What would rock ‘n’ roll have sounded like without the songwriters working out of a building at 1619 Broadway, just north of Times Square in New York City? This special place was where songwriters would come Monday through Friday and just write songs. It was their job, and at the end of the day, they would all get together and listen to each other’s music. Not bad work if you could get it — and they got paid for it!

Carole King described the atmosphere at the Brill Building: "Every day we squeezed into our respective cubby holes with just enough room for a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair for the lyricist if you were lucky. You’d sit there and write and you could hear someone in the next cubby hole composing a song exactly like yours. The pressure in the Brill Building was really terrific — because Donny (Kirshner) would play one songwriter against another. He’d say: ‘We need a new smash hit’ — and we’d all go back and write a song and the next day we’d each audition for Bobby Vee’s producer." (quoted in "The Sociology of Rock" by Simon Frith, 1978)

First, a little background on what was known as the Brill Building sound. Al Nevins and Don Kirshner (known as the man with the Golden Ear) formed a company in 1958 establishing offices at the Brill Building. One year later, Neil Sedaka’s first hit "Oh Carol" would signal the start of an avalanche of successes, not only for Neil but also others. Sedaka’s songwriting partner usually was Howard Greenfield. The two had met while classmates at Brooklyn’s Lincoln High School. Other songwriting combinations including Hal David and Burt Bacharach, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and, finally, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. With the successes from the songs they all wrote, the sound became known as "the Brill Building sound."

What all these writers had in common was a genuine empathy with us teenagers at the time. They wrote about our values, our interests, our emotional needs and, yes, even our slang. What made the Brill Building writers different from other songwriters was their professionalism, their respect for the "Tin Pan Alley" tradition of pop songwriting. They took a page from songwriters who came before them (Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart) and wrote from the same building In writing for teens in the late ’50s/early ’60s, it was necessary that the images be very simple, very believable, and very immediate.

There are two pairs of songwriters who wrote from the Brill Building I want to highlight. I feel that Carole King as well as Leiber and Stoller were the premier. Carole King, too, was raised in the same Brooklyn neighborhood at Sedaka and Greenfield. When King started writing with her partner (and soon-to-be husband, since divorced) Gerry Goffin, she emerged as a composer. Her career as a songwriter was so successful that her own singing was pushed into the background for more than a decade. Few of her fans were aware until a CD came out within the last few years of the number of hits King and Goffin wrote. How about these songs for your iPod; "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" by the Shirelles; "Take Good Care Of My Baby" and "Run To Him" by Bobby Vee; "Crying In The Rain" by the Everly Brothers; "Loco-Motion" by Little Eva; "Up On The Roof" by the Drifters; "One Fine Day" by the Chiffons; "I Can’t Stay Mad At You" by Skeeter Davis; "I’m Into Something Good" by Herman’s Hermits; "Don’t Bring Me Down" by the Animals; "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by the Monkees; and "A Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin, just to mention a few.

As for Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, some feel they are the all-time top songwriters in rock history. The songs alone they wrote for Elvis would put them in "tall cotton." Just some of the songs Leiber and Stoller added to the all-time hits of rock ‘n’ roll: "Hound Dog" by both Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thorton and Elvis; "Smokey Joe’s Cafe’ by the Robins; "Searchin," "Young Blood," "Charlie Brown," "Alone Comes Jones," "Little Egypt" and more for the Coasters; "Jailhouse Rock," "Don’t," and "Treat Me Nice" all by Elvis.

The days of the Brill Building sound were numbered. With the British Invasion of 1964, there was no longer a big market for Brill Building songs. The writers continued to write and place songs, but nothing like the numbers they were used to. One nice thing about the old songs was the new versions and the royalty checks they generated.

From my prospective as a radio on-air personality dealing with the new music, another important reason the Brill Building sound or era ended was the artists who had shaped it outgrew the limitations of assembly-line songwriting. One by one, the songwriting teams left and/or broke up. Carole King eventually went on to write and sing one of rock’s all-time greatest albums, "Tapestry." Sedaka stayed with Kirshner but his popularity declined. It was revived in the mid-’70s with "Laughter In The Rain." Sedaka’s follow-up song "Bad Blood" that he sang with Elton John, proved to be his biggest hit of all time.

During its heyday, the Brill Building had brought a new professionalism and maturity to rock ‘n’ roll. It was the Brill Building writers together with the original rock ‘n’ rollers they had supplanted who supplied the basis for the ‘60s rock. Their influence is even felt today. One powerful force in ‘60s music who considered Carole King their idol was the Beatles. When they were in the States the second time, they made it a point of meeting both Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

Oh yeah, whatever happened to Don Kirshner? He went on to host a TV show called "In Concert" for NBC. However, his biggest claim to fame after the Brill Building was being named the musical director for The Monkees’ TV show. FP

Tony Booth hosts "Afternoons with Tony Booth" from 3 to 7 p.m. on Big Oldies 107.3. He can also be heard online at BIGOLDIES1073.com. To ask a question about rock ‘n’ roll from about 1945 to 1980, email him at tbooth1073@aol.com.