This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Obituaries Top Stories
Ellie Greenwich dies
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 27 August 2009
Songwriter Ellie Greenwich has died aged 68 from a heart attack, following a bout of pneumonia, her niece told reporters yesterday.
Born in Brooklyn in 1940, Greenwich, with her husband Jeff Barry, became known as one of the most successful pop songwriters of the 60s, working out of the Brill Building in Manhattan, which also provided working space for other songwriters, including Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Hal David and Phil Spector.
Amongst a string of hits, she and Barry penned songs such as ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ and ‘Then He Kissed Me’ for The Crystals, ‘Chapel Of Love’ for The Ronettes (written with Phil Spector), ‘Doo Wah Diddy Diddy’ for Manfred Mann, and ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ for Ike & Tina Turner. One of the couple’s most famous songs was ‘Leader Of The Pack, a collaboration with producer Gordon ‘Shadow’ Morton, which was a hit for The Shangri-Las in 1965. The couple were inducted into the US Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 1991.
Greenwich had begun writing songs as a teenager, and her first commercially released work was ‘Silly Isn’t It’ in 1958, which she performed herself under the name Ellie Gaye for RCA. She released her first solo album, ‘Ellie Greenwich Composes, Produces And Sings’ ten years later, as an early project for Pineywood Music, the writing and production company she set up with Mike Kashkow in 1967, following her divorce from Barry. She also provided backing vocals for artists such as Dusty Springfield, Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra in the 60s and 70s and continued to produce other artists, including Neil Diamond.
In 1984, many of her 60s songs were given a new lease of life by the musical ‘Leader Of The Pack’, written by Anne Beatts, with a story based on Greenwich’s life.It transferred to Broadway’s Ambassador Theater in 1985 and ran for 120 performances.
Greenwich is survived by a sister.
