Beverly Ross obit

Beverly Ross, teenage songwriter in rock 'n' roll's youth, dies at 87

 She was not on the list.

NEW YORK, NY.- Beverly Ross, who with hits like “Lollipop” became one of the top female songwriters in rock ’n’ roll’s early years, but who ended her career early after a work relationship turned sour, died Jan. 15 at a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. She was 87.

The cause was dementia, said her nephew, Cliff Stieglitz.

While in high school, Ross would ride the bus from her family’s home in New Jersey to hang around the Brill Building, then the center of New York music publishing. There she managed to strike up conversations with songwriters like Julius Dixon.

In 1954, when Ross was only 19, she collaborated with Dixon on her breakout song, “Dim, Dim the Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere).” A recording of it by Bill Haley & His Comets reached No. 11 on the Billboard singles chart, just months before the band’s “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” became the first rock ’n’ roll song to reach No. 1.

Rolling Stone would later describe “Dim, Dim the Lights” as “the first ‘white’ song to cross over to R&B.” It had bluesy electric guitar riffs, a jaunty walking bass and lyrics of come-hither flirtatiousness, even as it maintained an adolescent innocence, inspired by high school crushes and party games like spin the bottle: “I’m full of soda and potato chips/ But now I wanna get a taste/ Of your sweet lips.”

That combination of upbeat rhythms and lightly romantic themes became Ross’ formula.

She and Dixon scored another hit with “Lollipop,” a song as sweet and compact as the titular candy. A 1958 recording by the Chordettes reached No. 2 and became an enduring pop culture earworm, with appearances on “The Simpsons” and in a commercial for Dell computers.

By the early 1960s Ross had become, along with Carole King and a few others, one of the top female writers in rock, “one of only a sprinkling of female writers to make it in a vehemently male structure,” Mark Ribowsky wrote in “He’s a Rebel: Phil Spector, Rock and Roll’s Legendary Producer” (2000).

Ross also cowrote songs recorded by stars like Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. But in just a few years, her career would abruptly unravel.

By Ross’ telling, in 1960 she struck up a working friendship with a then-obscure aspiring songwriter who stood to benefit from her clout: Spector. The two worked on song ideas, cut a demo tape and confided in each other about troubles in their families. Ross introduced him to players in the industry.