Bernard Alfred ("Jack") Nitzsche (Chicago, April 22, 1937 - Hollywood, August 25, 2000) An important behind-the-scenes figure in popular music for 40 years, composer/songwriter/producer/arranger/studio musician Jack Nitzsche served a crucial function in 1960s rock & roll, from helping to create the legendary "wall of sound" to working with artists like The Rolling Stones and countless others. Nitzsche was also a capable writer who penned a couple of major hits and developed a career as a film composer that included nearly three dozen movie scores. Nitzsche grew up in Howard City, MI, which he left at 18 in 1955 to attend Westlake College of Music in Hollywood, CA; he remained based in the Los Angeles area for the rest of his career. After college in 1957 he found work as a music copyist. ...show more

Bernard Alfred ("Jack") Nitzsche (Chicago, April 22, 1937 - Hollywood, August 25, 2000) An important behind-the-scenes figure in popular music for 40 years, composer/songwriter/producer/arranger/studio musician Jack Nitzsche served a crucial function in 1960s rock & roll, from helping to create the legendary "wall of sound" to working with artists like The Rolling Stones and countless others. Nitzsche was also a capable writer who penned a couple of major hits and developed a career as a film composer that included nearly three dozen movie scores. Nitzsche grew up in Howard City, MI, which he left at 18 in 1955 to attend Westlake College of Music in Hollywood, CA; he remained based in the Los Angeles area for the rest of his career. After college in 1957 he found work as a music copyist.

He was hired at Specialty Records by Sonny Bono, with whom he would work extensively over the next several years. He also worked at Capitol Records and Original Sound Records. At Original Sound, he wrote "Bongo Bongo Bongo," an instrumental that was recorded by Preston Epps as a follow-up to his hit "Bongo Rock." It made the national charts during the summer of 1960. Nitzsche began getting arranging jobs, and when writer/producer Phil Spector relocated to the West Coast, he went to work with Spector, arranging many of Spector's hits, among them "He's A Rebel" by The Crystals and "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes.

He also scored his own recording contract with Reprise Records, which released his instrumental "The Lonely Surfer" in the summer of 1963. It became a Top 40 hit, and Nitzsche followed it with an album of the same title, but he did not go on to a successful recording career, though he did release a few more albums. His next chart entry came with a song he composed but did not perform. He and Bono had written "Needles And Pins," initially recorded by Jackie DeShannon. ...show less