Remembering Cynthia Weil
• Cynthia Weil, a Grammy-winning lyricist who enjoyed a decades-long partnership with husband Barry Mann and helped write such classics as “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway,” “Walking in the Rain” and dozens of others, died last week at the age of 82. According to the AP, Weil’s death was confirmed Friday, June 2 by Interdependence Public Relations, which represents Mann’s daughter, Dr. Jenn Mann.
Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, who were married in 1961, were one of popular music’s most successful songwriting teams, part of a remarkable ensemble recruited by Don Kirshner and Al Nevins and based in Manhattan’s famed Brill Building. With such hit-making combinations as Carole King & Gerry Goffin and Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich, the Brill Building song factory turned out many of the biggest hits of the ’60s and beyond.
Weil and Mann were key collaborators with producer Phil Spector on songs for The Ronettes (“Walking in the Rain”), The Crystals (“He’s Sure the Boy I Love”) and other performers. “Don’t Know Much,” a Linda Ronstadt-Aaron Neville duet they helped write, was a Top 5 hit that won a Grammy for Best Pop Performance in 1990. Mann also helped write Dolly Parton‘s pop breakthrough hit, “Here You Come Again;” the Peabo Bryson ballad “If Ever You’re In My Arms Again;” James Ingram‘s “Just Once;” The Pointer Sisters‘ “He’s So Shy;” and Lionel Richie‘s “Running With the Night.” In 1966 Weil and Mann wrote one of rock’s first anti-drug songs, “Kicks,” a hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders. The Animals also had a hit with her tale of working class frustration, “We’ve Got to Get Out of This Place.”
Another timeless Cynthia Weil/Barry Mann hit was “Make Your Own Kind Of Music,” which they wrote for the late Mama Cass Elliott. The song only reached #36 in Billboard in the Fall of 1969 but has since become a beloved classic for its use in TV shows, commercials, and is currently heard in the trailer for the upcoming Barbie movie.
As the story goes, Weil and Mann first played “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” for the Righteous Brothers, the response from Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield was “dead silence.” As Weil recounted to Parademagazine in 2015, “Bill said, ‘Sounds good for The Everly Brothers, not the Righteous Brothers.’ We thought ‘Oh, God.’ Then Bobby said, ‘What am I supposed to do while the big guy’s singing?’ and Spector said, ‘You can go to the bank.'”
Weil and Mann were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, with Carole King introducing them at the Rock Hall ceremony.
