RE: Jewish songwriters (& the Brill Building)

[Mel Korn <mkorn...>]

OK... since we are now in the Brill building.... Walter Becker & Donald
Fagen got their start writing songs for a producer named Gary Katz for ABD
records. They were holed up in the Brill building (late 60's and early
70's). I know Fagen & Katz are definitely Jewish, however I am unsure about
Walter Becker? Anybody know (or care for that matter).

Mel Korn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
[mailto:owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org]On Behalf Of Robert Cohen
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 4:49 PM
To: World music from a Jewish slant
Subject: Re: Jewish songwriters (& the Brill Building)

>You are right.  King was originally Klein.  Virtually all the Brill
>Building sonwriters were Jewish.  That this goes unmentioned (they are
>all described simply as 'white') in the textbook I use in my history of
>rock music class I find unfortunate.  The text, which is fine in many
>ways, tends to racialize everything, but merely in terms of black and
>white that can be reductive and essentializing, when questions that
>probe more deeply into ethnicity, nationality, and culture could be very
>interesting.  I spend a lot of time exploring the Jewish roots of
>artists who work in 'mainstream' idioms and at the very least have come
>to appreciate the size of the Jewish contribution.  I would appreciate
>it being better known.


Their Jewishness (by birth, anyway) *doesn't* go unmentioned in the
wonderful film

Hit Makers: The Teens Who Stole Pop Music

originally shown on A&E television (for one night) and just featured (also
for one night) at the Boston Jewish Film Festival (which also had a film, on
one Cuban-born Jew's search for roots--called "Adio, Querida").  It's an
exhilarating movie and I encourage you to see it if you have any love or
feel for the music of this era (largely pre-Beatles rock 'n roll, sort-of)
and have a chance to.  You want to sing along with it constantly.  And the
mini-stories behind some of the songs are wonderful.  BJFF website summary:

"They were young, Jewish, and straight out of Brooklyn. The early 1960s saw
an amazing convergence of songwriting talent at Manhattan's Brill Building.
There, "fathers of rock 'n' roll" Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller wrote hit
songs for Elvis Presley, such as "Hound Dog." Songwriting team Carole King
and husband Gerry Goffin ("Will You Love Me Tomorrow?") composed at an
upright piano in one cubicle; their friends and rivals, Barry Mann and
Cynthia Weil ("You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling") were hard at work at the
next. Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Neil Sedaka could be heard down the
hall. They worked for Don Kirshner, and all agree that those years were
magical. John Turturro narrates this terrifically entertaining documentary
about a memorable period in the history of rock 'n' roll. It features
extensive interviews and archival footage of performers such as The
Drifters, The Shirelles, and The Righteous Brothers."


rlc commentary:  The worst of the songs of this period were, and are, dreck.
  But what's so exhilarating is that the *best* of them were, and are,
magical--and the kids (and most of them *were* kids) involved knew it, sort
of--knew they were creating magic.

What's most endearing, and energizing, about the movie is that, even when
they weren't writing dreck--and especially when they were making magic--the
songwriters of the Brill Building and thereabouts *loved* what they were
doing--they may have been churning them out, but they weren't *just*
"churning them out"--and their joy and delight in what they were doing
really comes through.  I looked around as I was leaving the theater:
*Everyone* had a smile, or more.  The joy was infectious.  And, truth to
tell, I knew that *before* I looked around, and before the lights came on.
You could feel, and hear, it.

Carole King & then-husband Gerry Goffin, according to the film, came to work
one day and found a note on the piano:  "Don (Kirschner) needs a song for
the Shirelles by *tomorrow.*"

So they wrote:  "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?"

Is that magic, or what?

--Robert Cohen

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