Born To Be Together: The Songs Of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil Various Artists (Songwriter Series)

£12.56

Genre:
Pop
Label:
Ace Records
Format:
CD
Catalogue Id:
CDCHD 1361

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil are songwriting royalty. The couple’s compositions have been recorded by some of the leading performers of recent decades, including the Righteous Brothers, Gene Pitney, the Drifters, the Ronettes and Dusty Springfield, all of whom feature here on this latest addition to Ace’s songwriter series.

Barry, recalling his first encounter with Cynthia in the early months of 1960: “It was at the office of Kenny Greengrass, Teddy Randazzo’s manager. I had already been signed to Nevins-Kirshner. I was there to play a song Howard Greenfield and I had written for Teddy. Standing next to Teddy was Cynthia, who I took to be his girlfriend. She probably was – to this day she won’t tell me. Teddy loved the song and ended up recording it. I was the A-side and Cynthia, who was writing with Teddy at the time, was the B-side. That was the beginning.”

Cynthia was immediately attracted to Barry and set out to get to know him. They wrote their first song together later that year and Cynthia soon joined Barry at Don Kirshner and Al Nevins’ publishing company, Aldon Music, home to some of New York’s hottest young songwriters. ‘Bless You’, their first successful composition, entered the charts in August 1961, two months before their wedding. Motivated by master talent-spotter Kirshner, Barry and Cynthia went on to write some of the landmark songs of the modern era.

Barry: “Aldon was located at 1650 Broadway, a block north of the Brill Building. There was Cynthia and myself, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Howie Greenfield and Neil Sedaka, Jack Keller and others, all vying to please Donnie by writing Aldon’s next hit. It was a very competitive and inspiring atmosphere.”

Cynthia: “Our office had a piano, a bench, a chair and an ashtray. The great thing was, you’d hear what everybody else was doing, because the walls were quite thin. You’d hear what Goffin and King were pounding out in the cubicle next to us. It fed your creative hungers. We would sit and write all the time. When we took time off to eat, we would feel guilty. Now, we fit writing in around life. Then, life was something we slipped in around writing and demo sessions. Our only friends and greatest rivals were Carole and Gerry, and their only friends were us, because no-one else would put up with a friend you never saw.”

This collection draws from Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s first decade together but, unlike most of their contemporaries, they remained consistently successful throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Still together today, their body of work numbers in excess of 1000 titles, most of them jointly written, of which over 100 were hits.

 

By Mick Patrick

 

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Track listing

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Side 1

  • 01 Preview Born To Be Together - The Ronettes featuring Veronica

  • 02 Preview Angelica - Scott Walker

  • 03 Preview Looking Through The Eyes Of Love - Gene Pitney

  • 04 Preview You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' - The Righteous Brothers

  • 05 Preview I'm Satisfied (The Duffy Theme) - Lou Rawls

  • 06 Preview You Baby - Len Barry

  • 07 Preview Saturday Night At The Movies - The Drifters

  • 08 Preview Bless You - Tony Orlando

  • 09 Preview On Broadway - Clyde McPhatter

  • 10 Preview Proud - Johnny Crawford

  • 11 Preview Uptown - The Crystals

  • 12 Preview We'll Love Again - Ruby & The Romantics

  • 13 Preview Love Him - Doris Day

  • 14 Preview Good, Good Lovin' - Bobby Hebb

  • 15 Preview I Wanna Make You Happy - Dusty Springfield

  • 16 Preview The Girl Who Sang The Blues - The Everly Brothers

  • 17 Preview We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place - The Animals

  • 18 Preview Shape Of Things To Come - Slade

  • 19 Preview Love Is Only Sleeping - The Monkees

  • 20 Preview New World Coming - Mama Cass Elliot

  • 21 Preview Rock And Roll Lullaby - B.J. Thomas

  • 22 Preview Something Better - Marianne Faithfull

  • 23 Preview Just A Little Lovin' (Early In The Mornin') - Carmen McRae with The Dixie Flyers

  • 24 Preview Make Your Own Kind Of Music - The Happenings

  • 25 Preview This Is A Love Song - Bill Medley

Delivery & Returns

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