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Ellie Greenwich
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Ellie Greenwich was born in 1940 in Brooklyn, New York, and at the age of ten moved with her parents to Levittown. She learned to play the accordion and was already writing songs as a teenager. At seventeen she recorded her first single of her own for RCA. In 1959 she met Jeff Barry, who would become her husband and most important writing partner. In 1962 Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller gave her a contract as a staff songwriter. She also sang so many demos that she was known in New York as the Demo Queen.
Music and breakthrough
In 1962 Greenwich and Barry married, and from then on they wrote only with each other. Together with the producer Phil Spector they made Be My Baby and Baby, I Love You for The Ronettes, Then He Kissed Me and Da Doo Ron Ron for The Crystals and Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) for Darlene Love. Do Wah Diddy Diddy became a number 1 hit for Manfred Mann in 1964, and at the label Red Bird they wrote Chapel of Love for The Dixie Cups and Leader of the Pack. As The Raindrops they also recorded records themselves, with Greenwich singing all the female voices.
Influence
Their songs are short, cheerful and instantly memorable, with choruses full of sounds such as da doo ron ron. In 2015 Rolling Stone placed Greenwich and Barry nineteenth on its list of the best songwriters of all time. After their divorce in 1965 they still produced the young Neil Diamond together. River Deep, Mountain High for Ike & Tina Turner was their last work with Phil Spector. In 1985 the musical Leader of the Pack, about her life, opened on Broadway. Greenwich died in 2009.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
- 1968Composes, Produces and Sings
- 1973Let It Be Written, Let It Be Sung
- 1999Ellie Greenwich
- 2009Leader of the Pack (1985 original Broadway cast) (soundtrack)
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- Mixtape 12: The Hit FactoryNL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Be My Baby Song
Be My Baby by The Ronettes from the summer of 1963, written with Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, is the textbook example.