Lots of so-called critics like to dismiss the pop music of the pre-Beatles '60s as trite and easily forgettable, a regrettable detour from the harder rock 'n' roll of the Elvis '50s that was put by the wayside when the British true believers invaded American shores in 1964. I, however, disagree.
You see, the story of popular music in the 20th century is
written, in large part, by professional songwriters -- the very folks who produced those oft-dismissed early '60s tunes. Professional
songwriters apply their craft to the three-minute song, writing memorable words
and melodies for other musicians to perform. The key word here is "professional" -- these are folks who know their craft and put out quality product on a consistent basis. None of that introspective bleeding heart emo crap intoned against a strummed chord or two; we're talking tunes with real melodies that anyone could sing along with.
In the first part of the 20th century, professional songwriting
in America was concentrated in that area of New York City on West 28th
Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, commonly called Tin Pan Alley. (The
name came from writer Monroe Rosenfeld, who likened the cacophony of so many
songwriters pounding on so many pianos to the sound of beating on tin pans.)
Songwriters, together and in teams, churned out their compositions in
factory-like style; the best of these songs got sold to music publishing
companies, and were then issued as sheet music (before the explosion of the
record business) or picked up by one of the major singers of the day. Sometimes
these Tin Pan Alley tunes ended up in vaudeville productions, Broadway plays,
or Hollywood movies. The best of the best endured, and became classics.
The best songwriters of a generation filtered through Tin
Pan Alley. George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George and Ira
Gershwin; all were professional songwriters for hire. Their songs were sung by
the top singers of the day—Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme,
Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Nat 'King' Cole, and the like. Their songs were
professional compositions, the work of trained musicians who were masters of
their craft. They featured pretty melodies, sophisticated chord progressions,
and mature, often witty, lyrics; they were written by adults, for adults.
By the 1950s, Tin Pan Alley and the New York music business
had moved uptown—to that stretch of Broadway between 49th and 53rd
streets. The hub of this activity was 1619 Broadway, in an eleven-story edifice
called the Brill Building.
The Brill Building was built in 1931, during the height of the
Great Depression. Some of its first tenants were music publishers, including
Famous Music, Mills Music, and Southern Music. By 1962 the building was home to
more than 150 music companies, and this concentration of companies made the
Brill Building a kind of “one stop shop” for aspiring musicians.
The entire music process was contained in that one building.
You could write a song on one floor, sell it to a publisher on another floor,
have an arrangement written on another, and cut a demo on yet another. If you
needed musicians for your demo, there were plenty hanging around; if you were a
publisher or a singer shopping for a song, all you had to do was wait around a
few minutes and someone would be knocking at your door.
For songwriters, the working environment was Spartan, almost
factory-like. Songwriters and songwriting teams occupied tiny cubicles, just
big enough to hold a piano (for the music writer) and a desk (for the
lyricist). Independent songwriters rented cubicles and tried to sell their
songs, one at a time, to the many music publishing companies in the building.
The more established songwriters were employed by music publishing firms,
typically earning a salary of $150 (or less!) a week.
While the Brill was the nexus of the Broadway music complex,
some of the biggest hits came out of a building catty-cornered across the street, at 1650
Broadway. It was this building that housed Aldon Music, which for a time dominated the teen music charts.
Aldon Music was a music publishing company run by a young Don
Kirshner and his older partner Al Nevins. Kirshner got his start in
the music business thanks to his friendship and professional partnership with
Robert Casotto–who became better known as singer Bobby Darin. Before Darin’s
later success as a performer, he was Kirshner’s songwriting partner, going
door-to-door in the Brill
Building looking for
business. When Darin finally hit it big as a solo artist, twenty-one year-old
Kirshner found a new partner, Al Nevins. Nevins had some previous success as a
composer and musician (as part of the Three Suns in the 1940s and 1950s), and
with Kirshner, founded Aldon Music in May, 1958.
It didn’t take long for Aldon to make its mark in the music
publishing business. Kirshner and Nevins had just moved into their new offices,
and were in the process of setting up their new furniture, when two aspiring
songwriters knocked on their door. Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield were
looking for a publishing contract, and they played a half-dozen songs for
Kirshner and Nevins. One of the songs was called “Stupid Cupid;” another was
called “Calendar Girl.” Kirshner and Nevins signed them on the spot.
