1. Jerome Solon Felder, known professionally as Doc Pomus, was an American blues singer and songwriter.
23 Facts About Doc Pomus
1. 2.
Doc Pomus is best known as the co-writer of many rock and roll hits.
3.
Doc Pomus was the son of British born Jewish immigrants.
4.
Doc Pomus was homeschooled for much of elementary and junior high school.
5.
Doc Pomus had a high IQ, and excelled at the insult challenge among teens and young men, "playing the dozens".
6.
Doc Pomus was facile at creating his own lyrics for blues songs of the day.
7.
Doc Pomus became a fan of the blues after hearing a Big Joe Turner record, "Piney Brown Blues", which changed the direction of his life.
8.
Doc Pomus attended Bushwick High School and then Brooklyn College, where he studied music and learned to play piano and saxophone, from 1943 to 1945.
9.
Doc Pomus began going to Jazz clubs before working up the nerve to perform in front of mostly black audiences, doing his version of popular blues songs that were received with great enthusiasm by club patrons.
10.
The 18 year old Doc Pomus debuted at George's Tavern in Greenwich Village.
11.
Doc Pomus stated that more often than not, he was the only Caucasian in the clubs, but that as a Jew with polio, he felt a special underdog kinship with African Americans, while in turn the audiences respected his courage and were impressed by his talent.
12.
Gigging at clubs in and around New York City, Doc Pomus often performed with Milt Jackson, Horace Silver, Buddy Tate, Baker, and Curtis.
13.
Doc Pomus is reported to have recorded more than fifty record sides of music, though others have reported the number at about forty sides, as a singer in the 1940s and 1950s for Chess, Apollo, Dawn, Gotham, and other recording companies.
14.
Doc Pomus had sent a demo of the song to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, his role models for this new kind of songwriting.
15.
Still, Doc Pomus had co-credit as lyricist, and soon received a royalty check for $2,500, an event that convinced him that songwriting was a career worth pursuing.
16.
Doc Pomus collaborated with pianist Mort Shuman, whom he met when Shuman was dating Doc Pomus's younger cousin.
17.
Doc Pomus asked Shuman to write with him because Doc Pomus did not know much about contemporary rock and roll, whereas Shuman was acquainted with popular artists of the day.
18.
The lyrics came to him at his wedding, watching his wife dance with others, Doc Pomus being unable to dance because of polio's effects on his body.
19.
Doc Pomus played an important role with John Belushi in creating the back-up band for the Blues Brothers in the 1970s, and was Bette Midler's musical advisor, bringing her to national attention.
20.
John Lennon told Doc Pomus the first song the Beatles practiced together was a Doc Pomus song.
21.
Doc Pomus, conceived by Pomus's daughter Sharyn Felder, directed by filmmaker Peter Miller, edited by Amy Linton, and produced by Felder, Hechter, and Miller, presents Pomus's biography.
22.
Doc Pomus died on March 14,1991, of lung cancer at the age of 65 at NYU Medical Center in Manhattan.
23.
Together with Shuman, and individually, Doc Pomus was a key figure in the development of popular music.