BIOGRAPHY
Doc Pomus, born Jerome Solon Felder, was a legendary American songwriter whose seminal career began as a blues shouter in New York City clubs. Performing with his own band, featuring Mickey “Guitar” Baker and King Curtis, he recorded for Chess, Apollo, Coral, and Dawn. In those early years, Pomus wrote both lyrics and music, grounding his work in the raw emotional power of the blues.
His first songwriting breakthrough came with Ray Charles’s recording of “Lonely Avenue,” soon followed by “Young Blood,” co-written with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Pomus then formed a pivotal partnership with the young and extraordinarily gifted Mort Shuman. Writing out of New York’s Brill Building, the duo helped define the emotional core of early rock and roll, creating a body of work that remains timeless. Together, they penned enduring classics such as “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “This Magic Moment,” “Little Sister,” “A Teenager in Love,” and “Viva Las Vegas,” among many others. Drawing from blues, pop, and soul, Pomus transformed deeply personal experiences into songs marked by love, vulnerability, and resilience—music that continues to resonate across generations.
A broad range of performers has recorded Doc’s songs including Big Joe Turner, Ray Charles, The Coasters, The Drifters, Elvis Presley, Dion, Brenda Lee, Connie Francis, Bobby Darin, The Everly Brothers, Laverne Baker, Andy Williams, Jay and the Americans, The Beatles, B.B. King, Booker T. & the MGs, The Beach Boys, Mink DeVille, Emmy Lou Harris, Bruce Springsteen, ZZ Top, Andy Williams, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, Elvis Costello, Dwight Yokam, Buck Owens, Charlie Rich, Fleetwood Mac, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Solomon Burke, Brian Wilson, John Hiatt, Jon Batiste, Bad Company, Mina, Rosanne Cash, Michael Buble, Los Lobos, Irma Thomas, and many, many more.
In his later years, Pomus collaborated with Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, and with others, such as Ken Hirsch and Willy DeVille, creating a distinctive body of work and contributing to albums by a variety of artists, including B.B. King’s Grammy-winning album There Must Be a Better World Somewhere. Critic Peter Guralnick has proclaimed that Doc wrote some of his very greatest songs in the last ten years of his life.