Capitalizing on the initial success of Sedaka and
Greenfield, Aldon Music began signing the best of that generation’s songwriting
teams, and soon became the most successful of all the Brill Building publishing
companies. Kirshner and Nevins had an ear for talent, and a unerring
sensibility for the newly emerging teen record market.
The list of songwriters signed to Aldon Music is legend. In
1960, Kirshner hired Neil Sedaka’s high school girlfriend, Carole King, and her
new husband, Gerry Goffin; they became the most successful songwriting team of
the early 1960s. The following year, Kirshner signed songwriters Barry Mann and
Cynthia Weil; Mann and Weil wrote separately for awhile, but ultimately teamed
up (both professionally and personally) to pen hits for the Drifters, the
Crystals, the Ronettes, and the Righteous Brothers. Kirshner also signed
another husband-wife songwriting team, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, as well
as the teams of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and (later in the decade) Tommy Boyce
and Bobby Hart. By 1962 Aldon had eighteen songwriters on staff, none older
than twenty-six.
Of course, Aldon wasn’t the only Brill Building
music publisher; dozens of smaller publishers also contributed to the
hit-making machinery in that pre-Beatles era. When Jerry Leiber and Mike
Stoller brought their west-coast R&B stylings to New York, they took up residence in the Brill Building.
Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the era’s most sophisticated songwriters, also
paid their dues in a Brill
Building cubicle.
(And, yes, the typical Brill Building
songwriter was actually two people, working together in a team—one providing
the words and the other the music. While there were solo songwriters, such as
the talented Toni Wine, and while some members of some teams sometimes wrote
with other individuals, during the Brill Building era it was the
team approach that ruled.)
The sheer volume of songs that emerged from the Brill Building
compound was astounding in its own right; that so many songs became popular
hits, and even time-honored standards, further speaks of the talent assembled
there. While these talented individuals certainly wrote their share of
throw-away pop confections (Barry Mann’s “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp,
Bomp)”, co-written with Gerry Goffin;
Goffin and King’s “The Loco-Motion;” Barry and Greenwich’s “Do Wah Diddy
Diddy”), the best of Brill Building pop holds its own with the great Tin Pan Alley
songs of Gershwin, Porter, and others of their generation.
While Brill Building pop was every bit as well crafted as
Tin Pan Alley pop, the Brill Building songwriters were writing to a completely
different audience—the then-new teen market. The 1950s marked the first time
that teenagers were identified separately from their parents, and they craved
their own clothing, movies, and music. Brill Building
songwriters targeted the teen market, and wrote songs that that era’s teenagers
could identify with.
As most teenagers (then as now) were intrigued by and
infatuated with boy-girl relationships, the typical Brill Building
song dealt with teenage romance, in one form or another. The lyrics were more
to-the-point than in similar Tin Pan Alley songs, eschewing erudite witticisms
for the vernacular of the day that spoke directly to their youthful audience.
The music was simpler, too; with some exception, the Brill Building
sound built on the simple chord progressions and harmonies of 1950s Doo Wop,
with catchy, easily sung melodies piled on top of familiar chords.
Another difference between the Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building
sounds was the latter’s emphasis on fully produced records. In the heyday of
Tin Pan Alley, a song was put out into the world for any artist to sing, and
its success was measured in terms of sheet music sold. By the late 1950s, the
medium of measurement was the 45 r.p.m. single, so a completed Brill Building
song was quickly made into a demo for a specific artist. The typical Brill
Building single (whether recorded in New
York or in the west coast studios favored by producer
Phil Spector) featured elaborate, often bombastic production. There were lots
of instruments on these records, including full string sections playing
sophisticated arrangements. And, owing to its Doo Wop heritage, Brill Building
pop surrounded the singer with multiple backing voices, especially on those
songs written for the Girl Groups of the era. These records were short, catchy,
and full of hooks—aimed at teenagers, not their parents. And they all sounded
great coming from the tinny speaker on the average car radio.
What Brill
Building songwriters
shared with their Tin Pan Alley predecessors was a high level of
professionalism, and a devotion to their craft. These were professionals, in every sense of the word; they worked nine-to-five
to produce the flawless pop concoctions demanded by their listeners. The
typical Brill Building songwriting team wrote hundreds
of songs over the course of their careers, in some cases writing a dozen songs
a week. Given the competition, only the best of the best made it onto AM
radio’s top forty hit lists.
