you... I was on the other end of the phone, hysterically crying. The squealing that went on with those kids when the director got on the phone with me and whispered, "Say ‘hi’". I went, "Hi, guys... it’s Ellie..." Well! The squealing and the carrying-on that went on...! And I was totally sobbing, and the director asked the kids, "Do you have anything you want to ask Ellie?" You could just hear them lining up! Each one would come forward, and say [now speaking in a young child’s earnest "reciting" voice]: "Hi, my name is such-and-such, and I play Mickey in the chorus... and I was just wondering... um... er... uh... Can you make a lotta money in the music business?"

DLB: [Laughs]

EG: Some of the questions were so fabulous. You know, like: "Are you still speaking to Jeff Barry today?" I’d say, "Yes I am." "Are you still friends?" And I’d go, "Nevah!" And they’d crack up laughing... it was so cute. And then they’d say, would you like to hear something? And I’d go, sure. So they’d sing something to me. And I’m trying to control myself-- because they sound so good. You could hear the good time they were having... Then they’d ask me, "Would you sing something with us?" so I’d think a bit, and choose something simple that I could maybe start and then have them come in with me. And... I can’t explain to you the thank-you’s... and the notes I’d get later from them... At moments like those, I’d hang up the phone and think, Wow. Look where all this has gone: from sitting alone writing my songs, to having hits everywhere, to hearing these people all having a good time... I have touched those lives somehow!

DLB: You have touched the whole world, Ellie.

EG: But that’s amazing. And they have all touched my life in turn.

DLB: You continue to have a very loyal contingent of fans in Australia... the impact you’ve made on the UK is huge... and then, let’s remember, your own recording of "Niki Hoeky" was a Number One hit in Japan!

EG: I know it! It even beat Aretha Franklin’s version by one week! You know, one of the saddest things for me is that I didn’t perform more in the ‘Sixties... I was certainly widely encouraged in the business to do so. I was sort-of "The Girl Next Door". A lot of publishers and labels wanted to send me, for instance, to England, with the idea that I would make it huge over there first-- like another Dusty [Springfield] or whatever-- and then import me over here. But we were doing so well over here that Jeff wasn’t really happy with that idea. Which I suppose I can understand. And, of course, it was the ‘Sixties, and in those days, between a man and a woman... it was, well, not quite "whatever the man the wants" or anything, but...

DLB: Yes, I know what you mean... My own parents are your age, and I remember what it was like between my own parents in those days...

EG: ...so I sort of said, "Yeah, well, I guess if that would make you happy, I won’t do that..." Because I was looking down the line-- I assumed we were working towards whatever it was we were working to. I thought eventually Jeff would keep going on in the business, and I would eventually, you know, stop. It got... complicated. So complicated. So that’s another regret that I have. And then, when I got a little older, when money started barreling in about TAPESTRY [the landmark smash 1972 album for fellow Brill alum Carole King that virtually set the tone for all singer-songwriters in the 1970’s]. And people then said to me, "C’mon, you just gotta do something!". But I sort of said, "You know, I just really don’t feel like it... I’m not..." And I never really seriously tackled that area again. So, I feel kinda badly. I think now that I would have enjoyed it.

DLB: But you did have a marvelous rebound again in 1997, with "Sunshine After The Rain" [a Number One dance hit in Australia for the boy group 98 Degrees]. What a coup!

EG: That... that was amazing to me. It was a nice rebound to have that hit. But you know, I haven’t written in a long time-- which I really should. I did start to write again, and I wrote some fabulous songs that are hopefully going into the LEADER OF THE PACK movie. ‘Cause, when the show closed on Broadway, Universal [Pictures] had bought the rights to do a movie, but then that kinda fell through, but then Disney picked up on it, and they were going to do it, and after, like, seven or eight years -- Oh, God! -- scripting and consulting and then, because of song permissions difficulties from some sectors, it just never worked out. Which is unfortunate. It was too bad. I was very hopeful: ‘cause I already had my actors for opening night: I wanted to have either Goldie Hawn or Bette Midler play the part of me. I had it all planned out. But it kind of fell by the wayside there, so that was kind of a "downer", to say the least, you know? But at that point I had written some terrific songs... One, in particular, called "The First Time", I know would have been a Number One record coming out of that movie. But the movie never happened, so ya have to kinda leave it there. The song’s still there, so-- you never know... That’s the way it is with music: you never know.

I think the easiness of the time I grew up in allowed me to daydream, to write the kind of things that I did... to kind of look at a guy, and go [in a moony, teenage voice:] "Ohhh-- gasp-- I love him so-o-o!!" You know?

DLB: [Laughs]

EG: [continuing her riff:] "Someday we’ll be together... Tra-la-la-la!!" I mean, seriously!

DLB: "He’s the kind of boy you can’t forget"... ?

EG: Nowadays, it’d be kind of like: [improvs another mock-lyric:] "Gee, I hope he doesn’t shoot-up with drugs! I hope he doesn’t shoot up people! " I mean, I wasn’t even there!

DLB: Well, then, let me ask you: What did you, in fact, think when that whole druggy San Francisco thing came into being... starting around, say, 1966 or ’67 ?

