Rolling Stones/Janis Joplin Songwriter Jerry Ragovoy Has Died

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/genre/rock-and-pop/legendary-songwriter-producer-...

AL KOOPER...

Billboard...

Legendary Songwriter, Producer Jerry Ragovoy Remembered by Al Kooper
July 15, 2011

By Al Kooper

Photo: Jerry Ragovoy (left) with Steely Dan's Donald Fagen in 2010.

(Songwriter Jerry Ragovoy, who died Wednesday, is remembered here by his longtime friend, songwriter/producer/musician Al Kooper.)

Al Kooper...

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Jerry Ragovoy, composer of "Time Is On My Side," "Piece Of My Heart," "Get It While You Can," and "Cry, Baby" and producer of songs by Dionne Warwick, Bonnie Raitt, Howard Tate, Paul Butterfield and many others, passed away in New York City Wednesday of complications from a stroke. He was 80.

He was born September 4th, 1930 in Philadelphia, to Nandor and Evelyn (nee Myrowitz) Ragovoy. He began his career in the early 1950s as a music buyer for an appliance store in downtown Philadelphia. In 1953 he produced his first recording, "My Love Awaits Me" by the Castelles.

Later, in a staff job at Philadelphia's Chancellor Records, Ragovoy began as an arranger on tracks cut by national heartthrob, Frankie Avalon. He soon resigned and packed up for the journey to New York, where he felt his talents would be more appreciated.

Around this time he began writing songs with another soul songwriter-producer, Bert Berns, including "Cry Baby" by Garnet Mimms, a hit in 1963. Ragovoy worked extensively with Mimms during the 1960s, and co-wrote such songs as "A Quiet Place," "Look Away" and "Baby Don't You Weep." During that time, he wrote a song for jazz trombonist Kai Winding, "Time Is on My Side," that was covered by Irma Thomas -- and then by the Rolling Stones, resulting in the group's first U.S. Top 10 hit. (That song and many others were written by Ragovoy under the pseudonym of Norman Meade.)

Ragovoy also co-wrote with Mort Shuman, George David Weiss, Jacob Brackman and Elvis Costello. His songs were performed by Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Janis Joplin, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Barry White, Erma Franklin, Lorraine Ellison, Howard Tate, Miriam Makeba ("Pata, Pata"), and dozens if not hundreds of others.

Joplin recorded many of his songs and included three on her final album, "Pearl," which was released not long after her death in 1970.

Ragovoy is also renowned for founding and operating New York's Hit Factory studio, where he tutored such future producers as Bill Szymczyk and Art Polhemus. In his offtime, he rented out the studio, eventually selling it and semi-retiring to Atlanta. He moved back to New York in the early 2000s but quickly resettled in Stamford, Conn., which was his last residence. He married Beverly Matson in the '80s and they remained happily wed for the rest of his life.

While not necessarily a household name, Ragovoy was a music-industry legend during his six-decade run, and his recorded works will doubtless inspire listeners for years into the future. Always with a twinkle in his eye and a humorous tale to tell, he will be fondly remembered. His loss is inestimable.

"The Jerry Ragovoy Story," a selection of his life's work with detailed notes, is available from British label, Ace Records.

He is survived by his wife Beverly Matson Ragovoy, sister Loretta Margulies of Philadelphia, nephews Richard & Paul Margulies, twin daughters Melissa Ragavoy of Houston, and Gillian Ragovoy Ferguson of New York city, son-in-law James Ferguson, and grandaughter Anabelle Ferguson.

A private family service will be held, however a memoral gathering to honor Jerry's life is being planned for early autumn.

(Al Kooper acknowledges All-Music Guide's valuable research in the writing of this piece.)

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http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/soul-songwriter-jerry-ragovoy-dead-at-80-...

Rolling Stone...

Soul Songwriter Jerry Ragovoy Dead at 80
Author of the Rolling Stones' 'Time Is on My Side' and Janis Joplin's 'Piece of My Heart'

By Matthew Perpetua
July 19, 2011 8:50 AM ET
Jerry Ragovoy dies rolling stones songwriter
Jerry Ragovoy
AP Photo/ASCAP, Fernando Leon

Jerry Ragovoy, the songwriter behind Sixties soul hits such as "Time Is on My Side," "Piece of My Heart" and "Cry Baby," has died at the age of 80. According to his wife, Bev, he passed away due to complications from a stroke at a hospital in New York City on Wednesday.

Ragovoy, who originally wrote soul songs under the pen name Norman Meade, caught his first taste of success when "Time Is on My Side," a tune he penned for jazz trombonist Kai Winding, became a huge hit for the Rolling Stones. Ragovoy had used the pseudonym because he had intended to use his given name in music written for Broadway.

Photos: Iconic Shots of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and More

Later on, a handful of his songs, including "Piece of My Heart," "Cry Baby," "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" and "Get It While You Can," were recorded by Janis Joplin. Though the numbers were not written specifically for her, they became signature hits for the singer. Before Joplin died, Ragovoy wrote a song, "I'm Gonna Rock My Way to Heaven," especially for what would have been her next record, but it went unperformed and unrecorded until it was resurrected for One Night with Janis Joplin, a musical revue that recently opened in Portland, Oregon.

