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<title>Top Brill Building Pop Artists on Rhapsody Online</title>
<dateCreated>Wed Dec 23 03:34:12 PST 2009</dateCreated>
<dateModified>Wed Dec 23 03:34:12 PST 2009</dateModified>
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<outline type="include" text="Neil Diamond" description="OK, Neil Diamond is an easy target for parody -- voice straight outta Brooklyn, bespangled shirt straight outta Vegas. But this ex-Brill Building tunesmith crafted a batch of excellent songs during the 1960s (hits such as &quot;Solitary Man&quot; for himself and &quot;I'm a Believer&quot; for the Monkees) before emerging as a stadium superstar. His bombastic, ubermelodramatic work from the 1970s has earned him an enormous, if aging, female following who feel that Diamond tells them what their tight-lipped, big-bellied husbands never will. Today, a new generation of ironic hipster fans have swelled their ranks. Both these groups know that underneath the florid orchestrations and over-the-top emotion lies the truth. Who doesn't feel that love can go on the rocks? Who hasn't experienced a great September morning? Be it a longtime fan in too-snug polyester trousers or a smug 25-year-old in his dad's leisure suit -- both pump their fists in unison during &quot;America.&quot; Neil Diamond, an undeserving nation thanks you for trying to put some feeling (however unsubtle) into our bored, numbed lives.
- Nick Dedina" category="Adult Contemporary" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/neil-diamond/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Carole King" description="No self-respecting 1970s co-ed dorm was without a copy of Carole King's &lt;i&gt;Tapestry&lt;/i&gt;, a mondo hit that did for female singer-songwriters what Paul Simon did for the guys. One of the main consequences of this key album was that the public got clued into all the great songs King had written -- often with Jerry Goffin -- for other artists when the Brill Building ruled '60s pop. Such wonders as &quot;Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow&quot; and &quot;You've Got a Friend&quot; are ultra-catchy, yet have a depth that is sorely missing in today's market of disposable singles. King's career was the inspiration behind the movie &lt;i&gt;Grace of My Heart&lt;/i&gt;.
- Nick Dedina" category="Singer-Songwriter" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/carole-king/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Dionne Warwick" description="The Burt Bacharach resurgence proves that what the world needs now is Dionne Warwick. She was one of the links between classic pop, rock and R&amp;B in the '60s, with hits like &quot;Walk on By,&quot; &quot;I Say a Little Prayer,&quot; and &quot;Do You Know the Way to San Jose.&quot; Warwick was the singer who could handle Bacharach's deceptively complex material and make it seem simple. The rock, disco, and rap generations knew her as the host to &lt;i&gt;Solid Gold&lt;/i&gt;, as Whitney Houston's aunt, and then as the mouthpiece for the Psychic Friends Network. Now these people are rediscovering her roots as a great vocalist.
- Nick Dedina" category="Vocal-Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/dionne-warwick/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Bobby Darin" description="Beginning as a '50s teen idol, Bobby Darin kept his musical life afloat through the '60s and '70s by swinging from pop, rock and folk, while hitting the Las Vegas lounge circuit along the way. Darin helped immortalize rock 'n' roll's earliest years with songs such as &quot;Splish Splash&quot; and &quot;Dream Lover.&quot; By the end of the '50s, Darin marked his style change with an album of pop standards. Among the songs on this 1959 album was the most enduring version of Brecht-Weill's &quot;Mack the Knife.&quot; The '60s saw Darin trapse through the Vegas circuit then morphing into a politically active, Dylan-influence folk singer with a number of Rolling Stones covers rounding out his set. As the '70s rolled around, Darring again donned his tuxeudo and returned to the world of the Vegas nightclubs and even briefly hosted a television show. In 1973, at the age of 37, Darrin died during open-heart surgery, leaving behind a wonderfully eclectic collection of music. In 1990 Darrin was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
- Jaan Uhelszki" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/bobby-darin/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Harry Nilsson" description="By the time his first LP, &lt;I&gt;Pandemonium Shadow Show,&lt;/I&gt;appeared in 1967, Harry Nilsson was a music-industry veteran. He'd quit his bank job, the story went, after hearing the Monkees' version of his &quot;Cuddly Toy&quot; on the radio. Soon, his inventive medley of Beatle tunes, &quot;You Can't Do That,&quot; had caught the group's ear, if not the world's. Despite his rich variety of self-penned classicist pop gems, it wasn't until Nilsson's cover of Fred Neil's &quot;Everybody's Talkin'&quot; was used in the film &lt;I&gt;Midnight Cowboy&lt;/I&gt; that he scored a hit. He carried his gorgeous, vaguely precious style, rife with overdubbed voices (all his), through two more albums and the beloved kids' TV special &lt;I&gt;The Point!