EG: Well, I kind of sat there in wonderment... I sort of thought... [bemusedly]: "I wonder what it’s like to feel that free?"

DLB: Yeah?

EG: Yeah, I did. That scene could have never been "me". Never-ever-ever-ever. And I don’t know why. Yet I didn’t put it down, necessarily. But I do think it kind of went overboard. A little overboard.

DLB: Well, it got kind of... oh... tacky and more than a little barbaric after awhile, didn’t it, that whole drug-and-ballroom scene?

EG: Yeah, it did. People running around nude and always stoned and everything. I remember thinking to myself, "This is not ‘People Finding Joy In Something’; this is ‘People Running Away From Something’". I cerebrally understood it, though I could never emotionally fathom it. But, I suppose it did certainly bring a whole new breed of personality into the industry... Some of it was very good in fact. But I think that’s the way every style is: there was rotten Doo-wop, and there was good Doo-wop. There were good "message" songs, and there were terrible "message" songs. There were some wonderful Girl Group things, and then there were some that were, like, "Yeah, well, they’re okay..."

I think Leonard Bernstein-- may he rest in peace-- said it perfectly when he said, "There are only two kinds of music: good music and bad music."

DLB: I tend to agree. I once told my younger brother, when he was learning to play bass guitar, something of a paraphrase of that: "Music is like food: There’s nourishing music and non-nourishing music."

EG: That’s interesting. I once wrote something along those lines myself many years ago, and only re-read it recently: There’s comfort food-- and there’s comfort music. And I think that’s where my music falls: it’s a comfortable place to be. Even for me.

But then sometimes, after a while, Even I don’t want to hear my own songs anymore... It’s like: I’ll hear them, and it’s like, [in a blasé tone]: "yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah..." [Laughs].

DLB: Oh, really? Because I never cease to enjoy your records... I can sit and play them and love them anytime!

EG: Yes, but you know what’s different? You don’t have to sit and talk about them all the time!!

DLB: Well, okay. So people like me are kind of a.... drag at times?

EG: [Laughs] But, you know, then there are other times when I’ll listen to them and gasp, "Wow! Those are really good!!"

DLB: Your song "River Deep, Mountain High" has been adjudged one of the greatest rock songs ever written, and I concur. I think it’s magnificent. Not only the song, but the whole record with Tina Turner.... I mean, it sounds as though... the whole heavens are falling!

EG: Yeah, so you can then understand why Spector left the business for awhile: I mean, he thought this was the Rock ‘N’ Roll symphony of all time. This is IT! I understand that, but, you know, when I first heard the record, I wasn’t overly thrilled. I thought it was a little bit "too much" again... a little bit over-the-edge...

DLB: It was... it was kind of over-the-top, but to me that’s part of the majesty of it.

EG: But at the time, I was going, "Ooh, maybe it’s just too..." And then, when it didn’t "happen" in America, it was kinda like, [dejectedly]: "Oh, well...."

DLB: But didn’t it go to Number One in England?

EG: Yes it did. Yes it did. In fact, Spector took out a great ad in the paper [VARIETY magazine]...

DLB: Oh, I remember that!

EG: Remember? It said: "Three cheers for Benedict Arnold!" [Laughs]

DLB: Yes. He really thumbed his nose at the American music industry... Now: do you like Cèline Dion’s recent remake? [her version, largely synth-pop flavored, on her 1996 album FALLING INTO YOU].

EG: [matter-of-factly]: Not really.

DLB: Did you find it too... synthetic?

EG: I think she’s really wonderful. But I think they could’ve done it... oh, how can I put it? I think she could have made it more her own. I don’t she got it quite as Big as Tina’s record, you know? It seems like it’s only a "90% copy". It didn’t quite go over.

I think that when you’re trying to emulate that same sound, you’ve gotta be better than that...

DLB: Well, that’s what they always say: One shouldn’t do a copy of another artist’s record unless you’re sure you can significantly improve upon it.

EG: Absolutely. Or at least sit there right with it. Not even go 1% lower. But just go, whoom! "That did it!!" But I concede her record is very good... I mean, I like Cèline. She’s a wonderful singer.

DLB: There’s no doubt about that. I guess what I’m really honing in on here is, the difference between...

EG: [Bluntly] It didn’t have the balls Tina’s record had. Okay??

DLB: [Laughs loudly]. Well, that’s what her husband Ike [Turner, as portrayed by Laurence Fishburne in the 1993 Touchstone Pictures biopic of Tina’s life, WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT] said: [imitating Fishburne’s gritty "Ike" voice]: "Now that is a woman who can sing like a man!!"

EG: Really! Yep, it really just didn’t have... that... in there.

DLB: Yeah. Now, Ellie, tell me something about the differences between the world of the recording/engineering sound of monophonic in the early Sixties, as compared to, say, a Cèline Dion recording... Specifically, I’m referring to "3-track" versus... "128-track, 96-bit full digital".

EG: Mm-hmm. I like the way we did the best we could given the tools we had to work with. I mean, they didn’t even have... Like, when we did some of The Raindrops stuff, early on? We went down from track-to-track-to-track-to-track-to-track-to-track. It was, Bounce-bounce-bounce-bounce-bounce! So the quality was never there...  

