Appreciation: Ellie Greenwich: mover and shaper of American pop
The songwriter was a natural collaborator and captured moments of uncertainty in her 'little soap operas.'
Ellie Greenwich spent her Long Island adolescence on the corner of
Starlight and Springtime lanes. "My birthday is October 23rd, on the
cusp of Libra and Scorpio," she said in a 1990 interview with writer
and musician Charlotte Greig. "My father was Catholic and my mother was
Jewish. I was destined for something -- half and half, and on the cusp
of everything."
Greenwich emerged as a songwriter when America
itself was on the cusp of everything, a whole set of conventions
unspooling under the power of rock 'n' roll, the civil rights movement
and the incipient counterculture. Her American polyglot upbringing
prepared Greenwich, who died today at age 68 of a heart attack, for
what she became: one of the great sound alchemists who turned the
ambiguities of youth into the essence of American pop.
Able to
sing, arrange and produce as well as pen indelible hits, Greenwich
found her artistic home within New York's Brill Building, where she,
her husband and songwriting partner, Jeff Barry, and their peers
transformed an art form without making a big deal of it. She was a
natural collaborator who could match wits with control freaks like Phil
Spector and totally relate to the kids in the groups who recorded her
songs.
She could write silly and she could write serious. But
Greenwich's key works -- such classics as "Leader of the Pack," "Chapel
of Love" and "River Deep, Mountain High" as well as more obscure ones
like "Out in the Streets" and "Girls Can Tell" -- have a particular
resonance that goes beyond catchiness or nostalgia.
Their
quality has to do with Greenwich's gift for capturing the frisson of a
decision almost made, a change that hasn't quite come, and which could
still go either way. The voices for which she wrote, young and nearly
always female, had a natural waver. They belonged to the kids who would
change everything: multicultural girls such as Barbara Alston and
Dolores "La La" Brooks of the Crystals, Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes
and Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las, girls who aspired to certain
feminine ideals but also wished for a certain freedom promised by the
changing attitudes of their time.
Even a song like the Crystals'
"And Then He Kissed Me," a romance novelette whose impact is as light
as a cotton ball, is pulled forward by an undercurrent of uncertainty.
"I felt so happy I almost cried," sings Brooks (who was 15 when the
song was recorded and, legend has it, had never been kissed), of a love
affair that progresses from the dance floor to the altar in 2 minutes
and 34 seconds. That ambivalence gently counteracts the song's
dreaminess. There's a sense that everything is moving just a little too
fast.
That mood of irresistible acceleration was more pronounced
in the "little soap operas" she created with Barry and producer Shadow
Morton for the Shangri-Las. Who hasn't relished the spin-out at the
climax of "Leader of the Pack"? What's fascinating about that song, and
its lesser-known but equally great companion "Out in the Streets," is
the conflict subtly presented between the feminine and masculine
realms, as damaged heroes struggle to choose between the safe cage of
domesticity or the peril of the open road. Though the boys make bad
choices, the girls feel responsible. It seems right to credit Greenwich
for the message, embedded in the lushly romantic music as well as in
the lyrics, that the balancing act girls faced at that moment was
nearly impossible.
Greenwich herself was walking on a wire
during those years. As part of the triumvirate of married couples so
central to the Brill Building sound (along with Carole King/Gerry
Goffin and Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil), she found an entryway into the
primarily male world of the music business; but she also had to prove
her own authority. Perhaps that's why her songs so often had that blend
of toughness and questioning -- chin forward, eyes prettily downcast.
She and Jeff Barrywrote
"River Deep, Mountain High" for Tina Turner after they'd already
divorced. ("Divorce was not overly accepted," she told Greig of the
split. "It was a major catastrophe.") That song, which Phil Spector
considers a masterpiece, is such a glorious starburst that it would
seem to have no softer or darker side. And yet, there's the beginning,
in which Tina Turner remembers, "the only doll I've ever owned,"
bringing her voice down just a little in remembrance of a poor
childhood's solitary toy. It's another drop of sadness in the midst of
heart-filling joy, an acknowledgment that giving of yourself, whether
as an artist or a lover, always involves pain. Ellie Greenwich was a
purveyor of happiness, but she was no fool. What she wrote always ran
both deep and high.
--Ann Powers
Photo: Greenwich in 1991. Credit: Associated Press