It would be hard to look at a list of current hit songs without noticing a trend: the growing use of featured artists. A featured artist is one who makes a guest appearance on another artist’s recording to create a collaboration. What’s the difference between a duet and a song… Read more...
When it was suggested I write about songs that are fun to sing, the jukebox in my brain instantly thought of “The Name Game” (recorded by Shirley Ellis, written by Lincoln Chase and Shirley Elliston). Anyone of a certain age remembers plugging his or her name into the… Read more...
Broadcast Music, Inc. joins the world in grieving the loss of multifaceted songwriter-producer, Bob Crewe, who passed away on Thursday, September 11, 2014, in Scarborough, Maine. He was 82 years old. Crewe was famously known for creating the sound behind the worldwide sensation, the Four Seasons, penning a string of… Read more...
BMI songwriter and producer Shadow Morton, who wrote 60’s megahits for the Queens girl group the Shangri-Las as well as others, died of cancer on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013 in Laguna Beach, California at the age of 71. Mr. Morton first introduced the world to the Shangri-Las who had their… Read more...
James Brown, “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” With its tightly intertwined rhythms, percussive horns and traditional jump-blues bridge, “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto” catches the incomparable James Brown during a period of transition—moving from the hard-hitting… Read more...
Darlene Love, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” Written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector In the early 1960s, Brooklyn natives Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich were barely in their early twenties when… Read more...
Holiday songs are no longer elevator music for the month of December—nor, as seems to increasingly be the case, for late October and November. The BMI repertoire is stacked with new classics that command attention, channeling lovesick blues, winking irreverence and funk-laced grooves into original odes to the season. In… Read more...
In its June issue, Rolling Stone magazine offered the latest version of its “500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” an update of its countdown originally released in 2004. Nuggets crafted by BMI songwriters overwhelmingly dominate the list: Standards from the BMI catalogue make up more than 60% of the classic… Read more...
BMI pioneers swept the list of 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: ABBA, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, The Hollies and The Stooges will all officially enter rock’s hallowed hall during a ceremony on March 15, 2010 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City and will air live on… Read more...
Ellie Greenwich, the pen behind several of pop music’s most enduring standards, died on Wednesday in New York City. She was 68. A veteran of the legendary Brill Building in Manhattan, Greenwich co-wrote 60s nuggets including “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Baby I Love You,” “Hanky Panky,” “Then He Kissed Me,”… Read more...
