Performing Arts: Sounds of the Brill Building
April 27, 2013
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Music, Money, and Midtown: Commerce and Creation in the Brill Building
The Losers Lounge
The Joe McGinty Seven with members of The Losers Lounge perform selections from the Music Division's historic Brill Building lead sheet collection, with commentary by division chief George Boziwick.
New York’s famed Brill Building on West 49th Street and Broadway was the epi-center for some of the greatest pop songs of the 1950s and 1960s. Major songwriting teams of that era such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, turned out songs by the hundreds, often working for $50 per week. The Music Division’s collection of over 400 lead sheets provides a glimpse into the offices from which hits like “Calendar Girl” by Neil Sedaka, “Poison Ivy” by Leiber and Stoller and “Some Kind of Wonderful” by Carole King were written, recorded, and published.
This program is part of a new series, RHAPSODIC CITY: MUSIC OF NEW YORK devoted to exploring some of the unique musical stories of the 20th century. 
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