Ellie Greenwich
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Ellie Greenwich is an American pop music singer, songwriter, and record producer. She was born Eleanor Louise Greenwich on October 23, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Catholic father and a Jewish mother. At the age of eleven she moved with her parents and younger sister to Levittown, Long Island, and around this time began taking lessons on the accordion. By her teens, Ellie was composing her own songs; eventually Ellie taught herself to compose on the piano rather than the accordion. In high school, Ellie and two of her friends formed a singing group, The Jivettes, which gradually took on more members and performed at local functions.
At the age of seventeen, around the time she began attending Queens College, Ellie recorded her first single for RCA Records, the self-penned "Silly Isn't It" b/w "Cha-Cha Charming." The single, issued under the name Ellie Gaye, was released in 1958 and indirectly led to Ellie's decision to transfer from Queens College to Hofstra University after one of her professors at the former institution belittled her for recording pop music.
In 1959, while still at college, Ellie met the man who would ultimately become her husband and main songwriting partner. Although it's very possible they had been acquainted as children, since they shared a common relative, the first time Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry met formally as adults was at a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by Ellie's maternal uncle, who was married to Jeff's cousin. Ellie had brought along her accordion, and she and Jeff immediately recognized their mutual attraction - to music. Romance was not yet in the air as Jeff was still married to his first wife, who was in attendance at the dinner. Yet within just a couple of years, the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich would become among the most successful and prolific of the Brill Building composers.
Ellie and Jeff began dating after Jeff's marriage was annulled, but musically they continued to forge separate careers. Prior to graduating college, in 1962, Ellie got her first major break in the music business when she traveled to the Brill Building to meet with John Gluck, Jr., one of the composers of the Lesley Gore hit "It's My Party." Needing to run out to keep another appointment, Gluck installed Ellie in an office and asked her to wait for his return. The office turned out to be that of songwriter-producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Hearing piano music emanating from the cubicle, Leiber poked his head in and, expecting Carole King, was startled to see Ellie, who introduced herself and explained her reasons for being there. Recognizing her potential as a songwriter, Leiber and Stoller agreed to allow her to use their facilities as often as she wished in exchange for the right of first refusal on any songs she wrote. They eventually signed Ellie to their publishing company, Trio Music, as a staff songwriter.
Prior to marrying Jeff, Ellie wrote songs with several different partners, including Ben Raleigh (who, coincidentally, had been co-writer on Jeff's first big hit as a composer, "Tell Laura I Love Her," in 1960) and Mark Barkan. She was also an in-demand session singer, recording so many demos that she soon became known as New York's Demo Queen. Ellie's biggest hits during this period were penned with Tony Powers. The Greenwich-Powers team made the charts with tunes such as "He's Got the Power" (The Exciters), "(Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry" (Darlene Love), and "Why Do Lovers Break Each Others' Hearts" (Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, with Love on lead vocal). These last two recordings were co-written and produced by Phil Spector, who'd been introduced to the songs, and Ellie, by publisher Aaron Schroeder. In October of 1962, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich married, and shortly afterward they made the decision to write songs exclusively with each other - a decision that sorely disappointed Tony Powers as well as Jeff's main writing partner, Artie Resnick. Jeff was subsequently signed to Trio Music, and he and Ellie were given their own office with their names on the door. Before the end of 1963, the Barry-Greenwich team had scored major hits with songs such as "Be My Baby" and "Baby, I Love You" (The Ronettes), "(And) Then He Kissed Me" and "Da Doo Ron Ron" (The Crystals), "Not Too Young To Get Married" (Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans), and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love, all co-written and produced by Phil Spector. Ellie and Jeff also recorded an album of their own under the name The Raindrops, with Ellie providing all the female vocals through overdubbing, and Jeff singing backgrounds in a bass voice. In addition to "What a Guy" (which was actually a demo record, with Ellie on piano and Jeff on drums, sold to Jubilee Records and released as the first Raindrops single) and the U.S. Top Twenty hit "The Kind of Boy You Can't Forget," the couple wrote and recorded "Hanky Panky," which would later become a hit for Tommy James & the Shondells, and, the following year, "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy," taken to the #1 spot by Manfred Mann. Jeff and Ellie also penned songs for Connie Francis and Lesley Gore.
