Mort Shuman

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Mortimer "Mort" Shuman (born November 12, 1938 in New York City , † November 2, 1991 in London ) was an American singer and songwriter . He wrote almost 700 songs, many of them in collaboration with Doc Pomus , who mostly contributed the lyrics. Shuman's most famous pieces include Save the Last Dance for Me and Sweets for My Sweet as well as numerous songs by Elvis Presley such as Surrender , Viva Las Vegas or His Latest Flame .

First successes

Mort Shuman had studied music and was a trained concert pianist ; but his love was rhythm and blues , which attracted him to write songs. However, it took an encounter with the already established songwriter Doc Pomus in 1958 before he came to success in partnership with him. Both found employment in New York's Brill Building , a mecca of the pop music industry.

Shuman's first composition with Pomus was Plain Jane for Bobby Darin in January 1959. It followed for Fabian in the same month I'm A Man and the follow-up piece Turn Me Loose in March 1959. The first big hit for the mostly music composing Shuman was in April 1959 the romantic A Teenager in Love for Dion and the Belmonts . The Drifters' first top position in the US pop charts was Save the Last Dance for Me in September 1960 .

The success also made Elvis Presley's management aware of the young team. If Turn Me Loose had been rejected, A Mess of Blues - recorded on March 21, 1960 - was relegated to the B-side of the Elvis single It's Now or Never . This began an almost five-year partnership between the writing team and Presley. Then Pomus / Shuman wrote the first A-page for Presley with Surrender . However, the copyright of the song recorded on October 30, 1960 goes back to the year 1904 under the original Italian title Torna a Surriento (Come back to Sorrento), written by Gianbattista & Ernesto de Curtis. Pomus / Shuman had varied the score and wrote an English text. The 56-year-old cover version in its English version became the team's first No. 1 place for Presley. The Pomus / Shuman team wrote a total of 19 pieces (including Viva Las Vegas , Suspicion , Little Sister , His Latest Flame ) for Presley.

In the meantime, Fabian was given Tiger (June 1959) and Hound Dog Man (November 1959). In the same year a successful collaboration with The Drifters began . The first composition by Pomus / Shuman for the black vocal group, which is subject to strong personal fluctuations, was (If You Cry) True Love, True Love in September 1959, two more hits followed, until their collaboration culminated in Save the Last Dance For Me . I Count the Tears (December 1960) and Sweets for My Sweet (September 1961) were also originally from the Drifters, but two years later they were successfully covered by the Searchers for the English market. Out of many other songs for other performers, a big hit by Pomus / Shuman for Andy Williams deserves to be highlighted: Can't Get Used to Losing You from February 1963 was number 2 on the charts in the USA and Great Britain.

Change to Europe

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Sorrow
  DE 24 06/13/1977 (14 weeks)
  AT 2 04/15/1977 (32 weeks)

Pomus / Shuman moved to England in 1964, where Shuman composed with other partners. Along with John Leslie McFarland was for those of Brian Epstein managed and George Martin produced formation Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas in 1964 in March, Little Children , a No. 1 in England.. The Hollies also benefited from Shuman; he co-authored Here I Go Again with Clive Westlake in May 1964 . In cooperation with Kenny Lynch, the pop classic Sha-la-la-la-lee was created for Small Faces in February 1966 .

When he came across the work of Jacques Brel in the same year , he was fascinated: he spent the next few years translating his songs into English, namely titles that Scott Walker published from 1967 (e.g. Amsterdam , Jackie , Next or Mathilde ) and even wrote a musical about him in 1968, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris , which had some success as an off-Broadway play . At the same time, Shuman made his first steps as a solo artist in France and had a few hits, including the number one Le lac majeur in 1973 . The German version of the song, which he also sang, was called Lago Maggiore im Schnee , but did not make it into the charts. For this he had a hit in Germany in June 1977 with the title Sorrow , which was part of the soundtrack of the film Her with the little English women. For the soundtrack, Shuman was nominated for the César .

After living in Paris for 15 years, Shuman moved back to London in 1986 to pursue a career as a singer in the English-speaking world. But the hoped-for success did not materialize. In October 1988 he wrote the little successful musical Budgie together with Don Black . Mort Shuman died in London in 1991 at the age of 52 during an operation for liver cancer . In 1992 he was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame .

Song statistics

According to Broadcast Music Incorporated , Shuman has recorded a total of 681 songs, including 26 for Elvis Presley. In 2015, Rolling Stone listed Shuman, together with Pomus, at 61st of the 100 best songwriters of all time .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://invisiblebordeaux.blogspot.com/2015/03/new-york-london-paris-cauderan-life-of.html
  2. ↑ Chart sources: DE AT
  3. ↑ The 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Rolling Stone , August 2015, accessed August 7, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Shuman, Mort
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shuman, Mortimer (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 1991
Place of death London