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Here Comes The Night : The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues
Bert Berns / Atlantic Records - Book - by Joel Selvin
(2015)
A definitive account of the New York rhythm and blues world of the early
‘60s, and the harrowing, ultimately tragic story of songwriter and
record producer Bert Berns, whose meteoric career was fueled by his
pending doom. His heart damaged by rheumatic fever as a youth, doctors
told Berns he would not live to see twenty-one. Although his name is
little remembered today, Berns worked alongside all the greats of the
era – Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler,
Burt Bacharach, Phil Spector, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, anyone who
was anyone in New York rhythm and blues. In seven quick years, he went
from nobody to the top of the pops – producer of monumental r&b
classics, songwriter of “Twist and Shout,” “My Girl Sloopy” and others.
His
fury to succeed led Berns to use his Mafia associations to muscle
Atlantic Records out of a partnership and intimidate new talents like
Neil Diamond and Van Morrison he signed to his record label, only to
drop dead of a long expected fatal heart attack, just when he was seeing
his grandest plans and life’s ambitions frustrated and foiled.