Cynthia Weil, the lyricist who with her composer husband Barry Mann wrote some of the hits that made the Brill Building famous, died last week at age 82. Their biggest hit, the one that made the headline in obituaries, is “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” but it tops a long list of tunes by artists ranging from Eydie Gorme to Hanson, and the names in between cover a surprising range. You won’t find many lists with both Andy Williams and Rick Derringer on them.
Of all the songs the couple wrote, my favorite might be one they came up with for a band that didn’t exist. Max Frost and the Troopers were the fictional band in the 1968 cult film “Wild in the Streets,” a low-budget affair that falls somewhere between satire and teensplotation: Pop singer Max Frost (not to be confused with the young Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost) is elected president and everyone over 35 is sent to re-education camps and dosed with LSD. Weil and Mann wrote two songs for the film, and this one became an actual hit, reaching No. 22 on the Hot 100.
