The Woman Who Wrote Pop's Greatest Hits
Born on October 23, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Levittown on Long Island, Ellie Greenwich showed a gift for melody almost from birth. As a child she composed on the accordion, later switching to piano — her Jewish mother would help her write down her original songs, and her Catholic father would drive her to studios in the city, where they were soon being recorded. By her teens, songs came as naturally as breathing.
After studying at Hofstra University — where she was elected Spring Queen, graduated with top honors with a BA in English, and was listed in "Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities" — she briefly pursued a high school English teaching career that lasted, in her own words, three and a half weeks, before she made her way to 1619 Broadway — the legendary Brill Building — where she began writing alongside her then-husband Jeff Barry. Together, and in collaboration with producer Phil Spector, they created the Wall of Sound era's defining records: soaring, emotional, indelible. "I call it the 'family' era," she once said, "because there was such a tremendous rapport between the songwriters, arrangers and singers." Of those early days writing hit after hit, she said simply: "I was young, it was exciting, and I cried when I heard my songs on the radio." She described herself as a hopeful romantic: "I wanted a little house with a picket fence, 2.3 children. To hear my stuff on the radio — ooh, ooh, ooh, this is bliss, ultimate bliss."
She had a characteristically sharp way of handling the male-dominated studio world: "When you walk into a session your whole attitude will change if you picture all the musicians sitting around nude. So I became one of the guys. I'd tell a joke. I bought this lipstick in the shape of a penis and I would 'freshen-up.' They would crack up laughing. It would break the ice."
"As producer Tommy West put it: "Ellie was a real pioneer both as a songwriter and producer — one of the first women to break through the exclusive men's production club." She was one of only two female songwriters in the early 1960s — alongside Carole King — who sat at the piano, wrote, and got fully involved in production. In her own words: "A songwriter, a lyricist — automatic acceptance. But a woman actually producing? There were so few of us." Cyndi Lauper agreed: "She was one of the first female producers of pop that never even got her name on the record. She was fantastic to work with and I loved her."
— Cyndi Lauper, Variety, 2024
"She collaborated mostly with men but wrote mostly for women — and her songs, like 'Be My Baby' and 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and 'Chapel of Love,' most often expressed the romantic suburban idyll. Their songs were catchy to the point of desperation."
— Rob Hoerburger, New York Times Magazine, December 2009
She gave voice to The Ronettes, The Crystals, The Dixie Cups, The Shangri-Las, Lesley Gore, Darlene Love and dozens more. She also discovered Neil Diamond, producing all of his early hits — including "Solitary Man," "Cherry Cherry," and "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon." Diamond later said: "If I hadn't met Ellie Greenwich I wouldn't have had a career. I came from knocking around on the streets to working with the best people in music at the time. Those sessions were like catching lightning in a bottle." Her melodies were instantly familiar yet endlessly fresh — jubilant, heartbroken, defiant, and tender all at once.
At a 2011 Lincoln Center tribute concert, Paul Shaffer — who sat in on keyboards — described her as "the spirit of the girl-group sound." BMI announced that day that the total airplay of her songs amounts to 125 years of continuous broadcast. Barry and Greenwich placed six songs on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time — more than any other non-performers. Only John Lennon and Paul McCartney had more — a measure of her catalog's extraordinary reach and permanence. In a typically self-deprecating moment near the end of her life, she reflected: "I didn't know what I was doing when I came into this business and I still don't." She also noted with characteristic humor: "I guess you've really made it when your name and songs are in crossword puzzles, in Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy." At the time of her passing in August 2009, she had developed a sitcom, a treatment for a new Broadway musical, a children's animated program with original characters, a Christmas movie, and was working on a book — still writing songs throughout. Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, her work continues to resonate with new generations. The Broadway musical Leader of the Pack brought her story to the stage, and the Garden of Ellie stands as a living memorial to her extraordinary life.
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