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[Peru]

Left: Ellie Greenwich. Right: Carole King

Late 50s, early 60s: Heady days when pop and rock as we know it today was formed, much of it from places like the Brill Building with its gaggle of young songwriters.
Carole King composed "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" when she was 17. Ellie Greenwich got her start while in college.

They went on to write more hits. All the hits.

They wrote many of their hits in famous pairings, like King with Gerry Goffin and Greenwich with Jeff Barry. Funnily enough, in these pairings it was the guys who wrote the tender lyrics about dreamy boys, while King and Greenwich did the music.

The Beatles started out doing these songs, for example the Carole King-penned Chains.
Brian Wilson was inspired to genius by "Be My Baby" and the Beach Boys also scored a hit with one of Greenwich's other compositions, I Can Hear Music.
And pretty much everyone in the game was influenced.

Selected hits by Ellie Greenwich:

The Ronettes - Be My Baby
The Shangri-Las - Leader of the Pack
Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
The Dixie Cups - Chapel of Love
Tina Turner - River Deep Mountain High
The Chiffons - I Have A Boyfriend
The Ronettes - Baby I Love You
The Exciters - He's Got the Power
Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans - Why Do Lovers Break Each Other's Hearts

'Be My Baby', 'Then He Kissed Me': famous Phil Spector productions. But, as Jeff Barry says, " I wrote most of the lyrics. She wrote most of the music". Spector got automatic writing credit for everything he produced and gets disproportionate credit today.

Selected hits by Carole King:

The Shirelles - Will You Love Me Tomorrow
Little Eva - The Loco-Motion
The Drifters - Up On the Roof
Herman's Hermits - I'm Into Something Good
Aretha Franklin - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
Bobby Vee - Take Good Care Of My Baby
The Chiffons - One Fine Day
The Monkees - Pleasant Valley Sunday
Skeeter Davis - Let Me Get Close To You

Of course Carole King also went on to have a huge singer songwriter career with one of the best selling albums of all time.

 

[Peru]

Gonna give this thread one bump, simply because that's a list of some cot darn good songs.

 

[Betty]

Little Eva - The Loco-Motion is one of the best songs ever.

 

[Calvero]

Gonna give this thread one bump, simply because that's a list of some cot darn good songs.

indeed it is. thanks for it OP! there's a few in there I'd never heard.

 

[Lord Error]

Ha, I thought this was going to be about those two Swedish producers who seem to be behind 90% of the pop music today, but this was unexpected and very interesting,

 

[Massingberd]

Little Eva - The Loco-Motion is one of the best songs ever.

God yeah. Be My Baby is a flawless pop song, I just love how swift 60's pop music is, absolutely no fat on there whatsoever.

 

[stuminus3]

Here's a recording of Zooey Deschanel singing I Can Hear Music for no reason other than it's one of my favourite songs ever and I like this take on it.

She & Him - I Can Hear Music

 

[Pluto]

I've known most of those songs my entire life, I had no idea they eere all written by the same two women.

 

[Ahasverus]

I don't know if I feel I should thank them but... that is a very admirable job, speially for 2 women, specially at that time. Nice bit of trivia OP.

 

[Jakten]

Holy shit, Ellie Greenwich also helped write Doo Wah Diddy for The Exciters/Manfred Mann as well as Hanky Panky for Tommy James and the Shondells. Not a fan of most of Carole King's stuff unfortunately though other than One Fine Day and Pleasant Valley Sunday. That's still really amazing though.

 

[Steve.1981]

I already knew Carole King is fabulous because she's my mum's absolute favourite singer/songwriter, so I grew up listening to her stuff. Know Tapestry inside out.

Didn't know about Ellie Greenwich though. And yep, those are all brilliant, influential songs. Impressive stuff.

 

[thesuperfunk]

How different things were over half a century ago ... Ellie Greenwich was news to me also.