Composer Cynthia Weil was honored during a music-filled memorial service in Beverly Hills.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — As guests gathered at Sunday’s music-filled memorial for Cynthia Weil, they smiled in recognition and sang along to a string of hit songs she co-wrote that were played over speakers in the lush courtyard of the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Weil, the Grammy-winning lyricist who enjoyed a decades-long partnership with husband Barry Mann and helped write “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway,” “Walking in the Rain,” and many other beloved tunes, passed away on June 1 at the age of 82.
Singer Tony Orlando, who served as the master of ceremonies for the private event on a small stage with a grand piano, reminded attendees that despite the cloudy skies, the day was not to be mournful but a sunny celebration.
“I want the applause to be loud!” he said. Orlando performed “Bless You,” the 1961 ballad that gave Weil and Mann their first top 20 hit. They were married within months of the song’s release.
White-coated servers distributed trays of bright green apple martinis, Weil’s favorite cocktail, to her friends, family members, and show business contemporaries. Among those raising their glasses were Mann, record producer Lou Adler, singer Carole Bayer Sager, and songwriters Carole King, Barry Gibb, Mike Stoller, and Diane Warren.
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Weil and Mann were one of popular music’s most successful teams, part of a group of new songwriters based in Manhattan’s Brill Building neighborhood, near Times Square. Alongside hit-making duos like King and Gerry Goffin and Barry and Ellie Greenwich, the Brill Building churned out many of the biggest singles of the ’60s and beyond.
The couple collaborated with producer Phil Spector on songs for the Ronettes (“Walking in the Rain”), the Crystals (“He’s Sure the Boy I Love”), and other vocalists, and also provided hits for everyone from Lionel Richie to Leo Sayer.
Their most famous collaboration, a song that would become iconic, was “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” a soulful anthem produced by Spector with sweeping strings and sung with desperate intensity by the Righteous Brothers, Bill Medley, and Bobby Hatfield. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” topped the charts in 1965 and has been covered by numerous other artists.
Speaking at the memorial via a recorded video, Bill Medley said Weil and Mann didn’t just write the Righteous Brothers a hit, “They wrote us a career!” According to Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), the song was played more on radio and television in the 20th century.
Dolly Parton, who also appeared in the video, recalled her career being “shot out into space” when the country star scored a crossover pop hit in 1977 with “Here You Come Again,” written by Weil and Mann.
“She had a great sense of work,” Parton said.
Weil and Mann were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. They were supporting characters in the hit Broadway musical about King, “Beautiful,” which opened in 2013 and depicted the intense friendship and rivalry between the two married couples. Mann and Weil’s musical, “They Wrote That?,” had a brief run in 2004.
On Sunday, with Paul Shaffer on piano, Carole King performed “Somewhere Out There,” a song Weil co-wrote with James Horner for the soundtrack of “An American Tail.” It won Grammys in 1987 for Best Song and Best Song for a film or television, and was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe.
Weil’s daughter, Dr. Jenn Mann, said the composer passed away last Thursday at her home in Beverly Hills, California. She remembered her mother Sunday as a loving wife to Mann, a devoted grandmother to her two girls, an animal lover, and a soft-hearted romantic who could surprise people with her no-nonsense business sense.
While many of Weil’s contemporaries struggled after the Beatles took off in the mid-1960s, she continued to produce hits, sometimes with Mann, or in partnerships. She helped write the Peabo Bryson ballad “If Ever You’re in My Arms Again”; James Ingram’s “Just Once”; and the Pointer Sisters’ “He’s So Shy.” In 1997, she returned to the top 10 with Hanson’s “I Will Come to You.”
And her talents extended beyond love ballads. She and Mann wrote one of rock’s earliest anti-drug songs, “Kicks,” a hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders in 1966. The Animals had a hit with their tale of working-class frustration, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” The Crystals’ “Uptown” was a 1961 hit that touched upon race and class in ways rarely heard in rock’s early years.
Appearing on video, rocker Paul Stanley of KISS recalled being an aspiring songwriter as a teenager in New York and scouring the
credits on his favorite records.
“Eventually, songs that I loved, I would see her name on it,” Stanley said.
