Black pop songwriting 1963-1966: an analysis of U.S. top forty hits by Cooke, Mayfield, Stevenson, Robinson, and Holland-Dozier-Holland.(Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, William Stevenson, Smokey Robinson, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland)(Critical essay)

Black songwriter-performers such as Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry achieved success on the U.S. pop charts (1) as leading contributors to the development of 1950s rock and roll. Rock and roll's impact had waned by the late 1950s, however, and white songwriter-producers dominated the creation of U.S. pop hits. Many of the successful songwriters from this period have been referred to as "Brill Building" composers--so named after a building (located at 1619 Broadway in New York) that first housed music publishers during the Great Depression. Successful writers and writing teams (e.g., Don Kirsher/Al Nevins, Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller, Doc Pomas/Mort Shuman, Carole King/Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, and Phil Spector) created material for a wide range of artists (including male and female soloists, duos, and girl groups). They typically functioned as producers as well as songwriters, and some went on to form influential record companies such as Aldon (Kirshner/Nevins), Redbird (Leiber/Stoller), and Philles (Spector/Sill). (2)

Betrock (1982, 38) describes the Brill Building sound as emanating "from the stretch along Broadway between 49th and 53rd streets." He also provides a sense of the frenetic activity of the New York pop scene: "You could write a song there, or make the rounds of publishers with one until someone bought it. Then you could go to another floor and get a quick arrangement, ... get some copies run off ... book an hour at one of the demo studios ... round up some musicians and singers ... and finally cut a demo of the song" (39).

The dominance of writer-producers meant that black performers of the day (like their white counterparts) depended largely on these professional writers to supply them with potential pop-chart hits. (3) For example, Leiber/Stoller provided material for the Coasters and the Drifters, Goffin/King created hits for the Drifters, Shirelles, Cookies, and Little Eva, while Mann/Weil's artist roster included the Drifters and Crystals.

The first sign of a new "crossover" breakthrough into the pop charts for black songwriters came in the late 1950s, in the form of hits by Sam Cooke and Curtis Mayfield. Described by Reed (2003, 89-90) as "the first widely-celebrated professional gospel singer to seek a secular career," Cooke achieved a number-one U.S. Top Forty hit in 1957 with "You Send Me." By 1963, he had a total of eighteen Top Forty entries (many self-penned). Mayfield's first U.S Top Forty hit was "For Your Precious Love" (written for Jerry Butler in 1958). He followed this up with a series of hits for artists such as Jerry Butler, the Impressions, and Major Lance.

During the early 1960s, black songwriters associated with the Motown label joined Cooke and Mayfield on the pop charts. The Motown Record Corporation (together with Jobete Music Publishing Company) was created by Berry Gordy in 1959. Gordy had previously operated an unsuccessful jazz record shop (from 1953 to 1955), eventually receiving some financial rewards by writing songs for Jackie Wilson. Gordy was convinced by William "Smokey" Robinson (whom he met in 1957) that "the way to really make it was to stop leasing records to others and to begin marketing and merchandising their music themselves" (Robinson, cited in George 1985, 27).

Motown released its first song in mid-1959, and by 1961, the company had produced a number-one R&B hit (and number-two pop hit) with "Shop Around," written by Robinson and performed by the Miracles. With an increasing roster of performing artists, an established core of specialist session players, and talented and ambitious young writer-producers, the company soon achieved considerable pop-chart success, ultimately becoming "the largest independent label and the largest black-owned business in America of the 1960s" (Kooijman 2006, 123). Smokey Robinson and the team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland (Holland-Dozier-Holland, hereafter referred to as H-D-H) were Motown's main songwriters, and they monopolized the production of pop hit songs for the company. A&R director William Stevenson also (co)wrote a number of early hits for the label.

By 1963, then, black songwriters were achieving unprecedented pop-chart success. (4) Table 1 lists the number of U.S. Top Forty hits by the most successful black pop songwriters of 1963-1966. (5) It demonstrates that Motown's impressive chart achievements coincided with Curtis Mayfield's most prolific period as a pop writer while simultaneously overlapping with the final phase of Sam Cooke's career.