And, from the late 1950s
to the mid 1960s, Brill Building songwriters sent one song after another to the
top of the pop charts. Brill
Building songs fueled the
careers of many a teen idol, helped to create the Girl Group craze of the early
1960s, and supported the many manufactured groups of the late 1960s and early
1970s, including the Monkees and the Archies.
It’s worth noting that, while the Brill Building
might have been the east coast nexus of the professional songwriting world,
there were other professional songwriters operating in the 1960s, out of many
other locations. For example, there was a west coast equivalent of the Brill Building
combine in Los Angeles.
The two driving forces of this west coast sound were the local office of Aldon
Music, headed by Lou Adler, and Metric Music, the California extension of New York’s Liberty Music. The songwriters
working for Aldon and Metric included Randy Newman, P.J. Proby, David Gates,
and Jackie DeShannon.
Another songwriting nexus was in Detroit, as Barry Gordy employed a raft of
songwriting teams for his Motown label. The Motown composers are legend, and
include names like Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Norman Whitfield, and
Holland-Dozier-Holland.
And not all professional songwriters were American. In England, the
center of professional songwriting activity was London’s Denmark Street. Successful British
songwriters of the period included Carter and Lewis, Graham Gouldman, Cook and
Greenaway, Tony Hatch, Les Reed, Barry Mason, and Geoff Stephans
Of course, Britain
was also home to the century’s most successful songwriting team. John Lennon
and Paul McCartney weren’t professional songwriters, at least not in the same
way Mann and Weil or Goffin and King were, but they did produce a series of
popular songs unmatched in the 20th century. If the Beatles hadn’t
existed as performers, Lennon and McCartney could have been Brill Building
(or Denmark Street)
songwriters without peer. As-is, their songs have been recorded by hundreds—if
not thousands—of other artists, and were every bit as influential as anything
coming out of that eleven-story building at 1619 Broadway.
Interestingly, many Brill Building
composers went on to have successful solo careers of their own. Neil Sedaka,
Neil Diamond (who, during his stint at Famous Music, penned “I’m a Believer”
and “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” for the Monkees), Paul Simon, and Lou
Reed all served their time in the Brill Building, although they’re better known
today as performers than as songwriters.
The most successful solo artist to come from the Brill
Building combine was Carole King. As half of the Goffin-King songwriting team,
Ms. King created some of the most memorable melodies of the Brill Building era.
After she split with husband Gerry Goffin and moved to the west coast, she
began performing her own songs. While she had toyed with performing before (she
actually charted “It Might As Well Rain Until September,” under her own name,
in 1962), it was her 1971 album, Tapestry,
that provided her with megasuccess—as both a songwriter and a performer.
The beginning of the end
of the Brill Building era came in 1963, when Kirshner
and Nevins sold Aldon music to Columbia Pictures-Screen Gems. Kirshner moved to
the west coast to run the parent company’s publishing and recording activities,
while Nevins signed on as a consultant. While Kirshner, in his new position,
still turned out the hits, they were mainly manufactured concoctions for
manufactured groups, such as the Monkees and the Archies.
A further nail in the
coffin came in 1964, when the Beatles invaded America. The Beatles marked the
ascendance of the fully contained artist, musicians who not only performed but
also wrote their own songs. With one new group after another writing its own
music, the market for professionally written pop songs began to dry up; by the
mid-1970s, that songwriting factory called the Brill Building
quickly became irrelevant.
In the 1980s and beyond, professional songwriters became a
dying breed—at least in the straight rock and pop genres. Professional
songwriting continued to flourish in the fields of movie soundtracks, New
Country, and each succeeding current generation of manufactured teen idol
performers. The genre that started with Tin Pan Alley writers Harry Von Tilzer,
Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin and reached its zenith in the hundreds of
brilliant three-minute Brill Building pop songs was, by the end of the century,
still flourishing, albeit in a different format, and with a different audience.
I'm a fan of professional songwriting, and of professional songwriters. There's too much amateurish songwriting in pop music today; ust because some guitar player can put a few chords together doesn't mean he knows how to construct a decent melody. It's even worse with rap and hip hop, where the very notion of musicality has been tossed off the turntable. Enough of this thrashing and bashing about; I long for the days of the well-crafted pop song. The kiddies have run the asylum for much too long. Wouldn't it be nice if the pros returned to save the day?
