R.I.P: Cynthia Weil, Iconic Pop Lyricist

Cynthia Weil, who with her writing partner and husband, Barry Mann, formed one of the most potent songwriting teams of the 1960s and beyond, churning out enduring hits like the Drifters’ “On Broadway” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’,” signature tunes of the baby boomer era, died on Thursday at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 82, reports The NYTimes.

Her death was confirmed on Friday by her daughter Jenn Mann, who did not specify a cause.

“​​We lost the beautiful, brilliant lyricist Cynthia Weil Mann,” the chart-topping singer and songwriter Carole King wrote in a statement posted on social media.

Recounting the friendship and rivalry that she and her former husband and songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, shared with Weil and Mr. Mann (a friendship memorialized in Broadway’s “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” from 2014), King added, “The four of us were close, caring friends despite our fierce competition to write the next hit for an artist with a No. 1 song.”

Weil and Mr. Mann, who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, notched their first hit — “Bless You,” recorded in 1961 by Tony Orlando.

The pop and rock explosion of the 1960s was just beginning, thanks in no small part to key contributions from songwriters like themselves, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond and King, who were part of the star-studded songwriting community centered on the Brill Building, the storied hit factory on Broadway and 49th Street in Manhattan.

Weil and her husband toiled two blocks away, in fact, at 1650 Broadway. It was a humble setting in which to create musical masterpieces.

Those good things included two soaring, almost sepulchral No. 1 singles for the Righteous Brothers: “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’,” from 1964, which in 1999 the music licensing agency BMI ranked as the most played song on radio and television of the 20th century, and “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration,” from 1966.

Another potential hit written for the Righteous Brothers, “We Gotta Get Out of this Place” (1965), ended up in the hands of Eric Burdon’s band, the Animals, who added some grit to it that helped it become an anthem for battle-weary soldiers in the Vietnam War. (“In this dirty old part of the city,” Ms. Weil’s lyrics began, “Where the sun refused to shine, people tell me there ain’t no use in tryin’).

In 1977, Dolly Parton hit No. 1 on the Billboard country chart and No. 3 on the pop chart with the Weill-Mann song “Here You Come Again.” (The song brought Ms. Parton a Grammy Award for best female country vocal performance.) In 1980, the Pointer Sisters hit No. 3 on the pop charts with “He’s So Shy,” which Weil wrote with Tony Snow.