Red Bird Records was founded in 1964 by Leiber and Stoller, who brought Jeff and Ellie onboard as songwriters and producers. The label's first release was The Dixie Cups' "Chapel of Love" (written with Phil Spector and originally recorded by The Ronettes), which sailed up the U.S. charts to #1. Jeff and Ellie wrote and/or produced many hits for Red Bird including several other releases by The Dixie Cups as well as The Ad-Libs ("He Ain't No Angel"), The Jelly Beans ("I Wanna Love Him So Bad"), and The Shangri-Las ("Leader of the Pack," written with George "Shadow" Morton). Also with Shadow Morton, Jeff and Ellie penned "You Don't Know," which Ellie recorded on Red Bird under her own name in 1965, at the same time Jeff recorded and released another Barry/Greenwich tune, "Our Love Can Still Be Saved." Sadly, the couple's marriage couldn't be saved; before the end of the year, Jeff and Ellie were divorced. The couple continued to work together for much of 1966, in no small part due to Ellie's discovery of a talented singer-songwriter named Neil Diamond. Jeff, Ellie and Neil joined forces to form Tallyrand Music, to publish Neil's songs. Neil was subsequently signed to Bert Berns's label, Bang Records, and went on to have hits such as "Cherry Cherry" and "Kentucky Woman," all produced by Jeff and Ellie who also sang backgrounds on many of the tracks. In addition, Jeff and Ellie teamed up with Phil Spector one last time to pen "I Can Hear Music," recorded by The Ronettes and by The Beach Boys, and "River Deep, Mountain High," which Phil produced for Ike and Tina Turner. A few years later, in 1971, The Supremes and The Four Tops had a hit with their revival of "River Deep."
During 1967, Ellie formed Pineywood Music with Mike Rashkow, and over the next few years the Greenwich-Rashkow team wrote and produced recordings for Ellie herself as well as for Dusty Springfield, The Definitive Rock Chorale, and The Hardy Boys. Also in 1967, Ellie recorded her first solo album, Ellie Greenwich Composes, Produces and Sings, released in 1968, which produced two chart hits, "Niki Hoeky" (#1 in Japan) and "I Want You To Be My Baby." In addition, Ellie continued to provide background vocals for a diversity of artists such as Dusty Springfield, Bobby Darin, Lou Christie, and Frank Sinatra. She did studio work for her ex-husband as well, singing backgrounds for Andy Kim, who was recording for Jeff Barry's Steed Records, and The Archies. At one such recording session, Ellie met Steve Tudanger, with whom she and another Steve, Steve Feldman, would later form the company Jingle Habitat to write and produce jingles for radio and television. The Steves also co-produced Ellie's second LP, Let It Be Written, Let It Be Sung, in 1973. After her partnership with Rashkow ended in 1971, Ellie went on to collaborate with other writers such as Ellen Foley and another Jeff, Jeff Kent; the Greenwich-Kent-Foley team penned "Keep It Confidential," a hit for Nona Hendryx on the R&B charts in 1983. That same year, "Right Track Wrong Train," which Ellie wrote with Jeff Kent and Cyndi Lauper, was the B-side of Cyndi's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" which hit #2 on the U.S. charts.
Ellie's affiliation with Ellen Foley and Nona Hendryx indirectly led to the production of a Broadway show that would resurrect the popularity of Ellie's 60's music. When Ellen and Nona performed at the now-defunct Bottom Line Cabaret in New York City, Ellie was there to see them. Bottom Line owner Allan Pepper twisted Ellie’s arm to take a meeting with him and discuss the plausibility of putting together a revue showcasing her hits. In 1984, Leader of the Pack, a show based on the life and music of Ellie Greenwich, opened at The Bottom Line. Ellie appeared as herself in Act Two of the autobiographical musical, which focused on her early years in Long Island and her marriage and partnership with Jeff Barry. The show was so successful that it was revamped for Broadway and opened at the Ambassador Theater the following year. Cast members included Ellie, Darlene Love, Annie Golden, Dinah Manoff as young Ellie, and Patrick Cassidy as Jeff Barry. Leader of the Pack was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical and a Grammy Award for the cast album, and the play garnered The New York Music Award for Best Broadway Musical. During the 90's and into the new millennium, the musical has enjoyed several revivals and continues to be performed at schools and community theaters.
In 1991, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Leader of the Pack is still being performed in cities all over the world, and Ellie travels around the globe helping to oversee the various productions.
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