&lt;/I&gt; before leaping in another direction. Hooking up with producer Richard Perry, he recorded &lt;I&gt;Nilsson Schmilsson,&lt;/I&gt; a state-of-the-art pop-rock disc that still retained every bit of the artist's strange charm. Filled with oddball touches from a solo version of Louis Jordan's &quot;Early in the Morning&quot; to the mock-Caribbean &quot;Coconut&quot; and the thunderous rock 'n' roll of &quot;Jump Into the Fire,&quot; it ultimately became best known for its most conventional track. Badfinger's &quot;Without You&quot; became a standard in Nilsson's version, which spent four weeks at No. 1. A bona fide superstar for the moment, Nilsson set off on the path of self-destruction. His excesses while recording 1974's &lt;I&gt;Pussy Cats&lt;/I&gt; with John Lennon at the board led to his permanently damaging his voice. He continued to make occasionally striking music afterward -- most interestingly for the soundtrack to Robert Altman's &lt;I&gt;Popeye&lt;/I&gt; -- but he never had another hit. Released around the time of his death in 1994, the two-CD anthology &lt;I&gt;Personal Best&lt;/I&gt; did much for Nilsson's profile. His was suddenly a hip name to drop again in circles that revered the Beach Boys' and the Zombies' artier moments. He'd no doubt appreciate the irony of being at once an easy-listening oldies staple and a favorite of twentysomething indie rockers.
- Jaan Uhelszki" category="Singer-Songwriter" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/harry-nilsson/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Righteous Brothers" description="They may not be brothers and only the lord above can say if they are truly righteous, but there is no denying that the Righteous Brothers have recorded some of the finest melodramatic, soul-drenched ballads in history. Two of the many songs they recorded with Phil Spector remain on heavy radio rotation: &quot;You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'&quot; and the operatic, intense &quot;Unchained Melody.&quot; Their blonde good looks and dusky R&amp;B voices are believed to have led an intrepid &lt;i&gt;sociologue&lt;/i&gt; to coin the term &quot;Blue-Eyed Soul.&quot;
- Nick Dedina" category="Blue-Eyed Soul" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-righteous-brothers/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Tommy James and the Shondells" description="" category="'60s Oldies" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/tommy-james-and-the-shondells/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Burt Bacharach" description="Even a quick glance at Rhino Records' three-CD box set &lt;I&gt;The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection&lt;/I&gt; gives an overview of how wide-reaching the composer/arranger's work has been. Besides his best-known material, on Dionne Warwick's long run of supper-club soul hits (&quot;Walk on By,&quot; &quot;I Say a Little Prayer&quot;), there are important, career-defining records made with the likes of Dusty Springfield, Herb Alpert, Jackie DeShannon and B.J. Thomas. Deeply influenced by Ravel and Dizzy Gillespie, Bacharach made his earliest splash as musical director for Marlene Dietrich; he kept the gig going on and off even as his star rose with Warwick and others. By 1957, he'd met lyricist Hal David, with whom he partnered for the next 15 years; in fact, most of his great songs carry the Bacharach-David tag. While pushing his muse further with film work (he wrote &lt;I&gt;What's New Pussycat?&lt;/I&gt; for Woody Allen's first movie, which also featured &quot;My Little Red Book&quot; in a nightclub scene), Bacharach recorded a series of mood music albums under his own name. These were mostly instrumental, or graced with &quot;girl&quot; session vocalists, but occasionally the &lt;I&gt;auteur&lt;/I&gt; would open his own pipes. Though the results were shaky, they were friendly and likable. After a troubled break with David, Bacharach scored fewer hits. His name appeared on &quot;Arthur's Theme&quot; by Christopher Cross, &quot;On My Own&quot; by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald, and the star-studded Warwick single &quot;That's What Friends Are For.&quot; It wasn't until the 1990s revival of interest in lounge music and similar styles, however, that his artistic profile was reassessed. Omnivorous music hound Elvis Costello teamed up with Bacharach on &lt;I&gt;Painted From Memory&lt;/I&gt;, a dazzling 1998 album in the old style. Since then, Bacharach has continued to work, showing up on TV and in another inspired partnership, with Ron Isley on 2003's &lt;I&gt;Here I Am.&lt;/I&gt;
- Jaan Uhelszki" category="Easy Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/burt-bacharach/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Neil Sedaka" description="Neil Sedaka was the first songwriter from the famous Brill Building bunch to strike out on his own and have a series of hits in the late 1950s. His career has weathered the decades, with No. 1's in the early '60s with &quot;Breaking Up is Hard to Do,&quot; and the mid-'70s with &quot;Laughter in the Rain.&quot; Sedaka's real strength has always been as a songwriter (usually with Howard Greenfield), so it is a little odd to hear him attempt to croon standards such as &quot;Moonlight in Vermont.&quot; A message for today's teen sensations -- if you ever feel the need to sing an actual song, give Mr. Sedaka a call. He'd be glad to write one for you.
