Mann, Barry and Cynthia Weil

Extract

Songwriting team. Songwriter Barry Mann (b Brooklyn, NY, 9 Feb 1939) and lyricist Cynthia Weil (b New York, NY, 18 Oct 1940) became a prominent songwriting duo at Don Kirshner and Al Nevins’s Aldon Records in the 1960s. Mann was hired at Aldon in 1958 and his song “She Say (Oom Dooby Doom)” became a hit for the Diamonds in 1959. Weil was a lyricist for Frank Loesser before moving to Aldon, where she met Mann. In the five years following their marriage in 1961, they wrote over 50 hits, including “Uptown” (1963) for the Crystals and “Blame It on the Bossa Nova” (1963) with Eydie Gormé. Some of their material was controversial, such as the 1965 Animals hit, “We Gotta Get out of This Place,” which became an anthem for Vietnam protesters. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” (1964), written with Phil Spector, was Mann and Weil’s biggest hit....