Pomus, Doc (originally, Felder, Jerome E.)

Pomus, Doc (originally, Felder, Jerome E.) , American songwriter; b. N.Y., June 27, 1925; d. there, March 14, 1991. Pomus emerged from R&B music to become one of the most successful songwriters of the late 1950s and early 1960s, specializing in blues-based pop songs crafted for such artists as Elvis Presley and the Drifters, among them “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Surrender,” and “Can’t Get Used to Losing You.”

Pomus was struck by polio at the age of nine and was forced to walk on crutches thereafter. Nevertheless, by his teens he was singing and playing saxophone in blues and jazz clubs. After recording unsuccessfully, he turned to writing, getting his first notable credit when “Boogie Woogie Country Girl” (music and lyrics by Doc Pomus and Reginald Asby) appeared on the flip-side of Joe Turner’s R&B Top Ten single “Corrine Corrina” in 1956. Later that year Ray Charles gave him an R&B Top Ten with “Lonely Avenue.” He collaborated with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller on “Young Blood,” an R&B chart-topper in 1957 and his first Top Ten pop hit.

Pomus teamed with Mort Shuman in 1958, and mostly in collaboration with him placed many songs in the pop Top Ten over the next six years: “A Teenager in Love” (ree. by Dion and the Belmonts); “Hound Dog Man” and “Turn Me Loose” (both by Fabian) in 1959; “Go, Jimmy, Go” (Jimmy Clanton); and the #1 “Save the Last Dance for Me” (The Drifters) in 1960; the #1 “Surrender,” “Little Sister,” and “(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame” (all by Elvis Presley) in 1961; “She’s Not You” (music and lyrics by Doc Pomus, Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller) (Elvis Presley) in 1962; “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” (Andy Williams) in 1963; and “Suspicion” (Terry Stafford) in 1964. (Pomus and Shuman’s “This Magic Moment,” a Top 40 hit by the Drifters in 1960, was revived for a Top Ten hit by Jay and the Americans in 1969.)

Shuman settled in Europe in the mid-1960s, ending the songwriting team. Pomus suffered a fall that confined him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, the ascent of The Beatles brought with it an emphasis on performers writing their own songs, thus limiting his opportunities. Pomus was inactive in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but he returned to work with a number of projects in the late 1970s and early 1980s, collaborating with Dr. John on songs for the Dr. John albums City Lights (1978) and Tango Palace (1979), and for the B. B. King album There Must Be a Better World Somewhere (1981), and writing with Willie De Ville for the Mink De Ville album Le Chat Bleu (1980). He died of lung cancer at 65 in 1991.

—William Ruhlmann