- Nick Dedina" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/neil-sedaka/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Ben E. King" description="Even deaf desert dwellers have heard &quot;Stand by Me&quot; thousands of times, but don't let that keep you from listening to the rest of Ben E. King's classic work. King was a soulful crooner who had much of the uptown class of Sam Cooke. He first came to prominence as the (second) lead singer of the Drifters, but he quickly broke out on his own. His hit &quot;Spanish Harlem&quot; shows the sophisticated feel and dreamy production of his '60s recordings. King recorded through out 1970s and '80s and even returned to the top of the charts in 1975 with &quot;Supernatural Thing.&quot; The film &lt;i&gt;Stand by Me&lt;/i&gt; exposed a new generation to King's music. King still records, often with great jazz and blues musicians.
- Nick Dedina" category="Soul" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/ben-e-king/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Connie Francis" description="Born Constance Franconero, Connie Francis is a key figure in the era that saw the transition of pop music sung by vocalists to pop music sung by rock 'n' rollers. MGM had Francis try everything under the sun, and this New Jersey native's vocal style always leaned towards crossover country. Her Nashville work is fairly decent, but she also recorded nightclub standards, jazzy swingers and somewhat bleached Italian folk tunes. Francis has had her share of personal tragedies (which adds poignancy to her old teen tragedy tunes), but her career has nevertheless lasted for decades. She also co-starred in the ever-popular &lt;i&gt;Where the Boys Are&lt;/i&gt;, and her most enduring hit -- a lightly R&amp;B-ish reading of &quot;Who's Sorry Now&quot; -- still gets considerable airplay on oldies stations.
- Nick Dedina" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/connie-francis/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Jay and The Americans" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/jay-and-the-americans/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Tokens" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-tokens/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Paul Anka" description="Pop idol, teenage heart throb and a businessman of superhuman success, Paul Anka sometimes appears to be the embodiment of the Eisenhower years' American dream. In the 1950s, &quot;Puppy Love,&quot; &quot;Diana,&quot; and &quot;Put Your Head On My Shoulder&quot; provided a safe alternative to that crotch-grabbing satanist Elvis Presley, but what's interesting is that Anka wrote most of the material he performed himself. After his pop career ground to a halt in the '60s, Anka bought the rights to his own music and lived off the money made in re-issues. He also wrote the Tom Jones hit &quot;She's a Lady&quot; and the Sinatra favorite &quot;My Way.&quot; In the 1970s Anka enjoyed a brief comeback singing duets with Odia Coates, an Oakland, Calif., singer he discovered. Anka is responsible for some of pop music's smarmiest moments, but the joke's on us because he's got more money than God.
- Chris Von Rumohr" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/paul-anka/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Lesley Gore" description="Produced by a young Quincy Jones, Lesley Gore's rendition of &quot;It's My Party&quot; became one of the most commercially successful songs of the Girl Group era. Gore's bratty image sharply contrasted with the stylish, sassy and rebellious personas portrayed by other girl groups. Doubled vocals and lush orchestral arrangements put a pure Pop stamp on Gore's sound. While her other songs weren't as commercially successful, they do show that, when she stepped out of the whiny, weeping teenager role, Gore had bold command over her striking voice.