DLB: How did you manage to ping-pong so many tracks down without some really bad tape hiss creeping in?

EG: Well, they turned off the hiss. They equalized so much. Everything was so equalized. I’m very bad with technical terms, but they’d put this machine on it... you’d turn it on, and it would remove, like, 90% of the hiss. And you know what? When everything was really happenin’-- the "oohs", the "ahhs", the handclaps or whatever-- you didn’t really hear it that badly. And that end product was what you had. I sometimes like that in records: I love mistakes in records!

DLB: So funny you should mention that. Just yesterday I posted a thread to an online 60’s Rock ‘N’ Roll newsgroup [cf. rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1960s] in which I said, Isn’t it interesting in which the minor flaws in Sixties records to me are somewhat akin to the little flaws that Moroccan rugweavers would deliberately weave into their rugs-- so as not to offend the gods with man’s hubris.

EG: And it’s real. It’s magic.

DLB: It’s real, darn it!

EG: I’m reminded of that song "I Saw Her Again Last Night", you know, by The Mamas And The Papas? On that record-- I don’t know if it was intended or not, but if you listen, there is a premature entrance of the vocals. You hear the instrumental section, then suddenly, "I saw her ag---" [pauses abruptly] then, "I saw her again last night..." And I’m hearing that, going, "Wow! They kept that in! How neat!"

DLB: Yeah. And then to hear in, say, "Fingertips, Pt. II" [by "Little" Stevie Wonder] you’ll hear the bassman, during the middle breakdown improv section, shouting: "What key? What key, Little Stevie??" [Laughs].

EG: Yeah, I love that!

DLB: Me too!

EG: And even on "Be My Baby" [by The Ronettes], I don’t know if it was intended or not, but after the instrumental midsection, you’ll hear that the girls go, "So, come on and be, be my..." Then there’s, like, a beat... And they miss the first one!

DLB: Really?

EG: Yeah! And you know what? I listen for it now, and I love it!

DLB: Yeah?

EG: [Laughs] Yeah!

DLB: I was just listening yesterday to another Girl Group song, you know "Party Lights" by Claudine Clark? In the song, she says something that is ungrammatical... or it just doesn’t make any sense... She sings something like: "Mama, dear, I see the lights, I see the party lights, they’re red and blue and green; And ev’rybody in the crowd is there, but you won’t let me make a scene". And I’m thinking: surely the original lyric was written as "...but you won’t let me make the scene.", which, in the context of the song, would make perfect sense; but instead she sings, "... but you won’t let me make a scene."

EG: [Laughs] Well, how do you think I felt when Manfred Mann comes out with "Do Wah Diddy Diddy": He sings throughout the song: "I knew we was fallin’ in love." Now David, I’m an English major! I never wrote that! "We was fallin’" ???

DLB: You mean, you originally wrote, "We were fallin’..." ?

EG: Yes!! Never would I write "We was" !!

DLB: Oh... See, and all this time I just thought he was trying to sound "soulful" or "ghetto" or something...

EG: That doesn’t sound soulful-- it sounds stupid!! [Laughs] That sounds incorrect. And every time I would hear it, it would glare at me. I’d picture my old English professor going: [pedantically] "Hel-LO Ellie..."

DLB: [Laughs] "So THIS is what you’ve done with your degree!"

EG: But it was fine, really.

DLB: And now it’s become etched indelibly into the public subconscious—

EG: ...so much a part of the song. Yep. Amazing. It’s amazing how ideas can become such a mainstream part of someone’s life. I think that’s so fabulous. And I mean any creative endeavour. And I do think that-- getting back to my growing up thing-- even throughout college, I had such support from my friends.... all of them knowing that, at some point, I was probably going to try the music business. When I graduated, I taught for 3½ weeks... really only 3½ weeks! They gave me high school seniors.... I mean, here I am, like, 21 years old, and there they were, like 17 or 18! Didn’t work. They were, like, [in a goombah accent]: "Yo, Ellie!" [Laughs]

DLB: You were scarcely older than they were...

EG: Yeah. It was, like, "I don’t THINK so!" The principal was at my level, he knew I was musical and stuff, and he asked me, "Do you think you can handle these kids?" And I was, like, "Unh-unh. I don’t think so..." [Chuckles]. Then he said, "You wanna go try music?" And I said, "Yeah, could I?"

DLB: [Laughs]

EG: "....and then if I don’t do well, could I come back here?" He goes: "Yeah, don’t worry about it. Bye-ee...!"

DLB: Ellie, what did you, at age 14, present to Archie Bleyer [owner of CADENCE records, famous for producing The Everly Brothers, and The Chordettes of "Mr. Sandman" and "Lollipop" fame] when your mother introduced you to him?

EG: Hmm... what did I present him....? I played him a song called "The Moment I Saw Him". This was something that I wrote about a senior in high school that I had a big crush on.

DLB: ...and you were only 14? Wow! That’s incredible.

