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RAINDROPS
“THE KIND OF BOY YOU CAN’T FORGET”
(Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich)
Jubilee 5455
No. 17 September 28, 1963
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Jeff Barry (b. Jeffery Adeberg, Apr. 3, 1938/Brooklyn) and Ellie Greenwich (b. Oct. 23, 1940/Brooklyn)
met at a family gathering in 1944; both were mere tots. The Adeberg and Greenwich familes were
related by marriage. Jeff’s family moved to Newark, where he listened to C& W; writing his first
tune, “I Gotta Gun, I Gotta Pony, I Gotta Sweatheart Too,” when seven.” Ellie’s folks moved to Long
Island, where while attending Levittown Memorial High, she wrote “The Moment I Saw Him.”
In 1959, after he graduated Erasmus Hall High, served time in the U.S. Army and began studies at City
College in New York, Jeff Barry–his self-created professional name–recorded his first disk, “Hip Couple,”
for HUGO & LUIG at RCA. Ellie, now a student at Hofstra University and unawares of Jeff, likewise
recorded one disk for RCA, “Silly Isn’t It” b/w “Cha Cha Charming,” as by Ellie Gaye. Neither 45 sold well.
Barry had just penned “Tell Laura Love Her” (#7,1960) for Ray Peterson, “The Water Is Red” for
JOHNNY CYMBALL and was a songwriter with E. B. Marks, when Jeff and Ellie met again–Thanksgiving
dinner at Ellie’s aunt’s house. Barry brought his wife; Ellie her accordion. As their relationship grew
and Barry’s marriage crumbled, Jeff included Ellie in his activities, paying her $15 a session to record
some demos on his songs. A few more Barry records were issued; as wereEllie disks attributed to Ellie
Gee & The Jets and “Kellie Douglas.” Nothing clicked.
When she graduated from college in 1961, Ellie auditioned for a staff writing position with the production
team of Leiber & Stoller. They hired her as a writer for Trio Music at $100 a week; soon Jeff was also with
Trio, and together, Barry and Greenwich went on to compose some of the finest moments in rock’n’roll
history: “Be My Baby,” “Chapel Of Love,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” “Hanky Panky,”
“I Can Hear Music,” “Leader Of The Pack,” “The Look Of Love,” and “River Deep, Mountain High”…
Meanwhile, Jeff recorded as “the Redwoods,” for Epic and “the Spartans” for Web. Flops both.
The sale of most of there tunes involved the creation of a demonstration record, a demo-disk. At times,
the demo sounded good enough for an interested record company to issue it as a finished product. Such
was the case with Ellie and Jeff’s previous “group” records and such was the Raindrops — actually just
Ellie and Jeff handling all voices.
“We did this demo for a group called THE SENSATIONS,” Ellie told Charlotte Grieg in Will You Still Love
Me Tomorrow. “It was a song called ‘What A Guy’, which we thought would be great for them. We made
the demo, and the publishers said, ‘This could be a record.’ I said, ‘What do you mean? There is no
group.’ But there had to be a group. So we released it as a record by ‘The Raindrops’ [naming themselves
after a record that Ellie loved, Dee Clark’s “Raindrops”]. Back then, a lot of labels put out ‘dummy
groups.’ We’d throw a few people together and have them go out and lip-sync the record. There really
wasn’t a ‘Raindrops.”‘
Group or not, the Raindrops charted with “The Kind Of Boy You Can’t Forget” as well as a string of others–
“That Boy Joe” (#64, 1964), a cover version of THE MONOTONES’ “Book Of Love” (#62, 1964), and “One
More Tear” (#97, 1964). “What A Guy,” that song that the Sensations had turned down, went to number
41 in 1963. When the chartings stopped, the name was shelved.
“Jeff and I lasted as a writing team about as long as we lasted as a married team–a little less than five
years,” Ellie explained to Joe Smith in Off the Record. “We tried to write together right after we split
up, but it was awful. We couldn’t sit and write ‘Baby, I love you’ with divorce papers sitting right next
to us.”
When the marriage and the words stopped, Ellie, among other things, tried to create another demo-
group, the Meantime–to little success–and to establish herself as a solo singer, remaking LILLIAN
BRIGGS’ “I Want Want You To Be My Baby”– likewise. A couple of LPs (Ellie Greenwich Composes,
Produces, and Sings, 1968; Let it Be Written, Let it Be Sung, 1973) and some singles were issued.
Thereafter, she turned to writing and singing jingles. Clarence Clemons and Ellen Foley have recorded
her newer tunes, and she occasionally appears on record as a back-up vocalist, as she has done for
Biondie, Deborah Harry, Cyndi Lauper, and BERNADETTE PETERS. In the mid-’80s, Ms. Greenwich
was the subject of an Broadway production, Leader of the Pack. Behind-the-scenes, Ellie formed Hook,
Line & Sinker, a jingle company, to write/produce/sing commericials for Clairol, Revlon, McDonalds,
and Hebrew National Hot Dogs.
Jeff went on to produce hits for Monkees and the Archies, producing all of the laters albums and 45s;
meaning, “Sugar Sugar,” one of the most hated/loved tunes of all time. Barry went on to head Steed
Records, producing/sometimes writing disks for ILLUSION, Andy Kim and ROBIN MCNAMARA; to co-
write/produce BOBBY BLOOM’s “Montego Bay, numerous sides for the Persuasions, John Travolta and
the soundtrack to The ldolmaker (1980). Jeff Barry resides in semi-retirement in Bel Air, California.