- Mark Murrmann" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/lesley-gore/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Phil Spector" description="Long before he was known for brandishing firearms, Phil Spector invented the panoramic Wall Of Sound production. By cramming intricate, orchestral arrangements into three-minute pop songs, Spector revolutionized recording and became a studio pioneer who influenced artists like Brian Wilson, the Beatles and countless others. He got his start in the late 1950s with a one-hit-wonder band from Los Angeles called the Teddy Bears. When their proverbial 15 minutes were up, he relocated to New York City and started recording and producing girl groups like the Crystals and the Ronettes. He married that band's lead singer, Ronnie Bennett after his popularity began to wane and his work with Ike and Tina Turner failed to sell as many records as was anticipated. Infamously reclusive, Spector retired and became a hermit in his own mansion, only intermittently resurfacing to produce records by members of the Beatles, Leonard Cohen and the Ramones.
- Eric Shea" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/phil-spector/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Tony Orlando" description="" category="Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/tony-orlando/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Shangri-Las" description="Girl Groups of the 1960s can be divided into two styles -- those who were prissy and upheld the traditional image of the female, and those who were seen as bad girls. The gum-smacking, motorcycle-riding, leather jacket-wearing Shangri-Las epitomized the latter. They were thrust into the national spotlight in 1964 with the melodramatic ballad &quot;Remember (Walking in the Sand),&quot; and soon after, &quot;Leader of the Pack&quot; -- with its spine-tingling motorcycle samples and an oddly morbid theme -- ensured their place in rock 'n' roll history. George &quot;Shadow&quot; Morton, whose compositions rivaled Phil Spector's own brilliant &quot;little symphonies for the kids,&quot; was the genius producer and songwriter behind the Shangri-Las. His songs for them tended to be campy and overly dramatic, whether they were spoken monologues, moody, sobbing songs, lush string orchestrations, dire death numbers or self-confident songs about boys. As with many Girl Groups, the Shangri-Las rose to the top fast but were quickly knocked down by the tidal wave of British bands storming the charts, and they faded into obscurity by the late '60s.
- Mark Murrmann" category="Girl Groups" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-shangri-las/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Shirelles" description="Making music for teenagers in the '60s to fall in love to, the Shirelles laced doo-wop/R&amp;B pop gems with sugary harmonies, lovesick lyrics, and huge orchestral arrangements. Leaders in the Girl Group field, they influenced a bevy of acts with cutesy names like the Dixie Cups, as well as bands with less cutesy names like the Ramones." category="Girl Groups" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-shirelles/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Gene Pitney" description="
- Chad Driscoll" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/gene-pitney/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Bobby Vee" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/bobby-vee/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Vogues" description="The Vogues were a swell band from Pittsburgh who meshed bleached Doo-Wop with Garage Pop in the pre-hippie '60s. Their folkified &quot;Five O'clock World&quot; remains one of the joys of AM radio but soon after it hit the charts they transformed themselves into a more traditional vocal quartet. At their best the Vogues sounded like the Byrds turning the Lettermen onto a whole new scene.
- Nick Dedina" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-vogues/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="James Darren" description="James Darren was a small screen teen heart throb during the &lt;i&gt;Gidget&lt;/i&gt; era who subsequently spun off into a recording career. His music was originally aimed at impressionable nymphets, but it holds up as fun semi-rock 'n' roll. The talented Darren's done it all, from being a star during his early-1960s Brill Building phase, to supporting roles on bad taste classics such as &lt;i&gt;T.J. Hooker&lt;/i&gt;. His career is on track once again, and when not starring in &lt;i&gt;Star Trek: Deep Space Nine&lt;/i&gt;, he sings standards in a voice that sounds like an older Jack Jones with phrasing a la Tony Bennett. Oddly enough, while Darren and Jones both had hit singles with &quot;Lollipops and Roses&quot; all those years ago, much of his repertoire, such as &quot;Here's to the Losers&quot; and &quot;Come Fly With Me,&quot; is associated solely with Sinatra.
- Nick Dedina" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/james-darren/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Andy Kim" description="" category="Lite Rock" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/andy-kim/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Little Eva" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/little-eva/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Dixie Cups" description="The musical roots of this New Orleans family trio began in the same place as so many other girl groups popular in the 1960s: in church. Within a year of being being discovered at a high school talent show, the Dixie Cups had a No. 1 hit with Ellie and Greenwich's &quot;Chapel of Love&quot; -- the first single released on Lieber and Stoller's Red Bird Records. Their tight harmonizing and upbeat pulse, building up to a powerful crescendo, help put the Dixie Cups at the top of the charts. However, like many other girl groups, further success eluded them, for once British groups began invading American charts, the clean and fun Girl Group sound was largely trampled underfoot.