EG: Amazing. In those days, anything I was feeling, or anything that was going on in my life, I’d put down in a little poem. Or write a little song. And then I formed a little Girl Group (it was so bad, I can’t tell you!) called The Jivettes. And... I wrote a song called "The Jivette Boogie Beat"... It was so cute... rather like cheerleaders doing their little thing, y’know? But that was what was happening at that time in my life for me. And I’d question love:

"Love is a game. How can people play games on each other? That is not nice! I was wandering down by a river, and thinking about how wonderful love could be, and lovers should not play games."

Now there was an early starter, hm? Oh, I had so many songs... so many little "ditty" things I’d written down that I’d play for him. On my accordion, there I stood! I mean, he must’ve gone [in a dubious tone:] "Hmmmm...." [Laughs] But he was wonderful, the way he took the time for me. This was Archie Bleyer, who’d done so many things for the Everly’s and The Chordettes... and I just couldn’t believe-- oh!-- he was talking to me!!

And he just flatly said to me, "Finish school." And I heard that, and I promised him that I would. He said the music business would always be there. And he was right. Although, there are times when I wonder what it would have been like had I not gone into college, but rather gone directly into the music business in-- when was it?-- 1958? [Thoughtfully:] I wonder what I would have been doing. Where I would have fallen at that point... But, in a way, it’s wonderful that it happened the way it did. [Laughingly:] None of us can change any of that, anyway.

DLB: I think it was your dharma... when and how you came into the business... You were meant to give this gift to the world.

EG: Y’know, when you say that to me-- Seriously, I don’t mean to be humble or anything-- but I feel... funny.

DLB: Why??

EG: I dunno. Because... because that was my job. I was given a certain talent-- thank you, God-- that I was able to utilize and make some money at... Not that I’m saying there wasn’t grief involved with some of that-- there was plenty! Some pretty grievous stuff, let me tell you!-- But basically, how wonderful that I was able to take what I felt, and do what I did. So when someone goes, "Thank you.", I’m like: "No-no-no, thank YOU! Thank you for liking my stuff, buying it and keeping it alive." Seriously.

I see it like this: my sister went to work and did her thing, and helped kids, or whatever. And I went to work and wrote songs, or whatever, and records happened, and sold, and made some people happy, and made some publishers a lot of money, etc., etc. etc. So I look at it like a job. And fortunately, we reached a lot of the world. While I appreciate the "thank-you’s", I do feel a little uncomfortable sometimes. Isn’t that weird?

DLB: You know, I’ve heard you quoted in several interviews, that, during some particular recording sessions, as soon as the tape was within the can, you knew that the song was going to be a huge hit. Here I’m thinking specifically of "Chapel Of Love"---

EG: ...and "Leader of The Pack."

DLB: I remember that Phil Spector once issued his famous Four Criteria of a hit record... I remember two of them: One, a record must be emotional, not cerebral. Two, you have to create a Sound that cannot be easily replicated by anyone else. I don’t recall the other two...

EG: I think also a record has to be memorable. You have to have a great Hook. People have to walk away from your record after only one hearing and be able to sing at least something-- I believe that. I do think it has to hit an overall emotional "button" somewhere, even if that button is only "Let’s DANCE!!". [Laughs]. A record has to hit something; it can’t just "lay there". Because a record is an extension of someone’s emotion.

David, can you imagine what it’d be like if we really had the answers to what all the stuff really means? The why’s and the how’s of stuff? How much money we could make! We could open up a business and claim, "We’ll tell you how and why your song did This or That..." [Laughs].

DLB: Ellie, do you think that some successes have been fluke-y? Due to the timing of their release?

EG: Absolutely. [matter-of-factly] Well, I think all of us songwriters just write our songs and just hope that we’ll hear them on the radio. I don’t think any of us songwriters ever really sat down and thought, "Hey, d’you think that if I had known that my songs were gonna last forever-- or even up until now-- that I would have given away the publishing??" I don’t think so! We didn’t know! You know, the copyright comes up again in 28 years... I mean, we were 22 years old! What did we know about anything? We couldn’t even envision ourselves 28 years down the road... We’d sign things, going, [impatiently]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah....." And then one day, we’d look around ourselves and realize, "God, it’s coming up on 28 years! What’s goin’ on here?" You never think that one day you’re going to grow up and get to that point; you really don’t. And it gets to the point where it’s not even a "musical thing" anymore... you wake up and say, "Oh, God, I just lost half my income!" [Laughs]

I think a lot of the business involves flukes. In fact, Bob [Weiner] and I were thinking about opening up a new company-- getting involved doing little projects and things here and there. We’re going to call it FLUKE PRODUCTIONS.

DLB: [Laughs]

EG: No, really! I firmly believe in synchronicity... you know, you’ll be walking down the sidewalk and realize, "Oh no, I left my wallet at the bar!" And just when you turn back around the corner to retrieve it, something fortuitous will happen right at that very moment. There are flukes in life. You see, "Iko Iko" was a fluke.

DLB: Really?

EG: We never planned on recording that. We were just there, standing around in the studio...

DLB: Now, if I’m not mistaken, that song is originally a very old New Orleans Creole chantey...?

EG: Yep. We were all just finishing up with a Dixie Cups session, y’know, sitting in the control room, killing some time before we start mixing, and then all of a sudden we hear some singing:

 "My grandma and your grandma... were sittin’ by the fire..."

