Photo: Cynthia Weil & Barry Mann | By Jem Aswad, Variety | Grammy-winning Songwriters Hall of Fame member Cynthia Weil — who co-wrote “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway,” “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” “Walking in the Rain,” “You’re My Soul and Inspiration,” “Uptown,” “He’s So Shy,” “Kicks,” “Here You Come Again,” “Through the Fire,” “Somewhere Out There” and many other hits, mostly with her husband and Brill Building colleague Barry Mann — has died, her daughter confirmed to TMZ on Friday morning. No cause of death was announced; she was 82.
“My mother, Cynthia Weil, was the greatest mother, grandmother and wife our family could ever ask for,” Jenn Mann said. “She was my best friend, confidant, and my partner in crime and an idol and trailblazer for women in music.”
Mann, pictured above with Weil in 2013, added, “I’m a lucky man. I had two for one: my wife and one of the greatest songwriters in the world, my soul and inspiration.”
A New York City native, Weil was one of the top “Brill Building” songwriters that came out of the Midtown Manhattan building of the same name and spawned literally hundreds of hits throughout the 1960s for the Righteous Brothers, the Ronettes, the Drifters, the Monkees, the Animals, multiple Phil Spector productions and many others. . . .
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Songwriters Hall of Fame CEO Linda Moran said on Friday, “At a time when there were relatively few major female songwriters — and even those who were working often were not sufficiently acknowledged in the credits or financially — Cynthia played a major role in paving the way for future generations of women to not only be creative, but to claim the credit due to them.
“Cynthia and Barry were more than worthy recipients of our most esteemed honor, the Johnny Mercer Award,” she continued. “But to be extolled by their daughter not only as an iconic songwriter but the best wife, mother and grandmother, is the greatest eulogy one could ask for. Cynthia would like that, I think.”
Born in 1940 to a conservative Jewish family, Weil trained as an actress, singer and dancer, but her songwriting talent shone through and she became a protégé of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Frank Loesser. One day, she recalled to the Times, “I was writing with a young Italian boy singer, the Frankie Avalon of his day, named Teddy Randazzo, when Barry came in to play him a song. I asked the receptionist, ‘Who is this guy? Does he have a girlfriend?’
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In 1987, she and Mann were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and later received the organization’s highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award. In 2010 they received the Ahmet Ertegun Award from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; she was the first woman to receive the honor.
Weil later worked as a novelist — beginning with “I’m Glad I Did,” a mystery set in 1963 — and in 2004, she and Mann launched the jukebox musical based on their songs, “They Wrote That?,” in which he sang their hits and she told the stories behind them.
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Yet, as she reflected in 2016, “I never thought the songs would live. I thought they would have their little time on the charts, and they would be over, and that would be it.”
Read the rest of the bio/obit here:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/cynthia-weil-co-writer-ve-145110034.html
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OTHER NOTABLE MUSICIANS DEATHS
June 2023
6: Tony McPhee, 79, English Guitarist (The Groundhogs), complications from a fall.
5: Nurhan Damcioglu, 82, Turkish Kanto artist, singer and actress, heart failure; Astrud Gilberto, 83, Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer (“The Girl from Ipanema”), Grammy winner (1965); Werner Herbers, 82, Dutch oboist and conductor.
4: Dora Maria, 89, Mexican folk singer, respiratory arrest; George Winston, 73, American pianist (December, Summer, Forest), Grammy winner (1996), cancer.
2: Kaija Saariaho, 70, Finnish composer (Petals, La Passion de Simone, D’Om le Vrai Sens), glioblastoma.
1: Pacho El Antifeka, 42, Puerto Rican rapper, shot; Pedro Messone, 88 Chilean singer, composer and actor; Roy Taylor, Irish singer and bass player (Jump the Gun); Cynthia Weil, 82, American Hall of Fame songwriter (“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”, “Here You Come Again”, “Somewhere Out There”), Grammy winner (1988).
May 2023
31: Dickie Harrell, 82, American Hall of Fame drummer (Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps); Kurt Widner, 82, Swiss baritone and voice teacher (City of Basel Music Academy).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2023
Photo: Cynthia & Barry