Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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GREENWICH, Ellie

(b Eleanor Louise Greenwich, 23 October 1940, Brooklyn; d 26 August 2009, Manhattan, of a heart attack related to pneumonia) Composer, producer, performer: the only rival to Carole King as the most influential female in the pop of the 1960s. She grew up playing the accordion; when the Manhattan School of Music wouldn't let her in, her parents bought a piano (she went to college elsewhere). She recorded her own songs as Ellie Gay, Ellie Gee and the Jets, then became part of the Brill Building fraternity; she had success with various collaborators (hits for the Exciters, Darlene Love, Bob B. Soxx etc) but teamed professionally and personally with Jeff Barry. They had a conveyor belt of hits, mostly for Phil Spector's Philles label: for the Crystals ('Da Do Ron Ron', 'Then He Kissed Me'), the Ronettes ('Be My Baby', 'Baby I Love You', 'I Can Hear Music'), the Chiffons, the Shirelles, Ike and Tina Turner ('River Deep, Mountain High'), etc. Manfred Mann's 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' was the hit version of a song they'd planned to record themselves as the Raindrops: their duo of '63-4 named after the Dee Clark hit used overdubbing techniques to sound like a choir; their five Hot 100 entries on Jubilee began with a demo of 'What A Guy', which cost $150 to make and reached the top 50; the biggest was the second ('The Kind Of Boy You Can't Forget', no. 17), the third encountered consumer resistance, 'That Boy John' released at about the time JFK was shot.

Barry did not like appearing in public; he was replaced by Bobby Bosco when the Raindrops briefly toured, the lineup completed by Greenwich, her sister and another girl, though their only album showed only three people on the cover. The Red Bird label (see Leiber and Stoller) turned out to be mainly an outlet for Greenwich/Barry hits, the first being the smash 'Chapel Of Love' by the Dixie Cups, followed by others by the Jelly Beans, the Shangri-Las and the Butterflys. They divorced '65 but continued working together, taking young Neil Diamond under their wing: his early hits on Bang were written and/or produced by them. Ellie resisted transfer to the West Coast when Jeff was offered a lucrative deal there and they subsequently worked together less. She concentrated on jingles in the '70s, also sessioned as a singer on other people's records (Blondie, Dusty Springfield, etc). She also released solo albums of her material: Ellie Greenwich Composes, Produces And Sings (UA '67) and Let It Be Written, Let It Be Sung (MGM '73). She re-emerged as a songwriter in the '80s with new partners (Ellen Foley included her songs in Another Breath '83, produced by Vini Poncia); she played herself in an off-Broadway musical Leader Of The Pack (after the '64 Shangri-Las hit); when it transferred to Broadway, the theatre was just around the corner from the Brill building.