Lots of songs (back in the day), were knocked out in a few minutes by teams working on salary at places like the Brill Building (New York). Many writers worked as part of a team, one doing the music, the other the words. Many folk in the music biz were quite perceptive & realised that getting their name registered as a co-writer on a song was well worth the effort & so it has proved (with people still raking in royalties on the more popular ditties 60 years down the line).
I once asked Sidney Barnes how he & J J Jackson went about the task when they were a writing team. They seemed to follow along the well worn same path as established by the Brill Building teams -- they'd hire a room equipped with a piano, Sidney would bring along a bottle & they'd stick to the job for a 5/ 6 hour stint.
This thread ain't about a Barnes / Jackson song though. I thought I'd do a thread on a different old song. This never hit the really big time (sales wise) in any of it's many incarnations but it does help illustrate the long & winding road many songs have taken.
I've chosen HURTIN' INSIDE to illustrate this piece. The song came into existence in 1959 as a joint effort from Teddy Randazzo and Cirino Colacrai. This pairing wrote quite a few songs together back at that time, after Cirino had given up trying to make it as a singer himself. Both he & Teddy did get a bit of fame as singers though, with both of them appearing in the 1956 movie 'ROCK, ROCK, ROCK'.
Lots of songs (back in the day), were knocked out in a few minutes by teams working on salary at places like the Brill Building (New York). Many writers worked as part of a team, one doing the music, the other the words. Many folk in the music biz were quite perceptive & realised that getting their name registered as a co-writer on a song was well worth the effort & so it has proved (with people still raking in royalties on the more popular ditties 60 years down the line).
I once asked Sidney Barnes how he & J J Jackson went about the task when they were a writing team. They seemed to follow along the well worn same path as established by the Brill Building teams -- they'd hire a room equipped with a piano, Sidney would bring along a bottle & they'd stick to the job for a 5/ 6 hour stint.
This thread ain't about a Barnes / Jackson song though. I thought I'd do a thread on a different old song. This never hit the really big time (sales wise) in any of it's many incarnations but it does help illustrate the long & winding road many songs have taken.
I've chosen HURTIN' INSIDE to illustrate this piece. The song came into existence in 1959 as a joint effort from Teddy Randazzo and Cirino Colacrai. This pairing wrote quite a few songs together back at that time, after Cirino had given up trying to make it as a singer himself. Both he & Teddy did get a bit of fame as singers though, with both of them appearing in the 1956 movie 'ROCK, ROCK, ROCK'.
Edited by Roburt