Howard Greenfield

Howard Greenfield (born March 15, 1936 in Brooklyn , New York , † March 4, 1986 in Los Angeles ) was an American lyricist and songwriter . He wrote many of his well-known hits with his childhood friend Neil Sedaka , including his number one hits Breaking Up Is Hard to Do and Oh! Carol and Tony Christie's number one hit, Is This the Way to Amarillo? Also from the pen of Greenfields and Sedaka came the song Love Will Keep Us Together , which won the Grammy for the single of the year in the recording of The Captain & Tennille in 1976 . Together with Jack Keller , Greenfield wrote the number one hits for Connie Francis, Everybody’s Somebody's Fool and My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own .

Life

Most of his lyrics were set to music with compositions by his childhood friend Neil Sedaka at Aldon Music Publishing , which was located 1 block from the famous Brill Building on 1650 Broadway. Most of the songs dealt with teenage problems, which was their employer's core business. Both began in July 1958 as composers with Stupid Cupid for the not yet established Connie Francis and landed their first number one hit in the British charts . Sedaka sang the next composition The Diary himself in December 1958 and with this single it was able to penetrate to number 14 in the US charts . In October 1959, Sedaka paid homage to his childhood sweetheart Carole King Oh! Carol , who reached number nine on the US charts, number three in the UK and number one in Italy. Stairway to Heaven also rose to ninth place in the US and eighth in the UK in March 1960. Sedaka interpreted four bigger hits written by the Greenfield / Sedaka team, including Calender Girl with a series of months (December 1960, # 4 / USA, # 8 / UK), Little Devil (May 1961, # 11 / USA, # 9 / UK), Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen (November 1961, # 6 / USA, # 3 / UK) and the biggest hit Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (June 1962, # 1 / USA ). The latter is also in a German version as a farewell is so difficult to appear with Anna-Lena Löfgren (Metronom 1962). The songs sung by Sedaka alone were sold 25 million times.

In the meantime, the Greenfield / Sedaka team had also written songs for other artists. In April 1960 the teen idol Jimmy Clanton took over Another Sleepless Night , followed in September 1960 Passing Time for the girls' trio The Cookies and Rumors for Johnny Crawford in November 1962. In March 1963, two compositions came out, namely Charms for Bobby Vee and Foolish Little Girl from the Shirelles (# 4 / USA). In this last top ten hit of the Shirelles, however, Greenfield did not work with Sedaka, but with Helen Miller. There were also alternating author partnerships with Carole King ( Crying in the Rain for the Everly Brothers , January 1962) or with Jack Keller, with whom he wrote two number one hits for Connie Francis , namely Everybody's Somebody's Fool (May 1960, which also became its first number one in Germany as Love is a strange game ) and My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own (August 1960). Another hit was Francis ' Breakin' In a Brand New Broken Heart (April 1961, # 7 / USA). Frank Sinatra took over When Somebody Loves You in July 1965.

Aside from these teen pop products, they wrote for the 5th Dimension Workin 'on a Groovy Thing in July 1969 and the original Puppet Man in April 1970 , which was released in a cover version by Tom Jones in June 1971. The Greenfield-Sedaka partnership was revived until many years later, when the British pop tenor Tony Christie with Is This the Way to Amarillo? in November 1971 climbed to number one in the German charts ; a remake of the Christie song starring comedian Peter Kay became a number one hit in the UK in 2005 . The duo Captain & Tennille landed in April 1975 with Love Will Keep Us Together a million seller (US-1) and a placement at the Grammy Awards.

Greenfield died shortly before his 50th birthday in 1986 of heart failure caused by AIDS . He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame posthumously in 1991 .

According to Broadcast Music Incorporated , Greenfield has registered exactly 500 compositions for which he won a total of 20 BMI Song Winning Awards .

Web links

• Howard Greenfield at Allmusic (English)
• Biography on the Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Obituary in the New York Times

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Greenfield Biography , Allmusic Guide , viewed December 18, 2008
2. ↑ Where the Boys Went ( Memento of the original from August 24, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in Art & Understanding , America's AIDS Magazine, March 2004, viewed December 8, 2008. 
3. ^ Howard Greenfield at BMI ( Memento of the original dated December 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Homepage of the BMI.