The Last Dance

I finally got around to watching A.K.A. Doc Pomus (2012), and I'm so glad I did. Note that this wasn't a library DVD, but a Hoopla stream - Hoopla is a library of movies, books, and comics, available through many public libraries. 

If you don't know Doc, he is most famous (maybe) for writing Save the Last Dance For Me. Or maybe Viva Las Vegas, This Magic Moment, or Teenager Love. Or maybe he's famous for having written (with collaborators) just so many great rock songs. But he was born Jerome Felder, a Jewish boy in Brooklyn. He was a happy, athletic kid, until age 8, when he contracted polio. After a long convalescence, he wound up on crutches. 

But as a teenager, he discovered the blues. He started hanging around the clubs of New York. Since he was young, he didn't drink, and one manager tried to throw him out. So he said he was a performer, and got on stage and sung a song. He went over so well that this became his career. Imagine how good an underaged, short, crippled Jewish kid had to be to make it in the New York blues scene. He changed his name to Doc Pomus, because it sounded good.

Then Lieber and Stoller rewrote one of his songs, Young Blood, for the Coasters, and he became a songwriter. He was one of the kings of the Brill Building, writing songs for anyone who wanted them, usually with his collaborator Mort Shuman.

Although he spent a few years married in the suburbs, he had a hard time commuting, so he got a room at a hotel next to the Brill Building. He used to hold court in the lobby with musicians and songwriters, but also hookers, gamblers, addicts, and almost anyone with a story to tell. 

When the Beatles made it normal for bands to write their own songs, the Brill Building system broke down. He had ups and downs. For a few years, his source of income were the poker games he held in his room. He met with, wrote for, and mentored a bunch of people, including Willy Deville, Dr John, and B.B. King. He gave songwriting classes for upcoming writers like Shawn Colvin - and with the women there is a hint of some physical stuff. Apparently an older, overweight, disabled man could be pretty sexy. Someone described him as encompassing the two poles of Genius and Cool.

It's an amazing documentary, including not just his musical world, but also his family, his ex-wife and children, his sister and others, who seemed very down-to-earth Jewish Brooklyn. It's a great snapshot of a few eras of New York and popular music. And the stories!