Barry Mann
b. 9 February 1939, Brooklyn, New York, USA. One of the leading pop songwriters of his generation. Although trained as an architect, Mann began his career in music following a summer singing engagement in the Catskills resort. He initially composed material for Elvis Presley's publishers Hill & Range, before briefly collaborating with Howie Greenfield. In 1961, he enjoyed a Top 10 hit in his own right with Who Put The Bomp?, but thereafter it was as a composer that he dominated the Hot 100. During the same year as his solo hit, Mann had found a new songwriting partner in Cynthia Weil, whom he soon married. Their first success together was Tony Orlando's Bless You (1961), a simple but effective love song, which endeared them to their new employer, bubblegum genius Don Kirschner, who housed a wealth of songwriting talent in the cubicles of his Brill Building offices. With intense competition from those other husband-and-wife teams Jeff Berry and Ellie Greenwich, and Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Mann and Weil responded with a wealth of classic songs which still sound fresh and impressive to this day. Like all great songwriters, they adapted well to different styles and themes, and this ensured that their compositions were recorded by a broad range of artists. There was the evocative urban romanticism of the Crystals’ Uptown (1962) and the Drifters’ On Broadway (1963), novelty teen fodder such as Eydie Gorme's Blame It On The Bossa Nova (1963) and Paul Petersen's My Dad (1963), the desolate neuroticism of Gene Pitney's I'm Gonna Be Strong (1964) and the Righteous Brothers’ You've Lost That Lovin Feelin’’(1964), and classic mid-60s protest songs courtesy of the Animals’ We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, Jody Miller's Home Of The Brave, Only In America ( Jay And The Americans) and Kicks ( Paul Revere And The Raiders) 
By the late '60s, Mann and Weil left Kirschner and moved to Hollywood. Throughout this period, they continued to enjoy hit success with Bobby Vinton's I Love How You Love Me (1968), Jay And The Americans’ Walking In The Rain (1969) and B.J. Thomas’ I Just Can't Help Believing (1970). Changes in the pop marketplace subsequently reduced their hit output, but there were some notable successes such as Dan Hill's Sometimes When We Touch (1977). Mann himself still craved recognition as a performer and won a recording contract, but his album work, most notably 1977's aptly titled SURVIVOR failed to match the sales of his and his wife's much covered golden hits. SURVIVOR was produced by Bruce Johnson and Terry Melcher, and was regarded as a leading example of the '70s’ singer/songwriter oeuvre.