Home » Jazz Musicians » Doc Pomus

Doc Pomus

The legendary Doc Pomus found success as one of the finest white blues singers of the 1940s before becoming one of the greatest songwriters in the history of American popular music. The author of many of the most popular rock & roll songs of the 1960s, he composed "Save the Last Dance for Me,'' "This Magic Moment," "Sweets for My Sweet" and dozens of others, including Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas," "Little Sister," and "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame." Crippled by polio in his childhood, Pomus - born Jerome Solon Felder on June 27, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York - became interested in singing blues and writing songs after hearing a Big Joe Turner record as a kid. He played saxophone at the time, and after hearing Turner, blues music became his obsession. By the mid-'50s, after singing in a thousand blues clubs, Pomus came to a crossroads in his career: he was in his early 30s and if he wanted to get married and support a family, it was not going to be by singing the Blues - he decided to concentrate on songwriting. He took a young piano player, Mort Shuman, and molded him into his writing partner - a partnership that lasted many years and even more hit songs. Together, Pomus and Shuman wrote the words and music to such hits as "Save The Last Dance For Me," (one of the 25 most popular songs ever recorded) "Little Sister," "Suspicion," "Can't Get Used to Losing You," "Surrender," "Viva Las Vegas" and hundreds more. After securing their office in the Brill Building, the team continued to crank out hit after hit. Presley alone ended up recording more than 20 of their songs throughout his career, including items like "Mess of Blues." After the Pomus-Shuman partnership broke up, Pomus took a ten year hiatus from writing. Afterwards, collaborating mostly with Dr. John, Pomus penned another string of gems for B.B. King, Mink DeVille and a host of others. In 1991 Pomus became the first white person to be awarded the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's (an organization he co- founded) Pioneer Award. Later that year, on March 14, he died of lung cancer at the age of sixty-four in New York. In 1995 Forward Records (a division of Rhino Records) released “Till the Night Is Gone,” which featured recordings of fourteen of his songs, many written with Mort Shuman, by artists such as Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, John Hiatt, and Roseanne Cash.

Read more

Tags

Interview

Who Was Doc Pomus?

Who Was Doc Pomus?

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Few white pop-rock songwriters of the 1950s and '60s started out as miserably as Jerome Felder. Polio-stricken at age 7, Felder was placed in body casts and then an iron lung before he wound up in leg braces and crutches. Stuck in bed for years, Felder spent a lot of time listening to the radio, which is where he discovered Big Joe Turner belting out Piney Brown Blues. Felder identified with the blues, which spoke to his own misfortune. One ...

Photos

Music

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.