Ellie Greenwich
Eleanor Louise Greenwich (October 23, 1940 – August 26, 2009)[1] was an American pop music singer, songwriter, and record producer. She wrote or co-wrote "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Be My Baby", "Maybe I Know", "Then He Kissed Me", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", "Hanky Panky", "Chapel of Love", "Leader of the Pack", and "River Deep – Mountain High", among others.
Ellie Greenwich
Eleanor Louise Greenwich
October 23, 1940
Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
August 26, 2009 (aged 68)
Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Rock and roll, Brill Building
- Songwriter
- background singer
- record producer
1958–2009
Early years[edit]
Eleanor Louise Greenwich was born in Brooklyn, New York to painter turned electrical engineer William Greenwich, a Catholic,[2] and department store manager (later medical secretary), Rose Baron Greenwich, who was Jewish. Both parents were of Russian descent.[2][3][4][5] She was not raised in either religion.[2] She was reportedly named for Eleanor Roosevelt. Her musical interest was sparked as a child when her parents played music in their home and she listened to artists including Teresa Brewer, The Four Lads and Johnnie Ray,[6] and she learned how to play the accordion at a young age.[2][7] At age ten, she moved with her parents and younger sister, Laura, to suburban Levittown, New York.[8]
By her teens, Greenwich was composing songs and said in a 1973 article, "When I was 14, I met Archie Bleyer who liked my songs but told me continue my education before trying to invade the songwriting jungle."[9] At Levittown Memorial High School in Levittown, NY, Greenwich and two friends formed a singing group, The Jivettes, which took on more members and performed at local functions.[10] While attending high school, she started using the accordion to write love songs about her school crush.[2] After graduating high school, Greenwich applied to the Manhattan School of Music but was rejected because the school did not accept accordion players, and she subsequently enrolled at Queens College.[2] Eventually she taught herself to compose on the piano rather than the accordion.
At 17, around the time she began attending Queens College, Greenwich recorded her first single for RCA Records, the self-written "Silly Isn't It", backed with "Cha-Cha Charming".[2] The single was issued under the name "Ellie Gaye" (which she chose as a reference to Barbie Gaye, singer of the original version of "My Boy Lollipop").[7] However, a biography about Greenwich claimed that the name was changed by RCA Records to prevent mispronunciations of "Greenwich".[2] "Cha-Cha Charming" was released in 1958 and indirectly led to her decision to transfer from Queens College to Hofstra University after one of her professors at the former institution belittled her for recording pop music.
Later career[edit]
During 1967, Greenwich formed Pineywood Music with Mike Rashkow,[8] and over the next few years the Greenwich-Rashkow team wrote and/or produced recordings for Greenwich herself as well as for Dusty Springfield, the Definitive Rock Chorale, the Other Voices, The Fuzzy Bunnies, and the Hardy Boys. Also in 1967, Greenwich recorded her first solo album, Ellie Greenwich Composes, Produces and Sings, released in 1968, which produced two chart hits, "Niki Hoeky" (#1 in Japan) and "I Want You to Be My Baby". Additionally, Greenwich continued to provide background vocals and vocal arrangements for diverse artists such as Dusty Springfield, Bobby Darin, Lou Christie and Frank Sinatra, as well as Electric Light Orchestra, Blondie, Cyndi Lauper and Gary U.S. Bonds. She did studio work for her ex-husband as well, singing backgrounds for Andy Kim, who was recording for Barry's Steed Records, and the Archies.
At one such recording session, Greenwich met Steve Tudanger, with whom she and Steve Feldman would later form the company Jingle Habitat to write and produce jingles for radio and television. Tudanger and Feldman also co-produced Greenwich's second LP, Let It Be Written, Let It Be Sung, in 1973. Her song "Sunshine After the Rain" was a hit in the UK for singer Elkie Brooks. It was produced by Leiber and Stoller and taken from the Elkie Brooks album, Two Days Away. In 1976 Greenwich sang back-up for Debbie Harry on the song "In The Flesh" for Blondie's self-titled debut album. After her partnership with Rashkow ended in 1971, Greenwich collaborated with writers such as Ellen Foley and Jeff Kent; the Greenwich-Kent-Foley team penned "Keep It Confidential", a hit for Nona Hendryx on the R&B charts in 1983. That same year, "Right Track Wrong Train", which Greenwich wrote with Kent and Cyndi Lauper, was the B-side of Cyndi's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", which hit No. 2 on the U.S. charts, and spent three weeks at Number One on the Australian charts.
Death[edit]
On August 26, 2009, Greenwich died of a heart attack at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital (Mount Sinai West), New York City, where she had been admitted a few days earlier for treatment of pneumonia.[10]
On September 20, 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band dedicated "Da Doo Ron Ron" to Greenwich, while playing the song during a concert at the United Center, Chicago. Springsteen called Greenwich an "incredible rock and soul songwriter" before playing the song.
On February 3, 2010, Patti Smith dedicated an improvised arrangement of "Be My Baby" to Greenwich while playing a show on the Santa Monica Pier in California.