In 1969, Ragovoy founded the Hit Factory recording studio in New York City, which he later sold in 1975. In that time, he worked as a producer and arranger for a roster of artists including Dionne Warwick and Bonnie Raitt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/arts/music/jerry-ragovoy-songwriter-and-produc...

The New York Times...

July 16, 2011
Jerry Ragovoy, Writer of Soulful Ballads, Dies at 80
By WILLIAM GRIMES

Jerry Ragovoy, who wrote or collaborated on some of the most soulful ballads of the 1960s, including the Rolling Stones hit “Time Is on My Side” and the Janis Joplin signatures “Piece of My Heart,” “Cry Baby” and “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder),” died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 80.

The cause was complications of a stroke, his wife, Beverly Matson Ragovoy, said.

Mr. Ragovoy started out as a music buyer for Tregoobs, a Philadelphia appliance store with a small record department. He and the store manager, Herb Slotkin, created the Grand label in 1953 to record a local doo-wop group, the Castelles, whose first release, “My Girl Awaits Me,” sold 100,000 copies.

After being hired by Chancellor Records, Mr. Ragovoy wrote arrangements for Frankie Avalon and was a writer on “About This Thing Called Love” for Fabian. But setting his sights on a career as a Broadway songwriter, he moved to New York in 1962.

His plans went on the shelf when he began writing and producing pop hits. In 1962 he produced and arranged “A Wonderful Dream” for the Philadelphia falsetto group the Majors. He used the pseudonym Norman Margulies for his writing credit on the song.

Under the pseudonym Norman Meade, he teamed up with Bert Berns to write “Cry Baby” for Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters in 1963, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard charts.

A string of gospel-inflected soul classics followed. “Time Is on My Side,” which Mr. Ragovoy wrote for the jazz trombonist Kai Winding and his orchestra, was later recorded by Irma Thomas in 1964. When the Rolling Stones followed with their own version that same year, it gave them their first American Top 10 record. They performed the song on their first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” that year.

Mr. Ragovoy’s songs had a wrenching emotional quality that perfectly matched Joplin’s no-hold’s-barred approach to the blues. “Piece of My Heart,” a Berns collaboration originally recorded in 1967 by Erma Franklin, Aretha Franklin’s older sister, became the standout single from the 1968 album “Cheap Thrills,” which Joplin recorded with Big Brother & the Holding Company.

Joplin recorded “Try (Just a Little Harder),” a collaboration between Mr. Ragovoy and Chip Taylor, on her first solo album, “I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!” Her last album, “Pearl,” included three Ragovoy songs: “My Baby,” “Get It While You Can” and “Cry Baby.” But she died, in October 1970, before she could record a song that Mr. Ragovoy, with Jenny Dean, wrote specifically for her, “I’m Gonna Rock My Way to Heaven.”

“He was not a melody writer like Carole King or Burt Bacharach, but he really got the gospel-based black idiom,” said Billy Vera, a songwriter, record producer and music historian. “With singers like Mimms and Tate,” he continued, referring to Howard Tate, “and later Lorraine Ellison, New York R&B went deeper into gospel than it had previously. That was his contribution.”

Jordan Ragovoy was born on Sept. 4, 1930, in Philadelphia, where his father was an optometrist. He taught himself to play piano and, while working at Tregoobs, which was in a black neighborhood, immersed himself in gospel and rhythm and blues.

After becoming the head of artists and repertory for Warner Brothers Records on the East Coast in 1966, Mr. Ragovoy began producing and writing for Ellison on the Loma label.

With George David Weiss, he wrote the Ellison hit “Stay With Me,” notable for the backing of a full orchestra that became available when Frank Sinatra canceled a recording session. She also recorded the original version of “Try (Just a Little Harder).”

“Get It While You Can,” which he produced on the Verve label for Mr. Tate in 1967, is regarded by many critics as one of the finest soul albums of that decade, and the songs he wrote and collaborated on for Mr. Tate rank among his best, including “Get It While You Can,” “Stop,” which was later recorded by Jimi Hendrix, and “Ain’t Nobody Home,” later recorded by B. B. King. Mr. Tate and Mr. Ragovoy had a falling out, and Mr. Tate descended into alcoholism and drug abuse, but they reunited to make the album “Rediscovered” in 2003.

Mr. Ragovoy founded his own recording studio in 1969, the Hit Factory, and in the 1970s produced the albums “Keep On Moving” for the Butterfield Blues Band, “Streetlights” for Bonnie Raitt and “Then Came You” for Dionne Warwick.

Mr. Ragovoy lived in Stamford, Conn. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a sister, Loretta Margulies of Philadelphia; two daughters, Melissa Ragovoy of Houston and Gillian Ragovoy Ferguson of Manhattan; and a granddaughter.

In 2008, the British label Ace released a survey CD, “The Jerry Ragovoy Story: Time Is on My Side, 1953-2003.”