And I thought, what’s that??

DLB: And what a fabulous record it became. I dig that record so much.

EG: And it’s funny, because--- oh, now I remember!-- Jeff and I had just gotten married, and we’d honeymooned in Jamaica. And we’d brought home with us one of those, um, metal boxes.... you know, a wooden box with those metal strips of different sizes that you plunk with your thumb? Tung! Tung! Tung! Tung! So anyway, we all started adding to the rhythm of the groove, hitting on tables, hitting on people’s attaché cases, hitting little sticks together, and I sat there-- with bleeding fingers-- just plunking away on that Jamaican finger piano: Toom! Toom! Toom! Toom!

And from there came the record! And how much fun was that?!

DLB: ...and that fun totally comes out in that record; I love that record!

EG: But what you gotta see is, that record was never planned. I believe it was a fluke. What if those girls had never started out singing that song that day?

DLB: [Slowly and thoughtfully] There’s no substitute for the actual joy of music-making, is there?

EG: No, no substitute. You know why? It’s the only thing that I know-- to me-- that makes me laugh, cry, get angry even... I mean, there’s some music that that can make you very angry! [Laughs]

DLB: Yeah?

EG: For example, I find there are some opera things that rile me up. They make me, like, grrr-rrr-rrr! Music brings out so many emotions. And you can link music to any given something that was an important part of your life, at all different times: This was the song that I did such-and-such to; that’s the song that I did some other thing to, and so on. If I had to pick the one thing that would cover the gamut of all my emotions from head-to-toe, it would be music. I mean, even orgasmically-- some songs just make you go [groan of ecstasy]: Unghn-n-n! Unbelievable!! I’m getting goosebumps! ...or whatever. It’s music. And I think it’s that way for a lot of people. They can just, like, lose themselves in it totally. How great is that? [With slow emphasis]: And to think that it’s all done with twelve notes.

DLB: Absolutely. You know, it’s funny that you should mention the "twelve notes". As I’ve discussed in another RETROSELLERS interview [see my interview with pop music historian Rob Pingel], you guys at the Brill Building were Men & Women At Work, weren’t you? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you were a Factory,

EG: It was a "semi-Factory". Yes it was.

DLB: ...but you certainly were churning out songs, many on spec.... you’d be commissioned, say, to write something new for Connie Francis, or maybe Bobby Vinton would quickly need a new piece, or something.

EG: Exactly.

DLB: ...and if a song hit, it hit; and if it didn’t, well...

EG: Listen, I was always doing so many demos, as you know-- I believe I’m down in history as one of the Demo Queens"?-- You know, they’d hire me for that "sweet" sound. And I’d be doing some demos for somebody... I’d ask them: "Now, who is this for?" And they’d say something like, let’s say Lesley Gore. We’re after a Lesley Gore sound. "Interesting." So I’d go back to Jeff, and we’d write some stuff. And I eventually ended up doing background vocals for Lesley...

DLB: [Slowly and emphatically] ...and those records are priceless!! "Maybe I Know" and "The Look Of Love" ? Good God, those are great records!!

EG: [Chuckles] And we had so much fun; doing those background vocals was such a good time. And, y’see, I didn’t know how big they’d be, but I thought they’d make it. In the Top Ten at least.

DLB: Ellie, when I think about why they perhaps didn’t chart as high as they should have or could have, is this: really, they’re quite sophisticated. On "Maybe I Know", for example, the Dorian harmonic progression that the brass are doing on "I hear them whisperin’... when I walk by..." the way the horns go from minor to major to minor again is really very sophisticated, and thus fairly challenging to many lay-listeners.

EG: Ooh, you really know your stuff here!

DLB: I was a songwriting and arranging major at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

EG: Oh, well! Now I really feel flattered. To understand harmony and progressions, or whatever--

DLB: So I hope I’m not coming across here as a total zshlub.

EG: [Laughs]

DLB: ...but what impresses me is that you guys [Brill Building songwriters] were kids. And yet you were employing so much genuine melody and so much rich harmony. Qualities that are almost totally absent in so much of today’s pop music.

EG: Yeah, they’re kinda hard to find. And then, when someone finds it, people are like "Wow!", and I’m over here thinking, [nonplussed] "Wow, what??"

DLB: It’s there, I suppose, but it’s so bestial, so.... barbaric. Pop music has been reduced almost to the point of rocks being clinked together. Correct me if I’m wrong: you guys had learned much from the Tin Pan Alley songwriters? Or where did you learn your craft?

EG: We didn’t.

DLB: Were you just "winging it" ?

EG: Yeah. That’s literally true. When Jeff and I started out, he knew two chords, and-- thank God for me-- he then had three to work with! I mean, when we started out, there were very few schooled musicians. I mean [Burt] Bacharach was certainly schooled, as was [Neil] Sedaka, and so was Carole [King]. But most of us there were right from the streets-- we were very "street", very simple... a lot of us were not musicians. But what made us special was the way we felt things. We felt certain things; and we’d even sing a cappella as a way to come up with stuff.

DLB: Ellie, let me ask you this: What records were in your house as you were growing up?

