Songwriters Hall of Fame

Carole King

Carole King was born Carole Klein to Jewish parents in Brooklyn, New York on February 9, 1942. She was a proficient pianist by the age of four, and a prolific songwriter by her early teens. As a teenager, she recorded demos, sang backup, helped arrange recording sessions, and wrote and…

Sir Paul McCartney

Sir Paul McCartney, who with the late John Lennon, became widely identified as the songwriting arm of The Beatles, has both with and without Lennon long been admired as one of the major songwriting talents of his era. As The Beatles were perhaps the single most influential group in the…

Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke, the son of Reverend Charles Cook, Sr., (a Baptist minister) and Annie May Cook was born January 22, 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1933. He had four brothers and three sisters – Willie, Charles Jr., L.C., David, Mary, Hattie and Agnes. Sam…

Bob Merrill

While Bob Merrill's songwriting credits speak for themselves, his talents are diverse including successful endeavors in screenplay writing, acting and teaching.

Born in Atlantic City in the city's pre-casino period, he did most of his growing up in the nearby Philadelphia area, graduating from high school there. Following his discharge from the Army at the end of World War II, Merrill took a job as a dialog director with Columbia Pictures in Hollywood where he stayed for seven years. During this time, he was also on the CBS-TV inaugurate team.

While working on a film for the company he met a woman named Dorothy Shay, a popular performer and singer known as the "Park Avenue Hillbilly," for whom he wrote several songs at her invitation. These later proved a popular part of her million-seller albums and the success encouraged Merrill to expand his songwriting activity.

The result was a highly successful career as a writer of both individual popular songs as well as Broadway show scores. One of his earliest songs was the novelty song “If I’d Known You Were Comin”, I’d “Ve Baked a Cake,” which was recorded by Ilene Barton. This success was followed by other successes including “Honeycomb,” recorded by Jimmie Rodgers; “How Much Is That Doggie In the Window,” recorded by Patti Page; “Love Makes the World Go “Round,” “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “Pittsburgh Pennsylvania,” “Mambo Italiano” and “Make Yourself Comfortable.”

1961 produced the Merrill-Styne score for the smash Broadway hit Funny Girl. The show included one of the great stage standards “People (Who Need People)”.

Merrill enjoyed a number of other Broadway successes as well. These included Take Me Along, with Jackie Gleason and Walter Pidgeon; Carnival with Anna Marie Alberghetti; New Girl in Town with Gwen Verdon and Thelma Ritter; and Sugar with Cyril Ritchard and Bobby Morse.

In his work with screenplays, Merrill authored the Diana Ross Paramount film, Mahogany, WC Fields and Me, a Universal release with Rod Steiger; Chu Chu and the Philly Flash starring Carol Burnett and Alan Arkin; and Portrait of a Showgirl a CBS movie of the week, starring Rita Moreno, Leslie Ann Warren and Tony Curtis.

Merrill also created for television several Christmas specials including The Wonderful Christmas of Red Riding Hood, with Liza Minnelli and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, with an all-star cast.

As an actor, during an earlier phase of his career, Merrill appeared in The Story of GI Joe and in his own words, "a dozen B films and westerns."

After a series of health problems, Bob Merrill took his own life on February 17, 1988 in Hollywood, California.

Carole Bayer Sager

Recording stars from Frank Sinatra to Dolly Parton have recorded the songs of Carole Bayer Sager. So also have Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Melissa Manchester, Christopher Cross, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, The Doobie Brothers, Gladys Knight, Roberta Flack, Johnny Mathis, Leo Sayer, Carly Simon, Bette Midler, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Patti LaBelle, El DeBarge, Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers and even Carole herself.

The petite lyricist constitutes one-half of one of the world's most successful songwriting teams, as she and husband, Burt Bacharach, have proven many times. During the past year, the couple have enjoyed two number one songs, "On My Own," recorded by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald, and "That's What Friends Are For." Records of both songs went gold. "That's What Friends Are For," recorded by Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder, also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the American Foundation for AIDS Research. "That's What Friends Are For"-nominated for Grammys for "Song of the Year" and "Record of the Year" in 1986-was the number one song of the year. And, "On My Own" was the second-biggest seller of 1986.

She has been writing professionally for more than 20 years, and began when she was a student at New York City’s High School of Music and Art. She graduated from New York University where she focused on English, Dramatic Arts and Speech. Sager, with her husband, made their debut as a team, by winning an Oscar for Best Song for the 1981 "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)." Their songs for other films include "Making Love," three songs for the film, Night Shift, and the Roberta Flack-Peabo Bryson hit recording of "Romantic Comedy."

