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Saturday, June 21, 2014
Songwriter Gerry Goffin Passes
Gerry Goffin dead at 75: Carole King’s ex-husband and songwriting partner leaves unsung musical legacy
New York-born lyricist who co-wrote songs like ‘Natural Woman’ and ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ died Thursday in his Los Angeles home, his wife announced.
GAB Archive/RedfernsLyricist Gerry Goffin, best known for his collaborations with his former wife, Carole King, died Thursday at the age of 75.
Gerry Goffin, who with his first wife Carole King wrote classic 1960s songs like "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "Natural Woman," died Thursday at his Los Angeles home. He was 75.
His second wife Michelle said he died of natural causes.
"Gerry was my first love," King said in a statement Thursday. "He had a profound impact on my life and the rest of the world. Gerry was a good man and a dynamic force, whose words and creative influence will resonate for generations to come."
Goffin grew up in Queens with his mother and grandfather, whom he described as difficult. He said he was an introverted child who had a gift for science and a secret passion for music.
He met fellow New Yorker King when both were students at Queens College. They married in August 1959, when he was 20 and she was 17.
They began a songwriting partnership in which she composed most of the music and he wrote most of the lyrics. They wrote dozens of bad songs while he worked as a chemist and she took a secretarial job.
Gerry Goffin, Carole King's Ex-husband, Dies At 75
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Gerry Goffin, a prolific and multi-dimensional lyricist who with his then-wife and songwriting partner Carole King wrote such hits as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow,"...
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Gerry Goffin, Carole King's Ex-husband, Dies At 75
Gerry Goffin, a prolific and multi-dimensional lyricist who with his then-wife and songwriting partner Carole King wrote such hits as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow,"...
His goal, he later said, was to write the kind of Broadway music on which he had grown up while listening to radio shows like "The Make-Believe Ballroom."
King wanted to write rock 'n' roll.
Rock 'n' roll won out when they had their first hit, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," a No. 1 in 1961 for the Shirelles.
Goffin said that when "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" reached No. 1, they took a limousine to his chemical-testing job so he could tell his boss there he quit. He was 21.
Goffin and King became one of several star writing teams at New York's famous Brill Building in the early 1960s, along with Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry and Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann.
Michael Ochs ArchivesHusband and wife singer songwriting team Goffin and King rehearse during a recording session in a New York studio in 1959.
The late Greenwich recalled years later that "We would go on weekend trips with Carole and Gerry, and I remember on the way back we'd listen to the radio and have a contest about whose songs we heard the most."
Goffin and King wrote often for "girl groups" like the Cookies ("Chains") the Chiffons ("One Fine Day") and Little Eva, who was their babysitter and had a No. 1 hit with their dance workout "The Locomotion."
They also had hits like "Take Good Care of My Baby" for Bobby Vee, "Every Breath You Take" for Gene Pitney, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for the Monkees, "Crying in the Rain" for the Everly Brothers, "Up On the Roof" for the Drifters and the sentimental "You've Got a Friend" for James Taylor.
Goffin and King divorced in 1968, though they continued to collaborate periodically. King said in her autobiography that Goffin had ongoing problems from his LSD use in the 1960s.
Their relationship is dramatized in the Broadway musical "Beautiful."
R. Diamond/WireImageCarole King and Gerry Goffin reunite during for the 2004 Grammy Awards.
Born in Brooklyn and a graduate of Brooklyn Tech High School, Goffin eventually moved to the West Coast and remained active in the music business for the rest of his life.
His later songs included the Whitney Houston hit "Saving All My Love For You" and Diana Ross's "Theme From Mahoghany," both of which he cowrote with Michael Masser.
He and King were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
He is survived by his wife and five children.
At last night's performance of "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" at the Sondheim Theatre, the cast dedicated the performance to him, and they dimmed the lights at the theater.
GAB Archive/RedfernsLyricist Gerry Goffin, best known for his collaborations with his former wife, Carole King, died Thursday at the age of 75.
His goal, he later said, was to write the kind of Broadway music on which he had grown up while listening to radio shows like "The Make-Believe Ballroom."
Michael Ochs ArchivesHusband and wife singer songwriting team Goffin and King rehearse during a recording session in a New York studio in 1959.
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