We recently recognized the 60th anniversary of the Beatles making their U.S. debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. That was not just a groundbreaking cultural event, it also changed the music industry. Until then, most great performers relied on others to write their songs. The “Brill Building” in New York was where these talented songwriters worked tirelessly but without very much public recognition.
When the Beatles appeared they showed the music industry that you could write and perform your own songs. In 1964, The Beatles had five of the 10 biggest songs on the Billboard charts. One was a cover of "Twist and Shout," but the rest were their own songs. Then Bob Dylan emerged writing and singing his own music. The Brill Building was left behind as songwriters like Carol King and Neil Diamond began performing their own songs as well.
One of those Brill Building songwriters is one of the most successful writers who you never heard of before. Her name is Rose Marie McCoy. In her lifetime she wrote over 800 songs that were performed by over 300 artists, some of the greatest musicians of the modern era. You have heard her music even if you don’t recognize her name. Starting with Elvis Presley and including names like Ike and Tina Turner, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughn, Aretha Franklin, and Ray Charles, the list goes on and on.
McCoy was born Rose Marie Hinton to Levi and Celetia Brazil Hinton in Oneida, Arkansas, on April 19, 1922. Her father was a farmer. McCoy recalls that life on the farm was hard enough, but when the Mississippi River flooded in 1927 severely damaging the area life became even harder. Then came the Great Depression and cotton prices dropped even further. "Though Oneida was poor," Rose explained, "I never saw anyone go hungry. Everybody helped each other; it was beautiful."
She later married James McCoy and moved to New York City with $6 in her pocket to pursue a singing career in 1942. Living in Harlem, she supported herself by working at a Chinese laundry and performing at nightclubs on the weekends. She had modest success opening for other notable entertainers, but her big break came in 1952.
Rose was asked to write and record two songs for a newly formed record company. Wheeler Records lasted only about a year, but it helped birth one of the longest, most prolific songwriting careers ever, for when other record companies and music publishers heard her songs, they asked for more. In 1953, she had her first top ten Rhythm & Blues hit, "Gabbin' Blues".
In the 1950s, in New York City, 1619 Broadway was better known as the Brill Building. The building housed a 10-story hit factory filled with songwriters, producers, and music publishers. After work, many of the employees would gather at a restaurant around the corner, called Beefsteak Charlie's.
McCoy had teamed up with a songwriting partner, Charlie Singleton. They set up their office in a booth at Beefsteak Charlie's. McCoy recalled in her biography,
"We'd write back there. People got to know us so well, they used to take our telephone calls. We'd meet there every morning, at 6 o’clock, and buy a little glass of wine for 30 cents, and we'd sip on that. Around 4 o'clock in the evening, we'd call publishers. And the publishers used to come around there to see us. We didn't even have to go to their office. So they'd walk in the door and Charlie used to say, 'You can have real scotch now, 'cause they've got the money.' "
From: Thought We Were Writing the Blues: But They Called It Rock 'n' Roll
In 1954, McCoy and Singleton wrote a song called "Trying to Get to You.” Elvis Presley heard the Black vocal group, The Eagles, sing it in a record store in Memphis, and he decided to record the song on his debut album for RCA Records in 1955. Presley's album spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the pop charts. More than 30 artists went on to record it, including Roy Orbison and The Teen Kings, Ricky Nelson, Eric Burdon of The Animals, Johnny Rivers, Faith Hill, and many others.
By 1955, American music was becoming an amalgam of blues, country, mainstream pop, and a few other genres. What was emerging was what came to be known as “rock-n-roll.” It appealed to everyone, North, South, Black, white, mostly young people.
She continued writing songs for other artists in collaboration with not only Charlie Singleton but others. One of Rose Marie McCoy’s biggest hits came in 1961 with “I Think It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” recorded by a little-known duo, Ike and Tina Turner. They were awarded a Gold Record and received a Grammy nomination. McCoy, by now, had bought herself a house in Teaneck, NJ, and a green Cadillac. And she had her very own office in the iconic Brill Building.
McCoy was offered jobs as a staff songwriter with Motown, Stax, Atlantic, and other record labels, but turned them all down. She wanted to maintain her independence and keep control of her music. So for the entirety of her career, she was an independent and successful songwriter.
Even after the Beatles debut in 1964, and Brill Building essentially emptied overnight, Rose McCoy kept on working as an independent songwriter. In the 1970s she wrote and produced a jazz album with Sarah Vaughan; wrote Coca-Cola jingles performed by Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles; branched out into country music in 2013; and formed her music publishing firm, McCoy Music. She died of pneumonia in 2015 at the age of 92.
She grew up at a time when racism was the law of the land. She was marginalized because of her gender. And she knew what it was like to live in poverty. But she broke into the mostly white, male-dominated music business to become the first Black woman to make it big as a songwriter, with an amazing career that lasted for 60 years.
Rose Marie McCoy’s music spanned the genres of R&B, jazz, gospel, rock and roll, and, late in her life, country. Fittingly, before she died, she was honored by Community Works NYC in a 2008 exhibition and concert series titled “Ladies Singing the Blues,” she received a five-minute standing ovation during the awards ceremony at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for her contribution to music.
She continues to be remembered and honored for her contributions to black culture and entertainment by New York’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2008, and the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame in 2018.
Whenever Rose Marie McCoy was asked which of her many songs was her favorite, her reply was always the same: “The last one I heard playing on the radio.”