I’m not sure what she died of. Just found out. She wrote some of my favorite songs of all time–“Be My Baby,” “Da Doo Run Run,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” and many others.
Bad year for those associated with the Wall of Sound, with Estelle Bennett dying earlier this year and Phil Spector being convicted of murder and all.
RIP Ellie.
Great music, great songs. RIP.
Yeah, heard this on NPR radio on the way home. My generation.
I think you can click on live links to hear snippets of the songs.
Holy crap! You can watch youtube links of entire performances! Crystals!
Shangri Las!
No shit; don’t forget Larry Knechtel.
Rest in peace, Ellie.
Her true talent was alliteration
Doo Wha Diddy Diddy
Da Doo Ron Ron
Hanky Panky
Sugar Sugar
Jingle Jangle
Chip Chip
Bang Shang A Lang
Sha Na Boom Boom
Skooby Do
You forgot* “Chapel of Love”*.
I confess to having never heard of her until hearing the obituary story on NPR last night.
But, heck yeah, I know her music. Truly a very talented person.
Very sad, a tremendous songwriter. And a pretty good singer - her 1965 recording of “You Don’t Know” is terrific.
It was the processional at my wife’s and my wedding sung by a full chorus. It was beautiful. So many of her songs meant a lot to my generation, but that one - my wife and I still stop and sing and dance along whenever we hear it.
I was rewatching some of this documentary on youtube about the girl group sound of the sixties that features interviews with Ellie Greenwich along with others. (Well, half of the documentary is up, anyway.)
Apparently a lot of her songs were turned into a show off Broadway about her life called Leader of the Pack, too, but it was before my time so I never got to see it.
Thanks for sharing and finding that. I missed it the first time around. Fascinating.