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brill building

Built in 1931 and originally a clothing store, the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway NYC became, through economic imperative, the rented home of a huge number of music publishers, numbering 165 at it's height in 1962.
The most important of these was Aldon Music, founded in 1958 and run by Don Kirschner and Al Nevins, which at various times during the late 1950's to mid-1960's employed some of the finest songwriters in the history of popular music, almost always writing in pairs.
Another occupant was pioneer record producer Phil Spector, originator of the "Wall of Sound".
Acting like a vertical ( and vertically integrated ) Tin Pan Alley , the Brill Building production line churned out high quality teen and "classic" pop until the mid 1960's, when, prompted by the Vietnam War and social unrest, the market changed in favour of the protest song and the singer-songwriter.

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Prominent songwriters

Sedaka & Greenfield
Leiber & Stoller
Mann & Weil
Pomus & Shuman
Goffin & King
Greenwich & Barry
Bert Berns
Bacharach & David

at amazon.com

audio : Brill Building

books : about Pop Culture

at amazon.co.uk

Brill Building compilations

books : "The Brill Building Sound"