BRILL BUILDING POP
The New York record business at the start of the 1960s was very
much the leader in the field, and was dominated by the idea of
the crafted pop song.
The city was full of writers, arrangers and session musicians
who were influenced to varying degrees by the existence of
Broadway musical theatre, around which these separate jobs had
thrived since the 1920s.
Much of the white-dominated scene operated from the few
blocks around Times Square where certain buildings dominated the
industry.
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller had an office at the Brill
Building at 1619 Broadway, New York - although many of the writers
were starting to assemble across the road at 1650 Broadway, at Don
Kirshner's newly set-up Aldon Building.
Here it was that Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry Mann, Cynthia
Weil, Neil Sedaka and many others were starting to churn out the
bulk of what has become known as Brill Building Pop. The term
'Brill Building' came to refer to three separate addresses spread
over five blocks of Broadway.
By the mid 60s the action had mostly shifted to 1650 Broadway.
An inscription above the door at that address reads "The
best-known address in the entertainment field".
The third Brill address was 1697 Broadway, where the black acts
were based. Al Kooper says in his memoir, Backstage Passes And
Backstabbing Bastards, the few white people who had office
space there felt obliged to have one R&B hit. This is where
The Tokens ("Jewish as the driven snow") wrote He's
So Fine for The Chiffons.
It was said in the 1930s and 1940s that Tin Pan Alley was
"located just across the street from the nearest
dollar". This new Tin Pan Alley could be located more
precisely because in effect, the Brill Building had become a
production line for quality pop music, much of it under the
guidance of one man, Don Kirshner.
Kirshner's first experience of the music industry had been in
an unsuccessful song writing partnership with the equally unknown
Robert Cassotto (who later changed his name to Bobby
Darin and became a bona-fide teen idol).
Kirshner decided to take the energy of rock music and re-apply
the old-fashioned Tin Pan Alley disciplines of craft and
professionalism to the art of marketing hits for the youth market.
With new partner Al Nevins he formed Aldon Music - One of their
first signings was the song writing duo of Neil Sedaka and Howie
Greenfield whose Stupid Cupid provided a hit for Connie
Francis in 1958. As a solo performer Sedaka then turned out Oh
Carol, Calendar Girl, Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen
and a string of others.
 Sedaka's
ex-girlfriend Carole King was also
brought onboard as a songwriter, on a wage of $75 a week, along
with her current beau, Gerry Goffin (pictured together at
right).
She was soon pumping out hits including Will You Love Me
Tomorrow? for The Shirelles, Take
Good Care Of My Baby for Bobby Vee,
Crying In The Rain for The Everly Brothers, and The
Loco-Motion for Little Eva.
Kirshner's next coup was a liaison with Barry Mann (writer of
Who Put The Bomp?). Teamed up with Cynthia Weil, the duo
quickly scored with Bless You by Tony Orlando, Uptown
for The Crystals, and You've Lost
That Lovin' Feelin' for Phil Spector
protégés, The Righteous Brothers.
Describing conditions in the Brill Building, Mann revealed
"Cynthia and I work in a tiny cubicle, with just a piano and
a chair, no window. We go in every morning and write songs all
day. In the next room Carole and Gerry are doing the same thing,
with Neil in the room after that. Sometimes when we all get to
banging pianos, you can't tell who's playing what".
Never as feted as their Brill Building contemporaries, Ellie
Greenwich and Jeff Barry are chiefly remembered for I Can Hear
Music (The Beach Boys), River Deep and Mountain High (Ike
& Tina Turner) and Do-Wah-Diddy (originally for The
Exciters but most famously - and successfully - recorded by
Manfred Mann).
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