alphabetical author index

Howard Greenfield


Work by the author


Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Author's Bio


Howard Greenfield was born in Brooklyn, New York, and worked out of the famous Brill Building with Neil Sedaka, a friend he had met as a teenager when they both lived in the same apartment building, in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn. Greenfield was educated at Abraham Lincoln High School.After first supplying "Passing Time" to The Cookies, Sedaka and Greenfield scored their first major pop hit single with Connie Francis' "Stupid Cupid". When, in 1959, Sedaka signed to RCA Records as a solo artist, he and Greenfield composed a string of hits - among them "Oh! Carol", "Stairway to Heaven", "Calendar Girl", "Little Devil", "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen", "Next Door to an Angel" and the chart-topping "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" - which sold a combined 25 million records.After Sedaka's career cooled in 1963, the duo continued writing hits for other artists, including The Fifth Dimension's "Workin' on a Groovy Thing" and Tom Jones' "Puppet Man". Apart from Sedaka, Greenfield also collaborated with Carole King ("Crying in the Rain"), Helen Miller ("Foolish Little Girl", The Shirelles' final Top Ten hit), and Jack Keller. The latter was his songwriting partner on "Breakin' in a Brand New Broken Heart", "Everybody's Somebody's Fool", "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own" and "When Somebody Loves You". In addition Greenfield and Keller supplied the theme music for U.S. television programs such as Bewitched and The Flying Nun.Although Sedaka and Greenfield ended their partnership in 1973, two years later their song "Love Will Keep Us Together" topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for Captain & Tennille, as well as earning a Grammy for Record of the Year. He and Sedaka later resumed their collaboration, and continued writing together in the years to follow.Greenfield died, aged 49, in Los Angeles, California in 1986 from AIDS. He was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).In 1991, Howard Greenfield was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.