From Spinner:
Songwriter Ellie Greenwich, who co-wrote many of the classic hits of the girl group era, has died at age 68. According to her niece, Greenwich died of a heart attack at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in New York, where she had been hospitalized for pneumonia.Greenwich's songs, mostly written with her then-husband, Jeff Barry, include such '60s girl-pop standards as 'Be My Baby' and ‘Baby I Love You,’ by the Ronettes, 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and ‘Then He Kissed Me,’ by the Crystals, and ‘Leader of the Pack,’ by the Shangri-Las. Her songbook also includes penning ‘Chapel of Love’ for the Dixie Cups and ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ for Ike & Tina Turner.
Greenwich and Barry were part of New York's Brill Building songwriting factory alongside the likes of Neil Diamond, Carole King, Neil Sedaka and Burt Bacharach. The songwriting and onetime married couple had their songs recorded by performers including Tommy James and the Shondells (‘Hanky Panky’), Lesley Gore (‘Maybe I Know,’ ‘The Look of Love’) and Manfred Mann (‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’). Greenwich also had a Top 20 hit of her own with ‘The Kind of Boy You Can't Forget’ under the group name the Raindrops.
- Ellie Greenwich official website
- Ellie Greenwich Wikipedia entry