EG: Well, let me think... There was the Big Band stuff... all the Perry Como, all the pop songs of the day, in the era before rock music, like "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?". There was always music playing, and my mother ‘s family, in particular, loved to dance. All my aunts and uncles would come over, and they’d always put on Benny Goodman and "Sing! Sing! Sing!", and they’d all be dancing around. So my house was always filled with music. So while I was growing up, I heard their music; and then the minute I became of age, I began to fill the house with the kind of music that I was getting into. So that was always playing, too. And I was collecting records. You know, in those days, you’d go to the record store, and for every, say, ten records you bought, you’d get an eleventh one free. Well, I had more "free" records than you could count! I mean, there was nowhere left to put them! We had this cart for putting 45’s on; it was unbelievable. And you know what? Even the scratches sounded fabulous!

DLB: Yes! I think of a 45 I have of the Herman’s Hermits doing "Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter"-- I’ve had it for years-- and the opening lip has a particular set of pops and scratches that, to me, are inextricable from the song itself.

EG: Absolutely! Also, with both my parents being of Russian origin, my Dad especially, had a lot of, like, old Russian music. And every now and then, he’d like-- totally by ear, mind you-- play along with them on a sort of mandolin or balalaika.

DLB: A balalaika!

EG: And that was kind of interesting, too; all those dark, minor chord changes. [sings a stately minor melody]: "Yah-h-h dum-dah, ya-ta-ya-ta, umta-tata..." So that was there in my upbringing, too. I used to love all those melodies, although the minor always made me feel so... sad.

DLB: I love minor songs.

EG: Me too, me too. So I’m sure that those songs had an influence on me musically; in that I just always remembered them, and how they made me... teary.

DLB: You know, I think there are minor-mode songs from the Brill teams that, to me, sound like a Russian or Eastern European melody. I’m thinking of, say, Bacharach’s "The Windows Of The World", or Neil Diamond’s "Solitary Man". [Singing the Dionne Warwick hit in the style, not of a pop singer, but with the ecclesiastical pomp of a temple cantor:] "The windows of the world are covered with rain; when will those black skies turn to blue?"

EG: It’s true, it’s true! [Then, entertaining the conceit, singing in the same ponderous. "quasi-Russian" style:] "Belinda was mine till the time that I found her... lovin’ Jim.... and holdin’ him."

I love those! They definitely create that feeling. And that Russian minor sound was what was in my house till I took off with all my stuff.  

Ellie

DLB: Were you an Elvis fan?

EG: [Hesitantly:] Not totally, no.

DLB: So that whole Rockabilly thing didn’t move you?

EG: Mm-mm.

DLB: [Emphatically:] You liked authentic Black music, didn’t you?

EG: [Meekly:] Yeah, I do!

DLB: I totally hear that in your music.

EG: Of course, I also had The Kingston Trio, and a lot of those folk artists. However, ultimately that really wasn’t where I was "at".

DLB: It was a little bit "white bread", wasn’t it? [Laughs]

EG: Yeah.

DLB: Very pleasant in its own way; very warm and convivial....

EG: Yeah, and the majority of people were into that. And that was OK, and that was good. I certainly didn’t put it down or anything. But... I’d run real quickly to my other stuff! [Chuckles].

DLB: You liked those African harmonies-- the parallel triads, the blues scale--

EG: Yeah.

DLB: And, y’know, when I hear your song "He’s The Kind Of Boy You Can’t Forget" [a hit for Ellie’s early vocal group, The Raindrops] I perceive that that underlying groove is really a Black church gospel-clap feeling. [Sings and claps the song:]

"I remember when I first saw him.... Diddle-liddle-liddle-lip, Diddle-liddle-liddle-lip.... Something happened, and I couldn’t ignore him; Diddle-liddle-liddle-lip, Diddle-liddle-liddle-lip....."

It’s got that bouncing, triplet-feel and brisk backbeat, you know?

EG: Oh God, you should hear the one that the Pointers [The Pointer Sisters] held-- like a pregnancy-- for nine months. It was called "Heart Made Of Stone". I have gotta tell ya! Talk about gospel! And then, one night, when we were doing LEADER OF THE PACK down at THE BOTTOM LINE [legendary Greenwich Village cabaret, now celebrating its 30^th year featuring the most renowned names in Blues, Folk, Jazz and Rock] before the show went to Broadway, Darlene Love did it.... and with the background vocals-- it was, like, so-o-o gospel!

My grandmother, who was Jewish-- I was brought up in a mixed family; my father was Catholic, my mother was Jewish... I guess you could call me "Cathol-ish or "Jew-lic", whichever one you prefer—

DLB: [Laughs]

EG: ...so I was exposed to all different kinds of... worlds growing up. You know, most grandmothers would say, "Go out and meet a nice guy", or whatever. But my grandmother said to me: "You know what you should do? Take a tambourine. Go down to the Baptist Church. Lose yourself in that. And be done with it!" [Laughs]. Because I was always so... with the harmonies, the rhythms and the finger-snapping... I mean, I’d become maniacal! Seriously! And that was what really made me the happiest: being a part of that, uh, I mean it was like a fever! I don’t know how else to describe it...

