Gee, Who Wrote That?, Cont

From the mid-Sixties on, there was an emergence of several groups that featured a singer/songwriter within their ranks.
Solo acts who also wrote their own material came to the forefront as well. (There were a few who'd done this previously, such as Neil Sedaka, Chuck Berry, Paul Anka, and Fats Domino, but they were the exception to the rule. Most tunes were supplied by professional songwriter/producers, most notably from the "Teen Pan Ally" set in the Brill Building-Gerry Goffin-Carole King, Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil, and Ellie Greenwich-Jeff Barry, among others.)
It's not that "Teen Pan Ally" ever went away; Goffin-King continued writing hits such as "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by The Monkees and "You Make Me Feel(Like A Natural Woman)" by Aretha Franklin. Greenwich and Barry went on to the Red Bird label (I believe they started or co-founded this ), where they wrote mega-hits for The Dixie Cups and The Shangri-Las, among others.
The duo of Burt Bacharach-Hal David really came to international promenience, particularly from 1964 on throughout the decade (The two were writing together and with other partners previously), but their collaboration with Dionne Warwick put all three on the map.
Bacharach-David were second only to Lennon-McCartney(of The Beatles, of course) as the preeminent songwriters of the day. Most of Dionne Warwick's classic hits, such as "Walk On By", "A House Is Not A Home", "Reach Out For Me", "Alfie", "Anyone Who Had A Heart", among countless others, were crafted by them. But Bacharach-David became in demand by other artists, for example: "What The World Needs Now" by Jackie DeShannon, "What's New Pussycat" and "Promise Her Anything" by Tom Jones, "My Little Red Book" by Love, "Wishin' And Hopin'", "The Look Of Love" and "In The Land Of Make Believe" by Dusty Springfield, "This Guy's In Love With You" by Herb Alpert, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" by B.J. Thomas, "One Less Bell To Answer" and "Living Together, Growing Together" by The Fifth Dimension, among many others. Recently, Ronald Isley (lead singer of The Isley Brothers) and even rocker Elvis Costello have recorded albums (or should I say CDs?) of all Bacharach-David songs. They're retro-cool again. To me, they were and will be always timeless!
Motown's songwriting trio, Holland-Dozier-Holland, also came into their own at this time, branching out from Martha and The Vandellas and Marvin Gaye (but still writing/producing for them)to writing/producing for The Supremes and The Four Tops, creating such classics as "Baby Love", "Come See About Me", "Baby I Need Your Loving", "Bernadette",
"Back In My Arms Again", "Stop! In The Name Of Love", "Ask The Lonely", "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)", among others. Also timeless!

And of course, William "Smokey" Robinson was probably at his songwriting peak, continuing with hits for his group, The Miracles, and other Motown acts.

Two of those acts, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder were budding powerhouse songwriters in the making. Gaye had already written or co-written some of his hits, and Wonder would come to the writing forefront with "Uptight", "I Was Made To Love Her", and "My Cherie Amour". But the best was yet to come.

John Philips was the principal songwriter for his group, The Mamas and The Papas. Who could forget the haunting "California Dreaming", his masterpiece? Other up-and-comers included: John Sebastian, lead singer and main songwriter for his group, The Lovin' Spoonful, the team of Jagger-Richards(Mick and Keith), who wrote most of the songs for their group, The Rolling Stones, Sonny Bono, who wrote and produced for Cher, himself, and of course, the duo Sonny And Cher, Paul Simon, who wrote/produced for his duo, Simon And Garfunkel, Sylvester Stewart, better known as Sly Stone, who wrote/produced for Sly and The Family Stone, John Fogerty, who wrote/produced for his group,Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Felix Cavilere-Gene Cornish, who wrote/produced for their group, The Rascals.

At Motown, Nicholas Ashford and Valerie Simpson were an up-and-coming songwriting/producing team (Their first writing/producing effort was "Let's Go Get Stoned" by Ray Charles, I believe.) that would be working with the newly formed duet of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Norman Whitfield was another newbie who would be working with The Temptations, Edwin Starr, and The Undisputed Truth, among others.

Donovan (Leitch), the Scottish answer to Bob Dylan, wrote his own material, as did Neil Diamond (who started his career as a Brill Building songwriter). Roger Miller and Harry Nilsson also started out principally as songwriters, then also became singers. Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, also songwriter/producers, were beginning what would come to be known as "The Philadelphia Sound". Hoyt Axton, the son of songwriter Mae Axton, was starting to make his mark as a songwriter/performer, mostly in the country field. The brothers Gibb, better known as The Bee Gees, were also beginning their mark, starting out with mostly pop ballads. Laura Nyro and Jimmy Webb became the hot new songwriters of the late '60s; Nyro's songs became famous through The Fifth Dimension (but Barbra Streisand also recorded a few, most notably "Stoney End". And Three Dog Night had a smash with "Eli's Coming".) Several artists recorded Webb's songs-The Fifth Dimension with "Up Up And Away", "MacArthur Park" by Richard Harris, among others.