Two other Sager songs, "Looking Through the Eyes of Love," (from Ice Castles) and "Nobody Does It Better," (from The Spy Who Loved Me) were also nominated for Oscars, and her songs have also received Grammy nominations. Sager's lyrics are also heard in the long-running play, They're Playing Our Song, (the result of a collaboration with Marvin Hamlisch and Neil Simon).

A singer as well as a writer, Sager has had three self-penned albums. Her own hit singles have included "Stronger Than Before," and "You're Moving Out Today."

In addition to Burt Bacharach, Sager's list of collaborators includes Neil Diamond, Melissa Manchester, Bette Midler, Peter Allen, Quincy Jones, Bruce Roberts, David Foster and Michael McDonald.

Other hit titles in the Sager catalog include "Come in from the Rain,” Don't Out Loud,” “When I Need You," "Midnight Blue," "It's My Turn," "Everything Old Is New Again,” “Break It to Me Gently," "Making Love," "Heartlight" and her very first hit, "A Groovy Kind of Love."

John Lennon

"Strawberry Fields Forever," "Let It Be" and "All You Need Is Love," - all of them bespeak the spirit of the late John Lennon, the man of peace, the man of music. And all of them too, are the result of one of the greatest collaborations in the history of modern popular music.

Winston Lennon was born October 9, 1940. He formed his first group, The Quarrymen, when he was barely 17. At almost the same time, he invited a friend, Paul McCartney, to join the group and subsequently to form a songwriting partnership with him.

In 1960, two name changes later (the first, in 1959, was to Johnny and the Moondogs) the group had become The Silver Beatles and finally, The Beatles. The band's first recordings, as a backing group of Tony Sheridan, came in 1961.

The following two years produced the beginnings of a virtually uninterrupted string of hit songs by Lennon and McCartney and records by The Beatles, including the three trailblazers, "Love Me Do,” “Please Please Me" and "She Loves You."

The Beatles were perhaps the single most influential new pop entity in a generation. What came to be known as the British invasion of America was spearheaded by The Beatles, who arrived for their first triumphant visit on February 1964. They appeared during that frenetic week at Carnegie Hall in New York, in Washington, Miami and the West Coast. Later the same year, Lennon and his colleagues appeared in a Roy al Command Performance before Her Majesty the Queen of London, and later still, they watched with joy as their record, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," became the biggest-selling British single in history - 15 million copies worldwide.

Even then, at the peak of The Beatles' international popularity, Lennon began broadening his own activity base by authoring a book of poetry, short stories and drawings, under the title, In His Own Write, which immediately became a best-seller.

A year later, as the parade of great Lennon and McCartney penned songs continued their assault on the international charts, The Beatles were singled out for the prized MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) award, bestowed on them, again, by the Queen.

At almost the same time the diverging Lennon skills were busy creating the score for The Beatles' first motion picture, A Hard Days Night and the songs for the "Rubber Soul" album. In addition, his second book, A Spaniard in the Works, was released almost simultaneously with the announcement of the sale of 100,000 copies of "In His Own Write." The new volume also quickly hit the best-seller lists.

While some of Lennon's biggest songs were still to come, songs like "Eleanor Rigby," and "Paperback Writer," their release in 1966 along with that of the album, Revolver, virtually coincided with the bands' last public performance in San Francisco. While other historic albums including SGT Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the singles, "Penny Lane," "Strawberry Fields Forever," and "All You Need Is Love" were on the way, Lennon continued his branching out to nurture the multi-faceted talent that had been there all the time.

When the Beatles broke up in 1968, Lennon married Yoko Ono and legally changed his name to John Ono Lennon. Lennon founded the Plastic Ono Band and continued producing powerful songs. Taking part in the notable event, Bed-In, in Montreal, Lennon wrote and recorded "Give Peace a Chance," an important effort that became a living symbol for the peace movement.

In the years to follow, John Lennon's impact was felt in many different levels of human endeavor, including a charity concert for the UNICEF Children's Fund. This concert inspired others to make similar efforts for UNICEF (as the Bangladesh Concert would a few years later). Special benefit concerts performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band to free John Sinclair and for the widows of the Attica State Prisoners focused attention on various social issues. Lennon also once attended, as the only male present, an International Feminists meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During the decade of the 1970’s too, Lennon's writing continued to be particularly fruitful, with such long-lasting works as "Imagine," making their appearance on the hit parade ("Imagine," is still considered one of the great hymns of peace).

Even after Lennon's tragic death in 1980, his spirit and his music live on. In 1985, a portion of New York City’s Central Park was christened as "Strawberry Fields," a memorial garden where fans hold vigil every year on Lennon’s birthday.

