About Jeff Barry
Jeff Barry was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 3, 1938. As a child, he developed two interests which never left him: cowboys and music. After graduating from Erasmus Hall High School and doing a stint in the army, where he often sang with military bands, he enrolled in City College of New York to study engineering;, but his desire to sing professionally was overshadowing any other vocational leanings he may have had. In 1958, through a family friend, Jeff was introduced to someone in the music business, publisher Arnold Shaw. Jeff had written several original tunes, which he performed when he auditioned for Shaw. Although impressed with Jeff's singing voice, Shaw was even more impressed with his talent as a songwriter. Jeff was signed to RCA Records and in short order recorded and released the self-penned "It's Called Rock and Roll," backed with "Hip Couple." Other singles followed, like "Teen Quartet," "It Won't Hurt," and "Lonely Lips," written with Ben Raleigh, one of his finest early efforts as a vocalist. In between, Jeff's talents as a composer were beginning to overshadow his singing aspirations. In 1960 he landed on the R&B charts with the lovely ballad "Teenage Sonata," as recorded by Sam Cooke. Later that year Jeff realized his first pop hit with another Barry/Raleigh collaboration, "Tell Laura I Love Her." Given his love of cowboys and horses, his original lyric had the hero, Tommy, dying after being gored by a Brahma bull during a rodeo; the publisher, however, felt that not many people would be able to identify with that scenario, so Jeff changed it to a stock-car race and a crash. Brilliantly executed by RCA label mate Ray Peterson, "Tell Laura" sailed up the charts into the Top Ten in the U.S. and not too long afterwards was covered by British singer Ricky Valance, who took it all the way to #1 in the United Kingdom.In October of 1962 Jeff married Ellie Greenwich, a pretty blonde whom he'd met at a family gathering a couple of years before (her uncle was married to his cousin). Ellie was herself a tunesmith and had been working with the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Ellie introduced Jeff to her newest songwriting partner, Phil Spector. During the next two years the songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich was virtually unstoppable--along with Spector, they defined the Girl Group sound, turning out hit after hit for The Ronettes ("Be My Baby," "Baby, I Love You"), The Crystals ("Da Doo Ron Ron," "Then He Kissed Me") and others. In 1964 Jeff and Ellie, with Leiber and Stoller, started a new label, Red Bird Records, and began cranking out hits for The Dixie Cups ("Chapel of Love") and The Shangri-Las ("Leader Of The Pack"). By 1965, despite their enormous success as songwriting partners, harmony was absent from Jeff and Ellie's marriage. Within a year the couple divorced, and shortly after the Spector-produced "River Deep, Mountain High" was recorded by Tina Turner and released to a less than favorable reception, Jeff and Ellie's professional alliance was history as well, but not before they'd discovered a brilliant new young singer/songwriter named Neil Diamond and co-produced his first recordings for songwriter Bert Berns and Bert Berns'' label, Bang Records.In 1966 Barry was recruited by music supervisor Don Kirshner to produce sessions for The Monkees. Jeff brought several Neil Diamond tunes for the group to record, among them a gem that would go on to become one of the biggest-selling...