Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era [Hardcover]

There has been a gap in the market for a book focusing on the Brill Building songwriters and the good news is that Ken Emerson's account, while clearsighted in charting later artistic and commercial decline, is as detailed and loving as one could possibly hope for - a joy to read from beginning to end and a fitting tribute to the music that even some of the writers didn't expect to last (Barry Mann rushes off in a panic to compose more songs at the news that a current hit is drifting down the charts).

Early chapters concentrate on individual teams but as the book progresses their fates and business interests become intertwined, the slightly older Leiber and Stoller emerging as major players, producing or "editing", as they modestly call it, the contributions of younger writers as their own interest in appealing to a younger demographic wanes. There's a general promiscuity, too (creatively speaking), with writing partners sneaking in a quick collaboration on a morning when the regular soulmate is busy.

Some unsung heroes emerge: publisher Don Kirshner's role in creating the circumstances which allowed, for a few Eden-like years, his writers to flourish, and the visceral excitement of George Goldner when he hears a palpable hit. Someone ascribes the emotions of a twelve year old girl to him, hearing magic in the likes of Chapel of Love when no one else can.

But what gives this tale of connected personal, creative and business lives an especial poignancy is that the Brill Building story is also that universal tale of time passing: partners falling out; writers approaching thirty who can no longer empathise with a younger audience; the emergence of the self-supporting artists like the Beatles and Dylan causing writers like Gerry Goffin to question their purpose (he says that he now tries simply to be an "adequate" writer; one longs to tell him that the best of what he created with Carole King will never need apology).

A general exodus from New York in the late sixties, linked to the expansion of Don Kirshner's business interests which made him less hands-on with his writers, were factors in the decline of these crafted pop songs - the New York musical mix, particularly the passion for Afro-Cuban rhythms, permeated the best Brill Building recordings - and Emerson (rightly, in my view) cites Bacharach's decreasing involvement with African-American artists like Lou Johnson and Chuck Jackson as contributing to blander work in the 70s.

These writers were, in one sense, hacks, and Emerson doesn't flinch (any more than the writers themselves) from distinguishing between the trash and the gems, but what comes through more than anything in this warm and compelling account is that - not only in Bacharach's case - the best artists always brought out the best in the writers, who took enormous pride in their achievements. And Emerson has a knack for selecting the moments that matter, none more so than when, around 1960, amid fears that this music has had its day, the Drifters' Charlie Thomas finds Doc Pomus chanting: "Rock'n'roll will never die." When Thomas retorts that it's "just a song," Pomus replies: "No, it's not a song, Charlie. It's a place in your heart." This music may or may not live forever, but as Emerson says "it still resounds half a century later," and I can't imagine a better chronicler of those who shared their creative lives with us. This book will send you back, with a fresh delight, to the records.

Imagine tuning into a Golden Oldies station, or picking up a sixties compilation CD or playlist. The chances are pretty good that sooner or later you'll hear a song that was written by one of the seven songwriting partnerships described in this book. For example:

- We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
- Save The Last Dance For Me
- The Loco-Motion
- 24 hours from Tulsa
- Do-Wah-Diddy-Diddy
- Stupid Cupid
- Jailhouse Rock

which were created by, respectively, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman, Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Burt Bacharach & Hal David, Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich, Neil Sedaka & Howard Greenfield and Jerry Lieber & Mike Stoller, who were all working in Manhattan's Brill Building and the neighbouring 1650 Broadway during the late 1950's and early 1960's. Besides the many hits that these duos produced, there were other successful permutations: for example, Mann & Weil and Lieber & Stoller teamed up to write "On Broadway" (a line from which gives this book its title), Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin collaborated on the immortally goofy "Who Put The Bomp (In The Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)", and when Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich wrote with Phil Spector, they produced some of the most memorable songs of all time, including "Be My Baby", "Then He Kissed Me" and "River Deep, Mountain High". This book also describes (p111) the afternoon that, on a whim, Carole King and Gerry Goffin switched partners with Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller (Greenfield's partner prior to Neil Sedaka). Greenfield and Goffin's song got nowhere, but King and Keller had produced "Crying In The Rain", which was a big hit for the Everly Brothers in 1961.

That they found it so easy to switch partners is partly due to the things they all had in common, listed here as (p267) "their youth, their Jewish roots, their upbringing in New York City's outer boroughs [and] their love of black and Latin music". In addition, there was an atmosphere of friendly competition that was engendered - at least initially - by Don Kirshner, to whose publishing company most of them were contracted. He tried to make it feel like a family, and largely succeeded - indeed, Mann & Weil, Goffin & King and Barry & Greenwich were all married couples at the time, and Cynthia Weil memorably comments (p114) "We had no friends except for Carole and Gerry [...] We didn't have friends outside the business because nobody understood what we were doing."

This book carefully lays out the history of the Brill Building era by focussing on these seven partnerships, describing their origins and the lives of the individual writers, their methods of working and their successes and failures. To be sure, although each produced classic songs, they can't all be ranked as being of equal importance: thus, I think that the output of Sedaka & Greenfield wasn't as important as that of Goffin & King, which includes numerous examples of what could be described as the perfect pop song (my personal undying favourite being "I'm Into Something Good"). And - as other reviewers have noted - the author's eye is not uncritical: he distinguishes the merely adequate from the ground-breaking - for example, he highlights how Lieber & Stoller's production of The Drifter's "There Goes My Baby" introduced the use of strings into R&B and rock 'n' roll. He also delineates the end of their era, partly caused by the rise of Tamla Motown (who started out emulating Brill Building songwriting methods, and ended up surpassing them), and partly by replacement of the songwriter by the singer-songwriter (like Bob Dylan and the Beatles); only Carole King was really successful in re-inventing herself and transitioning to this new era.

I tracked this book down following a visit to New York City last year, during which I inadvertently walked past the Brill Building several times. Well-written, thoroughly researched, and entertainingly presented, it evokes a specific chapter in American culture, and sends the reader back to listen to the timeless songs which these remarkable writers produced. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who's curious about the stories that lie behind them.

The song writing teams of the Brill Building were the next step in what we now call The Great American Songbook.No one began creating songs here which were instantly succesful it was all Trial & Error and a perfect example is Neil Diamond/
The first hit songs came from all the named teams in this book but there were others like Billy Meshell and Larry Weiss & Lockie Edwards who were lesser known and would team up with many different writers.
Cover versions is what kept the Brill Building writers in business and it was the British Invasion who were responsible for the continuing success through the 60s in spite of rock critics insistence on singer songwriters taking over.
The mid 60s for instance saw the rise of Neil Diamond who cut a CD in the 90s of Brill Building songs and was possibly the last really big name but it took him 6 years to get there.
The British Invasion also saw a number of American acts carrying on the tradition-the Byrds,Paul Revere & the Raiders and the Monkees-groups who mainly needed plenty of input from professional writing teams
I should mention here that Phil Spector was never a Brill Building writer but the reason for his writer credit on many of the Philles hits is because he was using the songs of what at the time were unproven writers so this was more of a courtesy credit and given to him without question as he had a track record and enough clout