Brill Building Songwriters: Top 20

Brill Building Songwriters: Top 20

The Brill Building is in Manhattan, New York, at 1619 Broadway in the historic Tin Pan Alley neighborhood. In the early 1960s, it was considered the center of the American music industry with 165 music businesses contained there by 1962. The “Brill Building sound” was significant in shaping music after rock and roll’s first wave. It was a throwback to the pre-rock era when the song was more important than the singer. In fact, a specific singer could generally be easily replaced with another singer. Of the famous songwriters who emerged from there, Carole King said, “Every day we squeezed into our respective cubby holes with just enough room for a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair for the lyricist if you were lucky. You’d sit there and write and you could hear someone in the next cubby hole composing a song exactly like yours.” WK See other lists of Acts/Music Makers by Categories. Gerry Goffin & Carole King 1. Carole King: Top 50 2. Barry Mann: Top 30 3. Cynthia Weil: Top 30 4. Gerry Goffin: Top 50 5. Jeff Barry 6. Ellie Greenwich 7. Doc Pomus 8. Jerry Leiber: Top 50 9. Mike Stoller: Top 50 10. Mort Shuman 11. Howard Greenfield 12. Neil Sedaka 13. Burt Bacharach 14. Hal David 15. Bobby Darin 16. Gene Pitney 17. Phil Spector 18. Paul Anka 19. Otis Blackwell 20. Laura Nyro Resources/Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: Lists of Acts/Music Makers by Categories WK Wikipedia: Brill Building First posted 6/24/2026.

 

Today in Music (1960): The Drifters “Save the Last Dance for Me” hit #1

Save the Last Dance for Me The Drifters

Writer(s): Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman (see lyrics here) First Charted: August 26, 1960 Peak: 13 BB, 16 CB, 2 GR, 15 HR, 11 RB, 2 UK, 11 CN, 14 AU, 11 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.2 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 7.0 radio, 41.10 video, 83.23 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The Drifters have been one of the longest-lasting and most successful R&B groups of all time, forming originally in 1953 and going through multiple incarnations into present day. The group landed eleven top-ten R&B hits in their first couple of years, but were disbanded by manager George Treadwell in 1958. He replaced them with the group the Five Crowns. The new lineup featured Ben E. King (later of “Stand by Me” success) as the lead singer. The new version of the Drifters reached #2 on the pop charts in 1959 with “There Goes My Baby.” They found even greater success a year later with “Save the Last Dance for Me,” the only #1 pop hit in the group’s long history. The song was written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, who’d had success a year earlier with Dion & the Belmonts’ “A Teenager in Love” (#5 BB) as well as top-ten hits by Fabian. The went on to write several top-five hits for Elvis Presley, including the #1 song “Surrender” in 1961. Pomus explained that he and Shuman wrote many of their hits after Shuman would return from periodic vacations to Mexico. Shuman would provide fragments of Latin beats and melodies and Shuman would write lyrics that sounded like they were translated into English. DM Pomus wrote the lyrics for “Dance” about remembering his wedding and, because he was in a wheelchair due to polio, watching his wife dance with other people. However, in the song he reminds her who will be going home with her. RC Pomus said, “We knew we wrote a good one, but we had no reason to think that this was much better than ten other songs.” SJ Originally Jimmy Clanton, a New Orleans singer, wanted to record the song. When Atlantic Records called to say they wanted the song for the Drifters, Pomus said they talked Clanton out of the song by adapting a song they’d written as “Go, Bobby, Go” into “Go, Jimmy, Go” and telling Clanton they’d written it for him. SJ It was a top-five hit for him. Even then, the Drifters’ version of “Save the Last Dance for Me” was relegated to the B-side of a song called “Nobody But Me.” It was Dick Clark, the host of American Bandstand, who suggesting pushing the other song instead. Resources: RC Rod Couch (2015). The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. Pages 280-1. DM Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New American Library: New York, NY. Page 300. SJ Bob Shannon and John Javna (1986). Behind the Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. Warner Brothers, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 172. SF Songfacts Related Links: First posted 1/18/2024.