It seems that Ed Gorman and I are often reading the same book. I'm really enjoying this one, and the anecdote that Ed mentions (that Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman wrote "Little Sister" and "[Marie's the Name] His Latest Flame" specifically for Bobby Vee) is certainly one of many highlights. But all the stories about the Brill Building songwriting teams are good. Just the names are enough to invoke a veritable frenzy of nostalgia: Leiber and Stoller, Goffin and King, Weil and Mann, Barry and Greenwich, Sedaka and Greenfield, Bacharach and David. There's also great stuff about Bobby Darin, Phil Spector, Connie Francis, and plenty of others. If you grew up listening to the radio in the late 1950s and early 1960s, or if you're happy to learn that it was Neil Sedak playing piano on "Splish Splash," then this is the book for you.
1 comment:
Well, they're all gone but the Brill Building is still there on Broadway. We pass it every time we go to the theater district.
And of course this sounds like yet another book I have to read. And thanks for recommending The Wheelman Bill; a definite classic!
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