Gerry Goffin

Lyricist Gerry Goffin was born in Brooklyn, New York on February 11, 1939. Following graduation from Brooklyn Technical High School, Goffin enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve, which later led to his admission to the Annapolis Naval Academy. After his first year in Annapolis, Goffin resigned and enrolled in Queens College with a chemistry major.

At Queens, he met Carole King, a fellow student and education major. A lifetime musical collaboration began almost immediately. Goffin had been writing lyrics since the age of eight but had never been able to find a collaborator with whom he could feel comfortable. As he and King began writing, the combination seemed to work right away and music became their full time careers.

Goffin and King married in 1959 and took daytime jobs, he as an assistant chemist and she as a secretary, to support their music endeavors. At night and on weekends, they pursued their songwriting career, and were signed to Don Kirshner and Al Nevins’ Aldon Music in 1960. Their first big break came that same year with a recording by The Shirrelles of their song, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?".

During the next eight years, the team of Goffin and King enjoyed more than 50 top 40 hits, among them "Take Good Care of My Baby," recorded by Bobby Vee; "Go Away Little Girl," recorded by Steve Lawrence; “Up on the Roof," recorded by The Drifters; and a plethora of others including "Locomotion," "Halfway to Paradise," "Hey Girl," "Natural Woman," "Just Once in My Life," and "Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby.” Goffin also collaborated with another Aldon Music composer, Barry Mann, on the top ten hit "Who Put the Bomp (In the Bomp Bomp Bomp Bomp)."

Although their marriage ended in divorce in 1968, the couple continued to work together, writing "Hi-De-Ho" for Blood, Sweat and Tears, and "Smackwater Jack," which appeared on King’s multi-platinum album Tapestry.

During the 1970s, Goffin collaborated with other songwriters such as Russ Titelman, Barry Goldberg ("I've Got to Use My Imagination,” recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips, and "It's Not the Spotlight,” recorded by Rod Stewart) and Michael Masser. Masser and Goffin earned an Oscar nomination for “Theme of Mahogany” and a Golden Globe nomination for “So Sad the Song”.

Goffin continued producing hit songs in the 1980’s and 90’s with "Tonight I Celebrate My Love," "Time, Don't Run Out on Me," "A Long and Lasting Love," and "Savin' All My Love for You," the latter the song that virtually assured musical stardom for Whitney Houston. And in 1996, Goffin released his second album Back Room Blood.

Goffin continues to be a creative force in songwriting and presently lives in Los Angeles with his wife Ellen.

Cynthia Weil

Cynthia Weil is one of the most gifted and influential pop lyricists of the last twenty-five years. Along with collaborator Barry Mann, she received the first-ever National Academy of Songwriters (NAS) Life Achievement Award, honoring her for their many early hits, including "On Broadway," and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" as well as their contemporary successes ranging from "Just Once,” "Here You Come Again," "Never Gonna Let You Go" and the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram hit, "Somewhere Out There" from Steven Spielberg's An American Tail.

Weil has achieved her preeminent place in contemporary music not simply because her lyrics have endured, but because they have defined what it means to be young, to be in love, to be committed and passionate-in short, to define the many emotions that make up the human condition. Considered by some critics to be the most socially conscious writing team among their early peers, Mann and Weil delivered such classics as "Uptown" (the Crystals), "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" (the Animals), and the anti-drug song, "Kicks" (Paul Revere and the Raiders).

From the Drifters to the Girl Groups to the British Revolution, Mann and Weil's songs encompassed every genre of music, establishing them as one of the most stylistically diverse teams of the early pop era. This diversity remains stronger than ever today.

Cynthia Weil was born on October 18, 1937 in New York City. As a young actress, singer and dancer, she began her songwriting career as a protégé or Tin Pan Alley songwriter, Frank Loesser. She was soon put under contract with Al Nevins and Don Kirsher’s Aldon Music during one of the most pivotal periods in music-the transition from Tin Pan Alley to Rock and Roll. She was one of the young writers at Aldon Music who greatly influenced rock and roll and monopolized the pop charts in the process.

In 1961, Weil met her greatest professional collaborator and eventual husband, Barry Mann. Their first success was "Bless You," recorded by Tony Orlando. They quickly became one of the most prolific and successful of the Brill Building songwriters, a group that included Neil Sedaka, Howard Greenfield, Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

Working with some of the most popular artists from the 1960’s to the present, the Mann-Weil catalog has produced such hits as "Uptown", "On Broadway", "Blame It On the Bossa Nova", "My Dad", "Johnny Loves Me”, "I'm Gonna Be Strong”, "Saturday Night at the Movies", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling", "Home of the Brave", "Walking in the Rain”, "Only in America”, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", "Kicks", "Magic Town", "I Just Can't Help Believing”, "It's Getting Better", "Make Your Own Kind of Music”, "New World Coming", "The Shape of Things to Come", "Here You Come Again", and "Just Once".

