The Return of the Classic Films Obituary Thread

[CBHagman]

44. Lyricist Cynthia Weil, 82

You've heard her songs, even if you haven't heard her name, and you've heard those songs everywhere, including at the movies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/06/02/cynthia-weil-lyricist-dead/

Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, married in 1961, were one of popular music’s most successful teams, part of a remarkable ensemble recruited by impresarios Don Kirshner and Al Nevins and based in Manhattan’s Brill Building neighborhood, a few blocks from Times Square. With such hit-making combinations as Carole King and Gerry Goffin and Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, the Brill Building song factory turned out many of the biggest singles of the ’60s and beyond.

Ms. Weil and Mann were key collaborators with producer Phil Spector on songs for the Ronettes (“Walking in the Rain”), the Crystals (“He’s Sure the Boy I Love”) and other performers, and also provided hits for performers such as Dolly Parton and Hanson. “Don’t Know Much,” a Linda Ronstadt-Aaron Neville duet they helped write, was a Top 5 hit that won a best pop performance Grammy in 1990.

Their most famous song, a work of history overall, was “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” an anthem of “blue-eyed soul” produced by Spector as if scoring a tragedy and sung with desperate fury by the Righteous Brothers. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” topped the charts in 1965 and was covered by other artists.