It was with sadness tonight I read of the death of singer-songwriter Ellie Greenwich from a heart-attack aged 69. Greenwich was responsible with her then-husband Jeff Barry for some of the Brill Building's most enduring pop hits.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in New Jersey, Ellie was already writing songs as a teenager. She visited the Brill Building aged 22 to meet a songwriter for guidance in her career. Left alone in an office for a while, she started playing the piano. A man walked in and said he liked what he heard - he was none other than legendary songwriter Jerry Lieber who shared the office with his writing partner Mike Stoller! Signed to their publishing company she soon showed her worth, co-writing "Why Do Lovers Break Each Others Hearts", "Wait Till My Bobby Gets Home" and "(Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry" with Phil Spector.
Marrying Jeff Barry later in 1962, they soon rivaled the other Brill Building husband-and-wife teams of Carole King and Gerry Goffin and Cynthis Weil and Barry Mann: they were responsible for, among many others, "Be My Baby", "Baby I Love You", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Then He Kissed Me", "Chapel of Love", "(Christmas) Baby Please Come Home", "Baby Be Mine", "Leader Of The Pack", "I Wanna Love Him So Bad", "Hanky Panky", "Maybe I Know", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and Ellie's haunting "You Don't Know". Ellie and Jeff even recorded as the group The Raindrops "The Kind Of Boy You Can't Forget" which has one of the greatest non-Motown drum lines ever!

After their marriage foundered in 1965, they still co-wrote for a while - actually writing two of their most enduring hits "I Can Hear Music" and "River Deep, Mountain High". During this period she discovered a young songwriter called Neil Diamond who she and Barry went on to produce at the start of his singing career.

She continued in the music business on a less-showy level, recording demos, writing, singing backing vocals on other singer's tracks and writing commercial jingles. Her biggest success of her 'solo' years was "Sunshine After The Rain".

There was a major resurgence of interest in her work when in 1985 a jukebox musical of her songs "Leader Of The Pack" played on Broadway with Greenwich and Darlene Love appearing as themselves. How odd that now you can't move for these sort of musicals on both sides of the Atlantic but back then it lasted 3 months.

As long as people love a 3 minute pop song, Ellie Greenwich will be remembered.