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The Brill Building. It was "a stretch of Broadway between 49th Street and 53rd Street" -- 1650 Broadway to be exact -- called The Brill Building, which during a magical time was "the redoubt of songwriters, musicians, producers, publishers and arrangers" turning out rock 'n' roll hit songs. That magical time, which "erupted in the mid 50s," ended the era of "Berlin, Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein" and ushered in the era of Leiber, Stoller, Bacharach, Goffin, King and Sedaka, is the subject of a new book, "Always Magic in the Air," written by Ken Emerson and reviewed by Joanne Kaufman in The Wall Street Journal.
The Brill Building kids were writing songs for other kids. "They were mostly Jewish, with varying degrees of musical training, and mostly from Brooklyn." Their success, Ken Emerson suggests, "lay in their ability to assimilate and project rock 'n' roll into the mainstream of American popular music." Their opening, he observes was created by "Elvis Presley's induction into the Army, Buddy Holly's death in a plane crash, Chuck Berry's arrest for crossing state lines with an underage girl, Jerry Lee Lewis' ostracism after taking a 13-year-old as his third wife -- all leaving a 'yawning void' on the pop charts."
Their ascendancy was not welcomed by one Frank Sinatra, who said their rock 'n' roll music was "written for the most part by cretinous goons ... By means of its almost imbecilic reiteration, and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics ... it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth." I had no idea Frank was so articulate. Anyway, the Brill Building hit parade included "Walk on By, Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Stand By Me, Save the Last Dance for Me, Hey Girl, One Fine Day, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, Da Doo Ron Ron, Be My Baby" and of course, Beach Ball. Ultimately, the Brill Building's "da doo ron ron" was undone by Dylan, Lennon, McCartney, et. al. But for a while, the kids in the Brill Building "helped create the sound of a city, a nation, and an era."
Tim Manners
editor
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©2005 reveries.com |
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