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Songwriters Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman
Profile of Songwriters Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman:
Doc Pomus was born Jerome Solon Felder on June 27, 1925 in Brooklyn,
New York. He suffered from polio as a child, which left him to walk
on crutches. After hearing blues singer Big Joe Turner, he became
obsessed with the blues. He began his career while still a teenager,
taking on the name Doc Pomus. He played saxophone and sang in
Greenwich Village clubs. He recorded for a variety of labels but
wasn't very successful. By the early 1950s he began to write. In
1955, he wrote "Boogie Woogie Country Girl" for his idol Big Joe
Turner. It was his first success. Another hit he wrote was "Lonely
Avenue" for Ray Charles. Another hits was "Young Blood," co-written
with Lieber and Stoller and recorded by The Coasters.
Mort Shuman was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 12, 1936 to
Jewish immigrant parents. He studied music at the New York
Conservatory and , like Pomus, was devoted to R&B music. Doc Pomus
completely gave up singing by 1957 and in 1958 teamed with Mort
Shuman to write for the Aldon Music Publishing. Shuman had played
piano on some of Doc Pomus's recordings. They set up offices in the
famous Brill Building in New York. (Side note: The Brill Building at
1619 Broadway got it's name from the owners, the Brill Brothers, who
once had a clothing store in a part of the building. They leased the
rest of the building to companies in the music business.
By 1962 there were 165 music business in the building and it was a
Mecca for song writers.)
The partnership of Pomus and Shuman authored hundreds of songs,
specializing in "blue-eyed soul." For the most part Doc Pomus wrote
the lyrics and Mort Shuman wrote the music to their songs, but they
sometimes worked on both. In 1959, they wrote "Tiger", recorded by
Fabian. It reached #3 and as did "Teenager In Love" recorded by Dion
and THe Belmonts.
In 1960, they wrote the #1 song, "Save The Last Dance For Me" for
the Drifters.
They began writing for Elvis in 1960. Elvis passed on the first song
they submitted to him. It was called "Turn Me Loose." They later
changed the song's arrangement and lyrics and it became a hit for
Fabian. The next song they wrote for Elvis was "A Mess of Blues,"
which was released as the B-side of the single "It's Now or Never"
in July 1960. They continued to write for Elvis over the next five
years however, neither one of them ever met Elvis. Elvis did call
Mort Shuman in the middle of the night of June 25, 1961. He was
calling for advice when he was recording "(Marie's The Name of) His
Latest Flame" because they couldn't quite get the piano line down as
Mr. Shuman had written it.
The Elvis songs written Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, together or
separately, are: "A Mess of Blues," "Doin' The Best I Can,"
"Surrender," "Kiss Me Quick," "(Marie's The Name of) His Latest
Flame," "Little Sister," "Night Rider," "Gonna Get Back Home
Somehow," "I Feel That I've Known You Forever" (Doc Pomus with Alan
Jeffreys), "Suspicion," "She's Not You" (Doc Pomus with Lieber and
Stoller), "(It's A) Long Lonely Highway," "Viva Las Vegas," "I Need
Somebody To Lean On," "Girl Happy" (Doc Pomus with Norman Meade),
"What Every Woman Lives For," "Never Say Yes," "Double Trouble" and
"You'll Think Of Me" (Mort Shuman alone).
In 1964 they moved to England and Shuman began working with other
writers. In 1965, Pomus took a severe fall that resulted in his
being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He and
Shuman broke up their partnership and Pomus left the music business
for the next ten years, then making his living as a professional
gambler. He returned to music in the late 1970s, co-writing with Dr.
John and with B.B. King. He helped to found the the Rhythm and Blues
Foundation and, shortly before his death, he was the first white
person to be awarded that foundations' Pioneer Award. He died of
lung cancer in New York, on March 14, 1991 at the age of sixty-four.
In 1995, a tribute album was released entitled "Till The Night Is
Gone," which featured fourteen of his songs, many written with Mort
Shuman, performed by artists such as Bob Dylan, Roseanne Cash, Los
Lobos, Shawn Colvin, Dion and Aaron Neville among others. In 1992,
Doc Pomus was inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He has also
been inducted into the Songwriting Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of
Fame and the New York Music Hall of Fame.
After their breakup, Mort Shuman continued to write for such acts as
The Hollies, Freddy and The Dreamers, and Cilla Black. He then moved
to Paris where he performed and began his own recording career. In
1968, Shuman translated the lyrics of French composer Jacques Brel
and later he wrote, produced and starred in the stage production
"Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris," which ran for
seven years. In 1986, Mort Shuman moved to London and wrote British
musical productions. In 1991, he died of liver cancer at the age of
fifty-four.
Today, many of the songs of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman are considered
among the great classics of both rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues.
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