Doc Pomus

Jerome Solon Felder was born on June 27, 1925, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, to British-born Jewish immigrant parents. Known professionally as Doc Pomus, he contracted polio as a boy, spent a year in an iron lung, and walked with crutches for much of his life; a later accident exacerbated post-polio syndrome and left him reliant on a wheelchair. Homeschooled through much of elementary and junior high school, Felder attended Bushwick High School before enrolling at Brooklyn College from 1943 to 1945, where he studied music and learned piano and saxophone. His direction changed after hearing Big Joe Turner's recording of "Piney Brown Blues," which drew him toward the blues. His brother is New York attorney Raoul Felder.

Felder adopted the stage name Doc Pomus as a teenager, choosing it because it suited a blues singer better than Jerry Felder, with a nod to blues singer Doctor Clayton. At eighteen he made his performing debut at George's Tavern in Greenwich Village, going on to front a band that included Mickey Baker and King Curtis and to perform alongside musicians such as Milt Jackson, Horace Silver, and Buddy Tate. He recorded more than forty sides as a singer during the 1940s and 1950s for labels including Chess, Apollo, Dawn, Gotham, Savoy, Atlantic, and Coral. On one occasion, saxophonist Lester Young sat in with him. Pomus performed live until 1957, when he recognized that the music industry had little interest in promoting his singing career despite disc jockey Alan Freed playing his song "Heartlessly."

His songwriting career began in parallel with his performing years. Gatemouth Moore recorded one of his songs for National Records in 1946, and by 1947 Pomus had become one of Atlantic Records' original songwriters. In the early 1950s he wrote for Lavern Baker, Ruth Brown, Ray Charles, and Big Joe Turner. Ray Charles's 1956 R&B top-ten recording of "Lonely Avenue" marked a national breakthrough for Pomus, though he earned little money from it. His first rock-and-roll break came when the Coasters recorded "Young Blood," a song he had submitted to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who substantially rewrote it; Pomus retained co-credit as lyricist and received a royalty check that convinced him songwriting was a viable career.

Pomus's most productive partnership was with pianist Mort Shuman, whom he met when Shuman was dating his younger cousin. Songwriter Otis Blackwell introduced the pair to Hill and Range Music at the Brill Building in New York City. Pomus brought lyrical experience to the collaboration while Shuman contributed familiarity with contemporary rock and roll; generally Pomus wrote lyrics and Shuman composed melodies, though both contributed to each element. Together they produced "A Teenager in Love," "Save the Last Dance for Me," "Hushabye," "This Magic Moment," "Turn Me Loose," "Sweets for My Sweet," "Go, Jimmy, Go," "Little Sister," "Can't Get Used to Losing You," "Suspicion," "Surrender," and "(Marie's the Name of) His Latest Flame." The pair wrote regularly for Elvis Presley and the Drifters and produced hits for Bobby Darin, Dion and the Belmonts, and Fabian. Pomus's approach to early rock lyrics centered on the genuine difficulties of adolescence rather than an idealized version of teenage life.

"Save the Last Dance for Me" has been identified as his crowning achievement. The lyrics came to him at his 1957 wedding to aspiring Broadway actress Willi Burke, as he watched her dance with others while he remained unable to dance because of polio. Burke later performed in the Broadway production of Fiorello. The couple divorced in 1966. The song was subsequently recorded by artists ranging from Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, for whom it became a top-ten country hit, to Eric Church and Bill Frisell, and it is reported to be the last song Leonard Cohen performed on stage.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Pomus also wrote songs with Phil Spector, who became his protégé, collaborating on "Young Boy Blues," "Ecstasy," "First Taste of Love," and "What Am I to Do?" He also co-wrote with Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber on additional material during this Brill Building period.

The rise of the Beatles diminished the market for the Brill Building songwriter-for-hire model, and for a period Pomus supported himself primarily through professional gambling, which he eventually left after a decade because of increasing violence in that world. Working from his two-room apartment on the eleventh floor of the Westover Hotel at 253 West 72nd Street in Manhattan, he wrote later songs with Dr. John, Ken Hirsch, and Willy DeVille. Songs from this period — among them "There Must Be a Better World," "There Is Always One More Time," "That World Outside," "You Just Keep Holding On," and "Something Beautiful Dying" — were recorded by Willy DeVille, B.B. King, Irma Thomas, Marianne Faithfull, Charlie Rich, Ruth Brown, Dr. John, James Booker, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Johnny Adams. B.B. King's recording of "There Must Be a Better World Somewhere" won a Grammy Award in 1981. Writer Peter Guralnick, Dr. John, and producer Joel Dorn have identified these later compositions as among Pomus's finest work. He also played a role in assembling the backup band for the Blues Brothers in the 1970s and served as musical advisor to Bette Midler early in her career.

Doc Pomus died on March 14, 1991. The following year he was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2012 he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.