- Mark Murrmann" category="Girl Groups" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-dixie-cups/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Jackie DeShannon" description="Jackie DeShannon is best remembered for two 1960s anthems: &quot;Put a Little Love in Your Heart&quot; and the Bacharach-David &quot;What the World Needs Now Is Love.&quot; Her diverse talents and tastes not always easily marketable, the former Sharon Lee Myers of Hazel, Kentucky, has sometimes slipped through the cracks of public perception. Relatively few, for instance, are aware of her role in co-writing &quot;Bette Davis Eyes,&quot; the huge early-'80s rocker that lifted Kim Carnes from journeyman status. Even less attention is paid to DeShannon's status as an early leader in what wasn't yet called folk-rock. Her &quot;When You Walk in the Room&quot; is a girl-group classic dense with 12-string guitar -- a sound that made the tune a natural for British beat group the Searchers, who had their own hit with the track. Around the time of her Bacharach triumphs (which also included the smaller hit &quot;A Lifetime of Loneliness&quot;), DeShannon also worked with then-session man Jimmy Page on some stellar hard pop records. She contributed &quot;DonÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂt Doubt Yourself, Babe&quot; to the Byrds' debut LP, and still later made a series of L.A. studio rock albums that are revered by many. In the '70s, DeShannon's output included a couple of image-remaking discs for Atlantic. She entered a brief but impressive creative pairing with Van Morrison that resulted not only in tracks issued under her name, but also in key contributions to his &lt;I&gt;Hard Nose the Highway&lt;/I&gt; (1973). Since then, she's remained active, regularly issuing new material and even collaborating with the young garage-rock band the Detroit Cobras. An amazingly spirited creative force, Jackie DeShannon is in some ways still a discovery waiting to happen.
- Jaan Uhelszki" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/jackie-deshannon/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Shelley Fabares" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/shelley-fabares/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Timi Yuro" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/timi-yuro/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Cookies" description="" category="Girl Groups" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-cookies/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Ronettes" description="In their towering black beehive hairdos and dark eye makeup, the Ronettes were a classic mid-'60s girl group with a sultry twist: vulnerable but tough, sexy but sweet. The Ronettes were the first bad girls of rock, a racially undefinable (the Bennetts' mother was black and Native American; their father was white) trio that became producer Phil Spector's most successful act.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
All three Ronettes are related: Talley is the cousin of the two Bennett sisters. The trio began singing together as the Darling Sisters. By 1961, they had become featured dancers and vocalists at the Peppermint Lounge, performing a song-and-dance routine inspired by Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker's &quot;Twist.&quot; They later appeared with New York City disc jockey Murray the K's rock shows and recorded in 1961 and 1962 for Colpix as Ronnie and the Relatives, then the Ronettes.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Spector signed them to his Philles label in 1963. Smitten with Ronnie, he attempted to sign her as a solo artist, but when the group refused to be broken up, he signed them all. Initially the trio provided background vocals for other Spector productions, including records by Darlene Love and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans. (Earlier in their career, the Ronettes backed up Little Eva, Del Shannon, Bobby Rydell, and Joey Dee, among others.) His first Wall of Sound productions for them were &quot;Baby I Love You&quot; and a song he cowrote with Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, &quot;Be My Baby.&quot; That fall it hit Number Two and sold over a million copies.
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The Ronettes had other, less successful hits: &quot;Baby I Love You&quot; (Number 24, 1963), &quot;(The Best Part of) Breakin' Up&quot; (Number 39, 1964), &quot;Walking in the Rain&quot; (Number 23, 1964), &quot;Do I Love You?&quot; (Number 34, 1964), &quot;Is This What I Get for Lovin' You?&quot; (Number 75, 1965), and &quot;I Can Hear Music&quot; (Number 100, 1966). In 1964 Spector began managing the group as well, and throughout the group's career Spector's possessiveness and jealousy created problems. For example, when they were set to open for the Beatles on their 1966 U.S. tour, he kept Ronnie at home and had another cousin of hers take her place on the road. By then, the group was near to breaking up. Talley married a New York City radio station–programming director, and Estelle married producer Teddy Vann.
