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Thursday, April 25, 2013

The Brill Building/The Music Temple



The Brill Building (built 1931) as the Alan E. Lefcourt Building and designed by Victor Bark Jr. is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the Manhattan borough of New York City, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood. It is famous for housing music industry offices and studios where some of the most popular American music tunes were written. The building has been described as "the most important generator of popular songs in the Western world......Wikipedia
This building housed some of the the most prolific publishers, songwriters and producers of the times. By 1962 it is noted the Brill Building contained over a 165 music businesses on on it's premises. Musicians/Artist alike could find all that was needed to cut a deal. That is could find a publisher and printer, cut a demo, promote the record and cut a deal with radio promoters, all within this one building.
Many of the greatest songwriters producers etc worked within this building Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Bert Berns, Neil Diamond, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Marvin Hamlisch, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield and Phil Spector just to name a few.
Artist who were  headquartered at the Brill Building were Bobby Darin, The Drifters, Connie Francis, Lesley Gore, Ben E. King, Darlene Love, Liza Minnellie, Tony Orlando, Gene Pitney, The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las, The Shirelles, The Sweet Inspirations, Doris Troy, Frankie Valie & The four Seasons Seasons, Dee Dee Warwick and Dionne Warwick.
Over a period of time the building took on what was noted as the Brill Building Sound which was somewhat  inaccurate as a lot of the music came from outside the building from such places as that other important address on Broadway at 1650.

Butch Leake (CORNER TALK REPORT)

For more info log into the link below.....


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