HITMAKERS: THE TEENS WHO STOLE POP MUSIC (TV)
Summary
This comprehensive documentary chronicles a nearly ten-year period of music-industry domination by a group of prolific, precocious teenage songwriters who shared a common work space in New York's Brill Building. The film uses a combination of rare archival footage of bands in performance, personal home movies and stills shot at the Brill Building by the songwriters who worked there, interviews with the writers about their reflections on the era, interviews with singers who performed the songs, and commentary from a number of scholars and historians. The film begins with a brief explanation of the economic situation that led records to become affordable in the 1950s for teenagers with some disposable income. As soon as records became affordable, however, the major labels that ran the recording industry grew more out of touch with the tastes of teen Americans than ever before, the program argues. While the record companies tried to dictate "safe" teen tastes to a suspicious youth, African-American music on independent labels began to flourish. It was not long before the major labels devised a way to capitalize on this development, and the culture of the Brill Building was born. Known within the industry as "eleven floors of musical madness," viewers learn, the building was occupied by a music-publishing company that began to hire a number of young, Jewish, Brooklyn-born teenagers who were in touch with the consumers who wanted to be hip. The teenagers began writing hit song after hit song, and a musical revolution began. People profiled and/or interviewed include: singer Steve Lawrence; historian David Sanjek; songwriters Carole King, Doc Pomus, and Jeffy Barry; Atlantic records engineer Tom Dowd; the man who coined the term "R&B," Jerry Wexler; rock critic Greg Shaw; songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (who wrote many of Elvis's songs); disc jockey Alan Freed; singer Neil Sedaka; writing team Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil; songwriter Mort Schuman; singer Ruth Brown; publisher Don Kirshner (responsible for creating America's "answer band" to the Beatles, the Monkees); performer Bobby Darin; Ahmet Ertegun, who marketed Darin as Atlantic's Elvis; singer Connie Francis; writer Jack Keller; songwriter Paul Simon; disc jockey Dick Clark; historian Alan Warner; producer Brooks Arthur; songwriter (and husband of Carole King) Gerry Goffin; producers Phil Ramone and Phil Spector; singer Dionne Warwick; songwriting team Hal David and Burt Bacharach; singer Shirley Reeves; writer/producer Russ Titelman; singers Tony Orlando, Lesley Gore, and Bobby Vee; writers Ellie Greenwich and Lamont Dozier; folk-rock legend Bob Dylan; "Stand by Me" crooner Ben E. King; producer George Goldner, writer/producer Shadow Morton; Shangri-La front woman Mary Weiss; and Kirshner's semi-fictional band the Archies.
Details
- NETWORK: A&E
- DATE: August 27, 2001 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:29:37
- COLOR/B&W: Color and B&W
- CATALOG ID: T:63896
- GENRE: Arts documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Music, popular (Songs, etc.); Song recording industry
- SERIES RUN: A&E - TV, 2001
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Peter Jones … Executive Producer
- Andrew Tilles … Supervising Producer
- Morgan Neville … Producer, Director, Writer
- Scott Lenz … Associate Producer
- John Turturro … Narrator
- The Archies
- Brooks Arthur
- Burt Bacharach
- Jeff Barry
- The Beatles
- Ruth Brown
- Ray Charles
- Dick Clark
- Bobby Darin
- Hal David
- Tom Dowd
- Lamont Dozier
- Bob Dylan
- Ahmet Ertegun
- Connie Francis
- Alan Freed
- Gerry Goffin
- George Goldner
- Lesley Gore
- Ellie Greenwich
- Jack Keller
- Ben E. King
- Carole King
- Don Kirshner
- Steve Lawrence
- Jerry Leiber
- Barry Mann
- The Monkees
- Shadow Morton
- Tony Orlando
- Doc Pomus
- Elvis Presley
- Phil Ramone
- Shirley Reeves
- David Sanjek
- Mort Schuman
- Neil Sedaka
- Greg Shaw
- Paul Simon
- Phil Spector
- Mike Stoller
- Russ Titelman
- Bobby Vee
- Alan Warner
- Dionne Warwick
- Cynthia Weil
- Mary Weiss
- Jerry Wexler