Ellie Greenwich RIP

Ellie Greenwich, Legendary Songwriter, Dies at 68

Aug 26th, 2009

Songwriter
Ellie Greenwich, who co-wrote many of the classic hits of the girl
group era, has died at age 68. According to her niece, Greenwich died
of a heart attack at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in New York, where
she had been hospitalized for pneumonia.

Greenwich's songs,
mostly written with her then-husband, Jeff Barry, include such '60s
girl-pop standards as 'Be My Baby' and 'Baby I Love You,' by the
Ronettes, 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and 'Then He Kissed Me,' by the Crystals,
and 'Leader of the Pack,' by the Shangri-Las. Her songbook also
includes penning 'Chapel of Love' for the Dixie Cups and 'River Deep,
Mountain High' for Ike & Tina Turner.

Greenwich and Barry
were part of New York's Brill Building songwriting factory alongside
the likes of Neil Diamond, Carole King, Neil Sedaka and Burt Bacharach.
The songwriting and onetime married couple had their songs recorded by
performers including Tommy James and the Shondells ('Hanky Panky'),
Lesley Gore ('Maybe I Know,' 'The Look of Love') and Manfred Mann ('Do
Wah Diddy Diddy'). Greenwich also had a Top 20 hit of her own with 'The
Kind of Boy You Can't Forget' under the group name the Raindrops.


I love the Brill Building Pop/Girl Group era and their songwriters, so used to seeing the combo Greenwich/Barry in brackets next to those epic songs "River Deep, Mountain High", "Be My Baby", "Then He Kissed Me" and "Leader Of The Pack".

Sad day indeed.........