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In 1966 Ronnie Bennett married Phil Spector. According to her autobiography, &lt;I&gt;Be My Baby&lt;/I&gt;, Spector virtually held her prisoner in their L.A. mansion. They separated in 1973 and divorced in 1974, by which time Ronnie Spector had developed a serious drinking problem that would last several more years. Although Spector had recorded her for A&amp;M in 1969 (&quot;You Came, You Saw, You Conquered&quot;) and Apple in 1971 (&quot;Try Some, Buy Some,&quot; co-produced with George Harrison), her first solo releases went unnoticed. Ronnie Spector began her long comeback with a 1973 appearance at a rock-revival show with two new Ronettes; she then released two singles on Buddah.
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Through the 1970s she later pursued a solo career, inspired by the fact that many notable musicians (including Billy Joel, who wrote &quot;Say Goodbye to Hollywood&quot; for her, and Bruce Springsteen) cited her as an influence. In 1977 Little Steven van Zandt produced her version of &quot;Say Goodbye to Hollywood&quot; (with backing by the E Street Band), but it never charted. She sang on Southside Johnny's debut LP and then cut a solo album in 1980 entitled &lt;I&gt;Siren&lt;/I&gt;, produced by Genya Ravan. Ronnie Spector's biggest commercial break came in 1986 when her duet with Eddie Money, &quot;Take Me Home Tonight,&quot; the chorus of which reprised &quot;Be My Baby,&quot; hit Number Four and became an oft-seen video. In 1986 her autobiography, &lt;I&gt;Be My Baby&lt;/I&gt; (written with Vince Waldron) was published. Through the 1980s she also performed as one of the &quot;legendary ladies of rock,&quot; along with Martha Reeves, Lesley Gore, Mary Wilson, and others.
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Remarried and living in Connecticut with her husband and two sons, Spector returned to recording in the late 1990s. She began touring on punk and indie-rock bills. The hard-edged, guitar-based &lt;I&gt;She Talks to Rainbows&lt;/I&gt; featured songs written by Joey Ramone (the EP's co-producer, with whom she also sings a duet), Brian Wilson, and Johnny Thunders. In 2000 a Manhattan judge ordered Phil Spector to pay $3 million, most of it in back royalties, to Ronnie Spector and her fellow Ronettes, but two years later a New York State appeals court reversed the decision, deferring to the group's original 1963 contract. Ronnie Spector resurfaced in 2003 with yet another EP, &lt;I&gt;Something's Gonna Happen&lt;/I&gt;, a collection of Marshall Crenshaw songs; she also sang backup vocals on a Misfits album that year. In 2006 she released her third full-length solo album, &lt;I&gt;The Last of the Rock Stars&lt;/I&gt;, which included guest appearances from Keith Richards and Patti Smith. In 2007, the Ronettes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
" category="Girl Groups" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-ronettes/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Rosie &amp; the Originals" description="Dreamy pop in the style of early 1960s chart-toppers who tamed rock 'n' roll's wild side. Soothing A.M. radio oldies/Lite Rock songs are built around strong, bright female vocals. Ardent Led Zeppelin fans will recognize Rosie &amp; the Originals' name from their mention on &lt;i&gt;Houses of the Holy&lt;/i&gt;'s lyric sheet.
- Mark Murrmann" category="Vocal-Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/rosie-the-originals/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Exciters" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-exciters/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Darlene Love" description="As one of Phil Spector's handpicked early-'60s girl-group singers, Darlene Love sang some lead vocals with the Crystals, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, and also had hits under her own name.
Darlene Wright started singing in 1958 with an L.A. vocal group called the Blossoms. (Her sister Edna later sang with the Honey Cone, which hit big in 1971 with the Number One &quot;Want Ads.&quot;) The Blossoms recorded without success as a foursome for Capitol Records between 1958 and 1960, and then as a trio for Challenge and Okeh. They also did backup singing on the L.A. session circuit, supporting Bobby &quot;Boris&quot; Pickett (&quot;Monster Mash&quot;), James Darren (&quot;Goodbye Cruel World&quot;), Bobby Day (&quot;Rockin' Robin&quot;), and many others.
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When Love came to Spector's attention, he had her and the Blossoms sing &quot;He's a Rebel,&quot; which went Number One in 1962. The producer had originally intended the Gene Pitney composition for the Crystals, and in fact put their name on the record, though they didn't sing a note. Love also sang lead on &quot;He's Sure the Boy I Love&quot; (Number 11, 1963), also falsely credited to the Crystals, and in the short-lived vocal trio Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, who had a hit with &quot;Zip-a-Dee Doo-Dah&quot; (Number Eight pop, Number Seven R&amp;B, 1963), from the Walt Disney movie &lt;i&gt;Song of the South&lt;/i&gt;. All of these recordings were on Spector's Philles label.
