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We’ve gone through many of the legendary Brill Building composers of the Fifties and Sixties, and now it’s time for the Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman Songbook. Doc and Mort didn’t have the longevity of Hal David & Burt Bacharach, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich, and Gerry Goffin & Carole King. By 1965, their partnership was over, so they missed the last days of the Brill Building before changes in musical tastes overcame the building’s denizens. But they left the world in 1991, having composed songs that will far outlive them.

Doc Pomus started out as Jerome Feldman, a Jewish boy with an affinity for R&B. Polio had left him walking on crutches, and with his goatee and hefty build, Doc was quite a figure in the Greenwich Village blues clubs of the postwar years. His first recordings went nowhere, but in the Fifties he found success as a songwriter, penning “Boogie Woogie Country Girl” for Big Joe Turner and “Lonely Avenue” for Ray Charles. His first real experience with the burgeoning field of rock and roll came out of an encounter with Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, two of the most important men in the Brill Building.

Doc Pomus took a song of his, “Youngblood”, to Lieber and Stoller, who reworked it and handed it to the Coasters. Although little was left of Doc’s original concept, Lieber and Stoller were happy to credit him as co-writer. This hit provided enough money for Doc to make his last appearance at a blues club in 1957 and concentrate on writing.

Mort Shuman had conservatory training, but his great love was R&B, and that found him working as a session pianist on Doc’s early failed recordings. In 1958, Mort and Doc formed their partnership and landed a gig at Don Kirshner’s Aldon Music, one of the great hit makers of the Brill Building.

Like so many Italian boys from Philadelphia and New York, rocker Fabian Forte had the secret desire to be the next Frank Sinatra. Considering that Sinatra was the greatest song stylist of the century, that was a huge set of shoes to fill. Fabian would have a few hits and then a career as a character actor in the movies and TV. In 1959, Doc and Mort gave Fabian two hits that would start him on his way. Both sold very well, but are largely forgotten today for a good reason: they are pretty bad.

Fabian: “Turn Me Loose”

Fabian: “Hound Dog Man”

I happen to like Fabian's "Hound Dog Man." The song was likely inspired by the movie version of Hound Dog Man (New York: Harper, 1949), Fred Gipson's bildungsroman about a boy growing up in the Texas hill country. Gipson is famous for his dog stories, notably Old Yeller (New York: Harper, 1956) and Savage Sam: The Story of the Son of Old Yeller (New York: Harper, 1962).

I haven't seen the movie version of Hound Dog Man, but I've read the book, which is my favorite of Gipson's works. It's long out of print and unlikely to ever be re-issued, due to its being highly politically incorrect.