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Barry Mann

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Barry Mann, born Barry Imberman, came into the world in 1939 in a Jewish family in Brooklyn. In the late 1950s he began writing songs. His first success was She Say (Oom Dooby Doom) for The Diamonds in 1959. He sang and arranged the demos of his songs himself, and the publishers Don Kirshner and Al Nevins hired him at Aldon Music in Manhattan, close to the Brill Building. Young writers such as Carole King, Gerry Goffin and Neil Diamond worked there too.

Music and breakthrough

In 1961 Mann had a hit of his own as a singer with Who Put the Bomp, a nod to the nonsense syllables of doo-wop. Even so, he chose to write. At Aldon he met the lyricist Cynthia Weil, whom he married in 1961. Together they wrote hits such as Uptown for The Crystals, On Broadway for The Drifters, with Leiber and Stoller, and We Gotta Get out of This Place for The Animals. With Phil Spector they wrote You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' for The Righteous Brothers, which became the most-played song of the twentieth century.

Influence

Mann and Weil often wrote songs with a social charge, about poverty or prejudice. Later Mann also made film music, such as Somewhere Out There for the animated film An American Tail, which won two Grammys. The duo was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987. They are the model of the hit factory of the early 1960s, where writers turned out hits on an assembly line in small cubicles.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' by The Righteous Brothers. Notice how the song begins quietly and low and swells ever further, until the two singers answer each other at full force at the end.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists