THE BRILL BUILDING

A Root of the Independent Music Business

Located at 1619 Broadway and 49th St., The Brill Building was the epicenter of the American record industry from the 1930s-’60s. During the Big Band era, as a home for several publishers and record companies. On a personal note, My grandfather, Allan H. Nurse, was a bandleader, arranger and producer from the 1930s to the 1960’s for Decca Records and later Southern Records, which was one of many labels housed in the building. His band, “The Allan Nurse Calypso Band” recorded in one of the several studios housed in the building as well.

By the 1950’s the Brill Building was the home base almost 170 to several music publishers and songwriters, record producers, managers, agents, recording studios, promoters, and booking agents, as well as the musician’s union. Some have described the Brill Building -in its prime- as a department store or factory for recording artists. Under one roof, an artist could find a song at a publisher, find an arranger and/or producer, cut a demo, sell the master to a record company, get it promoted on radio, and sign with a booking agent.

Numerous famous recordings, songwriters and songwriting teams of the 50s and 60s came out of the Brill Building, including Jerry Leiber and Michael Stoller, who wrote hits for Big Mama Thornton and Elvis Presley; Barry Mann and Cynthia Wells; Carol King, who wrote hits for Aretha Franklin; Otis Blackwell, who wrote for many, including Little Willie John and Jerry Lee Lewis. The Brill Building became an influence for several record companies that used an “all under one roof” approach, including King/Federal Records in Ohio, and Motown Records in Detroit, before it moved to Los Angeles.

As more and more recording artists became self-contained, songwriting and producing units, the factory-like model began to loose prominence and the Brill Building era the music industry began to dissolve. However, the concept of having all of the components of the music business under one roof -either as a single company or as several inter-related independent companies- remained a viable concept. In the present, the music industry as we knew it through most of the twentieth century no longer exists.

The self-contained unit model of the 1960s has been taken to a new level by the Independent or Indie Artist of today, who is now the songwriter, producer, performer and label all in one, and collaborate with independent promoters, publicists, and marketing specialists to get their music in the hands of the buying public; and finding greater success than many of their peers who are signed to a record deal. At Polyphonic Studios, our P.A.D. (Polyphonic Artist Development) Program emulates the Brill Building concept, acting as a brick-and-mortar hub for aspiring and rising Indie Artists -who are trying to enter the business- through a network of music business professionals.

Works Consulted

Covach, John Rudolph. What's That Sound?: An Introduction to Rock and Its History(2nd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton, 2009

Garofalo, Reebee. “The Brill Building: Assembly-Line Pop” Encyclopædia Britannica. April 15, 2010

Scheurer, Timothy E., American Popular Music: The Age of Rock, Bowling Green State University, Popular Press, 1989

Mwalim (MJ Peters) is a musician, singer, composer, writer, historian, and educator. He is the owner of Polyphonic Studios and a tenured professor of English, Communications, and Black Studies at UMass Dartmouth.