DLB: Yes, and that’s exactly what that style of music was originally designed to do in Africa: rile the tribe up into an ecstatic state. And I totally hear that quality in your records...

EG: [Laughs] Oh, great! Are you saying I wrote hysterical music?? No, but seriously, that kind of music always felt so good.

DLB: ...and when I listen to "Chapel Of Love"....

EG: Now that’s kind of "New Orleans", though...

DLB: Is that what that groove is?

EG: Yeah.

DLB: ...that triplet shuffle feeling: DOObity-DOObity-DOObity-DOObity....

EG: Yeah, it’s kind of like a cool little New Orleans thing...

DLB: I’d wondered where that came from...

EG: Well, now that I’m naming it, I guess that’s where it came from.... we weren’t thinking "New Orleans" particularly at the time, though... But if you have to pigeonhole it, I guess that’s what we’d say it is.

DLB: But you know, frankly, I can’t think of any big songs in the pop-rock genre, prior to "Chapel", that have that particular rhythmic groove.... The only thing I can think of just immediately prior to "Chapel" would be, say, Perry Como’s "Round And Round".. [Sings:]

"Find a wheel... and it goes ‘round, ‘round, ‘round as it spins along with a happy sound..."

...but even that rhythm is nowhere near as relaxed.... it’s kind of stiff, without the broad swing of "Chapel"...

EG: Yeah, it’s more like "Oom-pah"...

DLB: ...or polka. But then you guys came along with that nice triplet-feeling, that much more relaxed swing... [Sings:]

Goin’ to the chapel, and we’re gonna get ma-a-arried...

Which was suddenly so much sexier. And novel on the charts.

EG: See, I think songs like that-- being of the feel that they were and what they were saying, and so forth-- I’ve seen it often be the case that songs like that either make it really big-- or not at all. They really "bubble under". They either drop dead, or they’re sitting right there on top, going [Perkily:] "Hi there!!"

DLB: [Laughs:] Yeah?

EG: Really! In every respect. They might be redundant, they’re this, they’re that, they talk about a very specific thing, they feel a certain way. So either you’re gonna like them or you won’t. No "in-betweens" with that kind of thing. So... I guess you could say we got lucky! [Chuckles.]

DLB: Ellie, I think you’ll remember that the first contact I made with you was an email in which I wrote you saying that I was enamoured with your great song and solo performance of "You Don’t Know". Wow! I think that-- of all your songs-- just might be in my Top Five... maybe even my Top Two! [With great emphasis:] I...love...that...record!

EG: [With scant enthusiasm:] Yeah-h, but it’s a little flat in the end there... [Chuckles].

DLB: [Surprised:] Whaddya mean, "flat in the end" ?

EG: Well, the bass is off, the vocals are terrible at the end of that record; but really I loved it. Now that was a record I thought was going to do really well for me, but didn’t. Because it came out at exactly the same time as [With the faintest hint of rancor:] Jackie De Shannon’s "What The World Needs Now is Lurve-Sweet-Lurve".

DLB: 1965?

EG: [Drily:] Mm-hmm.

DLB: So now I realize that "You Don’t Know" came out a little later than I’d thought it had...

EG: Come to think of it, it might have been ’64 even... I’m not totally sure...

DLB: One thing I love about that particular record was, in those days, there was a particular reverb sound... a certain ambience... Was "You Don’t Know" recorded in stereophonic?

EG: Uhh, yes. Yes it was.

DLB: And the reverb you guys achieved at Red Bird... was it totally derived from the room acoustics in which you recorded?

EG: Oh, it was helped along a little bit! [Chuckles] Sometimes it helps not knowing exactly what you’re doing. I mean, [George] "Shadow" Morton had all these, like, "visions" and stuff... God bless ‘im, he was kind of like a "soap opera" person.... I mean, everything had to be kind of like...

DLB: ...a mini-drama?

EG: Yeah! Which was fabulous! Sometimes, in the studio, he’d raise his hands and say, "Cut! Here, I have to hear this." , and so forth. And I’d exclaim, "But you can’t do that!" And he’d reply, "Oh, but you can!" Very unconventional. It was much the same way with Spector: I’d say, "You can’t do that." And he’d retort, "Ah, but you can!" Just taking our chances with--

DLB: ...with two pianos, two basses...

EG: Right-- never sticking to what the "norm" was for recording in those days. I’m not really sure of all the technical details around then... I was more concerned with: "I’m actually making a real record they’re gonna to be putting out there and trying to do something with!" "What am I to do!" I was very, like, so uptight, getting every detail just right. I was going to be single-voice! They’re not gonna double me-- what am I gonna do??" [Laughs]. You know, all those kinds of worries you have then?

DLB: You know, it’s funny that you see the flaws in that record, because to me, that is a flawless pop record! [Editor’s Note: the now-rare Ellie Greenwich solo recording of her song "You Don’t Know" is now available on the Rhino Records digitally re-mastered release, THE BEST OF THE GIRL GROUPS, VOL. II, ASIN# B0000032TL ]

EG: I do think that arrangement-wise, it was so wonderful.

DLB: It’s so... together. And that great bassline [Sings, imitating the record’s memorable bass guitar lick:] Doom, doom, da-da, doom, doom... It is priceless; I love it!

