CYNTHIA WEIL,
1940-2023
Cynthia Weil, the songwriter whose compositions with husband Barry Mann were crucial to shaping the direction of pop music in the 1960s, died Friday. She was 82.
Hits by Mann & Weil, who were among the legendary "Brill Building" teams that also included Carole King & Gerry Goffin and Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry, included The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and “Soul and Inspiration,” The Drifters’ “On Broadway,” The Ronettes’ “Walking in the Rain” and Paul Revere & The Raiders’ “Kicks” and “Hungry.”
After "On Broadway," created with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and Tony Orlando's Top 15 single "Bless You," the pair got an early taste of the Top 10 in 1963 with Eydie Gorme’s version of their “Blame It on the Bossa Nova.” Scores of artists recorded their songs in the 1960s—from The Monkees to Julie London to Gerry & The Pacemakers to jazz artists such as Illinois Jacquet and Blossom Dearie.
In the mid- to late '60s, the British Invasion and Motown cut into the number of songs Brill Building writers landed on the charts, but Mann & Weil were responsible for one of the period's best-known songs: The Animals' anti-Vietnam War classic “We Gotta Get Out of This Place."
And when country was crossing over in the '70s, Mann & Weil’s "Here You Come Again" started Dolly Parton on her road to pop stardom. In 1989, Aaron Neville became a pop star via his duet with Linda Ronstadt on the Mann & Weil composition "Don't Know Much."
Mann & Weil won the Song of the Year Grammy for “Somewhere Out There,” a duet by Ronstadt and James Ingram for the 1986 film An American Tail. Co-written with James Horner, the Oscar-nominated number also won the Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture or Television. (Ingram’s career had been launched by Mann & Weil’s “Just Once” from Quincy Jones’ 1981 set The Dude.)
Weil collaborated with other writers on hits by Martina McBride, Lionel Richie and Chaka Khan in the '80s and '90s.
A native of Manhattan's Upper West Side, she studied theater in college but began writing lyrics for Frank Loesser’s publishing company before moving to Don Kirshner’s Aldon Music, where she partnered with Mann. They married in 1961.
She was particularly adept at writing sophisticated lyrics and imbuing her characters with empathy. She reflected New York City life in songs like “Uptown,” a hit for The Crystals, and "On Broadway," written for the girl group The Cookies.
Weil’s contributions to film stretched from 1968’s Wild in the Streets to Christmas Vacation and The Grinch to Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. A theatrical revue of her songs with Mann, They Wrote That?, was staged in 2004. They also wrote the music for the theatrical version of the 1985 film Mask.
Weil was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 with her husband. In 2011 they received the Johnny Mercer Award. Weil was the first woman to receive the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Ahmet Ertegun Award, in 2010. The Recording Academy bestowed its Trustees Award on Mann & Weil in 2015.
