About Jeff Barry
Jeff Barry (born Joel Adelberg; April 3, 1938) is an American pop music songwriter, singer, and record producer. Among the most successful songs that he has co-written in his career are "Tell Laura I Love Her" (written with Ben Raleigh and a number 1 hit in the UK Singles Chart when it was recorded by Ricky Valance and number 7 in the US as sung by Ray Peterson), "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Then He Kissed Me", "Be My Baby", "Chapel of Love", and "River Deep - Mountain High" (all written with his then-wife Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector); "Leader of the Pack" (written with Greenwich and Shadow Morton); "Sugar, Sugar" (written with Andy Kim); "Without Us" (written with Tom Scott), and "I Honestly Love You" (written with Peter Allen). == Early life == Barry was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family. His parents divorced when he was seven, and his mother moved him and his sister to Plainfield, New Jersey, where they resided for several years before returning to New York. == Chart success == In 1964, Leiber and Stoller brought Barry and Greenwich on board their new label, Red Bird Records, as songwriter-producers. Of Red Bird's first 20 releases, 15 hit the charts; all were written and/or produced by the Barry-Greenwich team, including "Chapel of Love", "People Say", and "Iko Iko" by the Dixie Cups, and "Remember (Walkin' in the Sand)" (co-produced by Artie Ripp) and "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-Las. In late 1966, Barry was asked to produce tracks for the Monkees, a music group put together specifically as the stars of an NBC sitcom, also called The Monkees. Drafted by the show's musical supervisor, Don Kirshner, Barry brought with him a few tunes penned by Neil Diamond for the group to record. One among them, "I'm a Believer", under Barry's production, would sail up the U.S. charts to No. 1 and become one of the biggest-selling records of all time.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.