EG: Yeah, well, I have to give credit to Shadow Morton on that one. Because he was very creative. But also very unreliable. [Laughs]

DLB: ...hence the nickname, "Shadow"?

EG: [Flatly:] That’s it.  

DLB: Let’s talk about Neil Diamond.

EG: OK.

DLB: My feeling is this: You’d be on my map of one of the most important Rock personalities of all time just from your productions and vocal arrangements of the early Neil Diamond hits... [Editor’s Note: Here I am referring to the dozen or so songs which may be found re-mastered on the Columbia recording CLASSICS: THE EARLY YEARS which chronicles Diamond’s first hits from the period of 1965-69. Ellie and her husband Jeff Barry were instrumental in launching Diamond’s career and shaping the sound of his earliest hits]. That’s how beautiful those records are... When you consider that the "Holy Grail" of all the Brill Building writers was The Perfect Three-Minute Record...

EG: They worked so well!

DLB: Omigosh!

EG: Neil was, and is, a phenomenon unto himself. Once again, I met him through doing all these demos for publishers. I had gotten a call from this publisher-- I think it was Pincus Music-- and he had a guy up there who had some songs, and he needed a girl singer. That’s how it all began. Now, you see? A fluke. What if I had been busy that day? Think about it. What if I’d said, "Naw, I really can’t make it today. Sorry." That would’ve been it! It just so happened I was available; I went. And then the rest became history. He had written these two songs... as I recall, one was called "Call Me His". I don’t have a copy of that today-- which kills me! ‘Cause I’d love to hear the lead vocals I did of two Neil Diamond songs. And I don’t have them. But I remember I thought his writing style was kind of interesting.

DLB: Yes... very intense, very "New York", very heartfelt, very sincere, very energetic. I love Neil. Though I must say I love his early material better than I would come to like his later 1970’s and ‘80’s material...

EG: While I wouldn’t say I like all of it, I will say I appreciate all of it. I know where he’s coming from, you know? Even when I recorded those first two songs of his, I thought, hmm, that’s different. I didn’t even know if I loved them or not. But I thought, there’s something here. There’s something here. And when he sang them to me, I was like, "What a weird voice!" [Laughs.] It wasn’t the kind of voice I was hearing on the music scene in those days. The long and the short of it: I did the demos, and I said to Neil, "I really would like you to meet my husband. What are you doing?" And he replied, "Who are you?" [Laughs]. And he hadn’t been around on the scene for long, he was trying to get some of his stuff recorded, he sang, but nothing was really happening for him. So I mentioned him to Jeff-- who initially didn’t even want to bother with him, he was so busy. I eventually convinced him to give Neil a listen. And as it turned out, Jeff was really taken by the way he sang, as opposed to his writing. Whereas I liked his writing, but was not initially sold on his voice. A perfect match.

DLB: Now, Ellie, were you actually doing those vocals on the background of those early Neil records?

EG: Yes.

DLB: So you mean that’s you on the tag of "I’ve Got The Feelin’", going "Whoa-oh, whoa-oh."?

EG: That’s it... I wrote that lick and performed it.

DLB: Oh my lord! Ellie, you’d be on my list of favorite rock people just from that lick alone! It’s so inspired... It sounds like a woman sobbing... supporting the meaning of Neil’s lyric. It’s fabulous.

EG: And I love doing background vocals. I mean, literally, I could just make a living just out of doing backgrounds. I’d be happy just stepping in at recording sessions, going, "OK, you-- you come in right here with this... Try this over here." And so forth. I’d love that. You know, David, sometimes I think that the background vocals are as important to a song or record as the lead vocals are.

DLB: Well, in the [1965 Neil Diamond] record, "Cherry, Cherry", that record is unthinkable without the background singers going, "She got the way to move me... She got the way to groove me..." Unthinkable without that hook.

EG: Right. Right.

DLB: ...and that’s your baby, right?

EG: Yep. And years later, I was working with Cyndi Lauper on her single "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". And during the rehearsals, they got kind of... stuck on the breakdown part of the song. So I thought for a minute, and then it came to me: "Girls. They want. Wanna Have Fun. Girls. They wanna have. Just wanna, they just wanna. Girls. Girls just wanna have fu-un." And so that’s what we went with.

DLB: You spontaneously generated a counterpoint! Incredible. And what I love about your background vocals is the way you used them as what modern synthesizer arrangers would call a "pad". In other words, your backgrounds created a soft, unobtrusive cushion of harmony which the lead vocals, lead guitarist, etc., could sit on top of. Providing the harmonic context for the whole record. A foil. That, for me, was such a source of beauty...

EG: So I guess what you could say is, Phil came up with the Wall Of Sound, and I came up with the Wall Of Voice.

DLB: Ellie Greenwich, thank you.

EG: You’re welcome.

 

Ellie in 1967

For more information on Ellie Greenwich, her discography, biography, list of awards and more, be sure to visit Ellie’s official homepage, www.elliegreenwich.com 

You’ll also want to visit the excellent and extensive website www.spectropop.com for more information on the songwriting team of Greenwich/Barry/Spector, the Brill Building songwriters, performers, and their inimitable legacy of song.

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