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Love went on to record six Philles singles under her own name, including &quot;Wait Till My Bobby Gets Home&quot; (Number 26, 1963), &quot;(Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry&quot; (Number 39, 1963), and &quot;A Fine Fine Boy&quot; (Number 53, 1963). She also appears on Phil Spector's classic Christmas album. Love continued to sing with the Blossoms throughout the '60s. They were regulars on &lt;i&gt;Shindig&lt;/i&gt; and toured with Elvis Presley in the early '70s. Love then sang backup for Dionne Warwick for 10 years, beginning in 1971.
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In the '80s the singer branched out into acting, appearing in the &lt;i&gt;Lethal Weapon&lt;/i&gt; films and the Broadway show &lt;i&gt;Leader of the Pack&lt;/i&gt;. She also recorded two solo albums. Long respected as one of the top vocalists in pop music, Love finally received long-overdue recognition in 1993, when a show based on her career, &lt;i&gt;Portrait of a Singer&lt;/i&gt;, opened in January at New York's Bottom Line club. Love performed weekly in the long-running show. In 1996 she participated in the revue 20th-Century Pop with Merry Clayton and Marianne Faithfull. She continues to perform around the country, garnering critical praise for her annual holiday show, &lt;i&gt;Love for the Holidays&lt;/i&gt;.
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In 1993 Love sued Phil Spector for back royalties; in 1997 a New York Supreme Court jury ruled in her favor but, because of the statute of limitations in New York State, awarded her only $263,500 for royalties going back to 1987. In 1998 the singer published her autobiography, &lt;i&gt;My Name Is Love&lt;/i&gt;, and released a gospel album, &lt;i&gt;Unconditional Love&lt;/i&gt;." category="Girl Groups" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/darlene-love/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Paul Petersen" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/paul-petersen/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Raindrops" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-raindrops/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Dick &amp; Dee Dee" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/dick-dee-dee/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Fabian" description="" category="Teen Idols" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/fabian/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Teddy Bears" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-teddy-bears/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Paul Williams " description="" category="Lite Rock" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/paul-williams/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Mark Wynter" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/mark-wynter/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Barry Mann" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/barry-mann/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Linda Scott" description="Scott is one of the sadly forgotten figures of the Brill Building Pop era. Her simultaneously tough and squeaky-clean R&amp;B voice brightened standards and typical teen fare alike.
- Nick Dedina" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/linda-scott/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Annette Funicello" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/annette-funicello/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Jimmy Justice" description="" category="Brill Building Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/jimmy-justice/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Margo Guryan" description="Margo Guryan was a N.Y.C. beatnik who was started out her music career in jazz,
writing songs and crafting lyrics for major artists. Then she heard the Beach Boys' &quot;God Only Knows&quot; and discovered that pop music could hold the same beauty as bop. In the mid-1960s, Guryan's idiosyncratic, lovingly crafted pop tunes were covered by such topflight singers as Mama Cass, Bobbie Gentry, Harry Nilson, Julie London and Jackie DeShannon, with Spanky &amp; Our Gang having a major hit with &quot;Sunday Morning.&quot; In 1968, Guryan recorded her debut LP &lt;I&gt;Take A Picture&lt;/I&gt;, which proved to be the perfect showcase for her elegant songs and fragile vocal style (which falsely carries a hint of a foreign accent akin to Astrud Gilberto or a less guttural Claudine Longet - both of whom covered Guryan numbers). Even though &lt;I&gt;Take A Picture&lt;/I&gt; melded the three B's - bossa nova, baroque pop and the Beatles - to stellar effect, the label it was on folded and the album disappeared without a trace. Margo Guryan transitioned away from pop gamine to LA music teacher but &lt;I&gt;Take A Picture&lt;/I&gt; became a much sought after collector's item and her legend continued to grow over the years. In 2000, &lt;I&gt;Take A Picture&lt;/I&gt; was re-released to much praise, and its success prompted a second CD of previously unreleased demos to finally see the light of day.
- Nick Dedina" category="Easy Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/margo-guryan/data.opml?rws=%2Foldies%2F60s-oldies%2Fbrill-building-pop%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
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