A Touching ‘Dance’ From Pop’s Past

“Save the Last Dance for Me” is one of the most endearing romantic hits of the modern pop era, but the story behind the Doc Pomus-Mort Shuman ballad is even more touching than the song.

Once you hear that story during a coming two-hour documentary on the A&E; channel, you’ll never again be able to listen to Pomus’ lyrics (printed below the picture) without thinking of the poignant footage.

What few pop fans have known since the Drifters’ hit version of the song in 1960 is that Pomus couldn’t dance. After contracting polio as a youngster, the Brooklyn native had to rely on wheelchairs and crutches until his death at age 65 in 1991.

Even if you know Pomus’ history, however, you’ll be touched by the documentary’s brief home movie scenes of the songwriter watching from the sidelines as his wife dances with guests at their wedding. He may even have begun writing the song that night; his daughter later found lyrics scribbled on a wedding invitation.

In the hundreds of hours I’ve spent watching rock documentaries, this is the first time I’ve come across this remarkable footage.

One likely reason the scene has remained obscure is that there has been so little media attention paid to what is widely considered the “dark age” of the rock era.

Prevailing wisdom among pop fans and critics is that nothing of importance happened between the taming of Elvis Presley in 1958, when he headed into the Army and then on to Hollywood for those dopey movies, and the arrival in 1964 of the Beatles.

Though there was a shortage of new, inspiring stars during that period, there were some fabulous records made, and the writers of many of those songs are saluted in “Hitmakers: The Teens Who Stole Pop Music,” the two-hour special airing Monday at 8 p.m.

This core of young writers, who worked side by side in cubicles in and around Manhattan’s Brill Building, were inspired by the energy and youthful focus of ‘50s R&B; and rock, and they brought those elements to their work. This gave them a huge advantage over the veteran Tin Pan Alley writers who didn’t have a feel for the new music and came up with unconvincing imitations.

“Older people had stopped buying records,” Pomus says in an interview clip in the documentary. “That’s how the rock ‘n’ roll era started. It wasn’t any more complicated than that.... Some shrewd record impresarios said, ‘Hey, if we can get kids to come into the store with some spending money, we’re going to have a hell of a business.”’

Among the hit songwriting teams profiled and/or interviewed in the A&E; special:

*Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Long before King reached stardom in a solo role with “Tapestry” in 1971, she and Goffin, her husband, wrote such hits as the Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” one of the most captivating tales of teen doubt ever, and (with Jerry Wexler) Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” a more adult expression of romantic rejoicing.

*Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Though their other hits included “Uptown” for the Crystals and “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” for the Animals, their finest moment was the epic sweep of the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” which they wrote with producer Phil Spector.

*Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. Among a string of hits including “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” and (with Spector) “Be My Baby,” their high point (again with Spector) was “River Deep Mountain High.” Featuring Tina Turner’s vocal and Spector’s overpowering wall of sound production style, the recording is one of pop’s true sonic masterpieces.

*Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The prolific, blues-inspired pair dazzled the industry as writers and producers. Their compositions included “Poison Ivy” (the Drifters), “Yakety Yak” (the Coasters) and “Jailhouse Rock” (Elvis Presley). They were the envy of the young Brill Building contingent.

*Pomus and Shuman. The team’s other hits ranged from “Viva Las Vegas” for Presley to “A Teenager in Love” for Dion & the Belmonts. Pomus, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, was born Jerome Felder and worked as a blues singer in New York clubs before attracting attention as a writer. His brother is noted New York divorce attorney Raoul Felder, and it is apparently he who is dancing with Pomus’ wife in the home movie.

Others who play prominent parts in the documentary are music publisher Don Kirshner and singer-songwriter Bobby Darin, plus the songwriting teams of Burt Bacharach and Hal David and Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. A&E; will follow Monday’s special with one-hour documentaries on several of the artists: Dionne Warwick, who recorded many of the Bacharach-David hits (Tuesday), Darin (Wednesday), Leiber & Stoller (Thursday) and Bacharach (Friday).

Besides documenting the early-’60s rise of these writers, Monday’s show also touches on the eventual changing of the guard that occurred when a new generation of writers--led by Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney--not only revolutionized rock songwriting but also inspired artists to write their own tunes, eliminating much of the need for the “hitmakers.”

“Dylan managed to do something that not one of us was able to do, which was put poetry into rock ‘n’ roll ... and then stand up there and sing it,” Goffin says in the documentary. “Carole felt the same way, so we had to do something dramatic. We took all the [demos] of songs that hadn’t been recorded, and we smashed them in half. We said we gotta grow up now and start writing better songs now.”

Even if this early period in rock is often underrepresented in historical overviews, its legacy is a proud one--and “Hitmakers” tells it with both passion and affection.

“Hitmakers: The Teens Who Stole Pop Music” will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Monday on the A&E; cable channel.

You can dance every dance with the guy who gives you the eye and let him hold you tight

You can smile every smile for the man who held your hand ‘neath the pale moonlight.

But don’t forget who’s taking you home and in whose arms you’re gonna be

So darling, save the last dance for me.