In recent years, both Weil and Mann have achieved considerable success with other collaborators. Weil wrote "Running With The Night" with Lionel Richie, and has collaborated with him on "Love Will Conquer All," "He's So Shy," "Through The Fire”, Peabo Bryson's "If Ever You're In My Arms Again".

Living in Los Angeles for the last twenty years, this native New Yorker has recently added film scores to her list of successful endeavors. In addition to two songs featured in About Last Night, Weil (with David Foster) wrote material for the Grammy-nominated soundtrack to St. Elmo's Fire.

In December 1999, BMI, the performing rights organization, announced the Top 100 Songs of the Century, a list of the most played songs on American radio and television. The number one song on the list was "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," which had recently passed the eight million performance mark and surpassed The Beatles’ hit “Yesterday”. Weil had another song on this short list, “On Broadway” (# 45).

Mann and Weil have been honored with over 108 pop, country and R&B awards from BMI as well as Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Academy of Songwriters, The Clooney Foundation’s Award for Legendary Song Composition, BMI’s Robert Burton Award for most performed country song of 1977 (“Here You Come Again”), an Oscar and Golden Globe Nomination for “Somewhere Out There” and double Grammy Awards for “Song of the Year” and “Motion Picture or Television Song of Year” for “Somewhere Out There” (“Somewhere Out There” also received an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for “Best Song in a Motion Picture”).

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil continue to create and produce their memorable songs, most recently, as part of Atlantic Records songwriters’ series, which released the Mann tribute album “Soul and Inspiration”.

Barry Mann

Barry Mann is a name synonymous with some of the greatest, most enduring songs in the entire American Musical spectrum. In collaboration with Cynthia Weil and other writers, he's produced an outstanding body of work accounting for more than 200 million records sold. Early hits such as "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," and "On Broadway," started a catalog that began in the early 1960’s and continues to the present musical charts.

Barry Mann was born Barry Iberman on February 9, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York. He began taking piano lessons at age 11, after it was discovered that he could play pop songs by ear. In college, he studied architecture, but dropped out after a year to begin a career in music following a summer singing engagement at a Catskills resort in 1958. Mann was soon writing songs, and his first success, "She Say (Oom Dooby Doom)," was recorded by the Diamonds and became a top twenty hit in 1959. Mann was soon courted by producers Al Nevins and Don Kirshner, who signed him to write for their company, Aldon Music, in the famed Brill Building.

In 1961, Mann enjoyed his only chart success as a performer, with the novelty song he wrote, "Who Put the Bomp (In the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp). That same year Mann wrote "I Love How You Love Me," a hit for the Paris Sisters, and "War Paint," recorded by the British group the Brooks Brothers. 1961 was also the year Mann teamed with a new songwriting partner, Cynthia Weil, whom he also married that year. Their first success was "Bless You," recorded by Tony Orlando. They quickly became one of the most prolific and successful of the Brill Building songwriters, a group that included Neil Sedaka, Howard Greenfield, Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

Working with some of the most popular artists from the 1960’s to the present, the Mann-Weil catalog has produced such hits as "Uptown", "On Broadway", "Blame It On the Bossa Nova", "My Dad", "Johnny Loves Me”, "I'm Gonna Be Strong”, "Saturday Night at the Movies", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling", "Home of the Brave", "Walking in the Rain”, "Only in America”, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", "Kicks", "Magic Town", "I Just Can't Help Believing”, "It's Getting Better", "Make Your Own Kind of Music”, "New World Coming", "The Shape of Things to Come", "Here You Come Again", and "Just Once". The most recent of Mann’s big hits was written with Dan Hill, "Sometimes When We Touch."

In December 1999, BMI, the performing rights organization, announced the Top 100 Songs of the Century, a list of the most played songs on American radio and television. The number one song on the list was "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," which had recently passed the eight million performance mark and surpassed The Beatles’ hit “Yesterday”. Mann had two other songs on the list: “On Broadway” (# 45) and “Sometime When We Touch” (#100).

Mann and Weil have been honored with over 108 pop, country and R&B awards from BMI as well as Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Academy of Songwriters, The Clooney Foundation’s Award for Legendary Song Composition, BMI’s Robert Burton Award for most performed country song of 1977 (“Here You Come Again”), an Oscar and Golden Globe Nomination for “Somewhere Out There” and double Grammy Awards for “Song of the Year” and “Motion Picture or Television Song of Year” for “Somewhere Out There” (“Somewhere Out There” also received an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for “Best Song in a Motion Picture”).

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil continue to create and produce their memorable song?˜ most recently, as part of Atlantic Records songwriters’ series, which released the Mann tribute album “Soul and Inspiration”.