ABSTRACT
Ken Emerson reminds us that the 'Brill Building sound' actually came not only from the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway but also, and at least as importantly, from 1650 Broadway. At a time when record buying in the United States was still very segregated, the audience for Brill Building music of this type was predominantly white, and included Jews and ethnic groups such as Italians. In histories of American popular music, the songs from the Brill Building era are positioned between the decline of rock'n'roll through the second half of the 1950s, and the mid-1960s British Invasion spearheaded by the Beatles' tour of February 1964. The songs Leiber and Stoller wrote for the Coasters can be understood as marking a transition between their early black-focused material and their later work, often still sung by African-American artists, most importantly the Drifters, but tailored more to the taste and interest of a white, teenage audience.
