March 9: Songwriters Hall of Fame

Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (SHF) in New York on this date in 1987. It was the 18th year for the SHF, and the other inductees were Sam Cooke and John Lennon and Paul McCartney. King and Goffin were married and worked together in the Brill Building in New York, creating some fifty popular hits that included “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” “Up on the Roof,” “One Fine Day,” “Crying in the Rain,” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” before embarking on independent careers. Mann and Weil, also married, wrote “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling,” “Who Put the Bomp,” “On Broadway,” “Only in America,” “Walking in the Rain,” and “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” among dozens of others. To see Carole King singing “Up on the Roof” with James Taylor, look below.

“When this old world starts getting me down,
And people are much too much for me to face,
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
And all my cares just drift right into space . . .” —Carole King and Gerry Goffin