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Mortimer Shuman (November 12, 1938 – November 2, 1991) was an American singer, pianist and songwriter, best known as co-writer of many 1960s rock and roll hit record, including "Viva Las Vegas". He also wrote and sang many songs in French, such as "Le Lac Majeur", "Papa-Tango-Charly", "Sha Mi Sha", "Un Été de Porcelaine", and "Brooklyn by the Sea" which became hits in France and several other European countries. Shuman wrote over 500 songs, including those for Ben E. King, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Andy Williams, and Janis Joplin. He was also responsible for the English-language production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Shuman was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe found a favorite borough in Brooklyn, where Shuman grew up in an apartment near the sea. He was already a robustly built boy, much taller than anyone else his age. Like many Brooklyn residents, Shuman only spoke Yiddish.
He learned English at the end of grade school. At the age of 18, he decided to begin writing lyrics. Shuman attended Abraham Lincoln High School.
He chose music as his field and consequently abandoned his studies in philosophy. He attended the New York Conservatory, where he studied classical music.
Shuman left the borough and headed toward "the lights of Manhattan" thanks to the English he had learned.
With the advent of the British invasion, they moved to London, where they penned songs for a number of British musicians. After his partnership with Doc Pomus ended in 1965, Shuman moved to Paris, France, where he wrote songs for Johnny Hallyday and launched his own recording career. Shuman wrote songs for Eddy Mitchell and Michel Sardou.
He also wrote a couple of hits in the UK (including the Small Faces' "Sha-La-La-La-Lee" and ' "Love's Just A Broken Heart", both co-written with Kenny Lynch), as well as a musical, Budgie (lyrics by Don Black). With the Welsh songwriter Clive Westlake, he wrote "Here I Go Again", which was recorded by the Hollies. Billy J. Kramer enjoyed success with another Shuman song, "Little Children".
In 1968, Shuman teamed with Eric Blau and adapted the French lyrics of songs by the Belgian composer Jacques Brel used as the basis of the successful off-Broadway production Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Some of the songs from the show were subsequently recorded by Scott Walker, including "Jackie" and "Mathilde", and by David Bowie, including "My Death" and "Amsterdam".
During the 1970s, Shuman enjoyed "great success" in France with his best-known songs, such as "italic=no", "italic=no", and "italic=no".
Shuman appeared in both the stage revue and the 1975 film adaptation. This was followed the next year with work on the soundtrack of the film Sex O'Clock U.S.A., which is notable for featuring one of the earliest known gay songs, "You're My Man,"London Records 12" -L.9, 1976 while another one of his compositions from the soundtrack, "Baby Come On" (billed under the Sex O'Clock U.S.A. name during its chart run) become a modest hit on Billboard's Disco chart, peaking at number 37 in July 1977. He also did many collaborations with the Israeli singer Mike Brant, and composed film scores, often French movies, including A Day at the Beach (1970), Romance of a Horsethief (1971), Black Thursday (1974), À nous les petites Anglaises (1976), Monsieur Papa (1977) and The More It Goes, the Less It Goes (1977). He also worked occasionally as an actor, notably appearing with Jodie Foster in The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (for which he also served as musical supervisor).
"Sorrow" was another of his well-known songs, which he performed on January 14, 1978, during TF1's Numéro Un, the variety show of italic=no.
In 2019, journalist said that Shuman "was never a star, but a clandestine worker of song: a man who fabricated hits on an assembly line... Too modest to claim gleaming paternity for it".
During a stay in Arcachon, France, he met a woman from Bordeaux, Maria-Pia Vezia. Shuman and Vezia became engaged in December 1980. He married her, and they lived together in the of France. Maria-Pia Shuman was his last wife.
His third language was French, whose sounds he adored.
He had been living in London since 1986, where he had stopped drinking alcohol, and where he had also released an album and staged two musicals.
italic=no of Le Monde described him as a man who "never knew how to say no to a friend, even knowing he wouldn't be paid. He loves to share; his generosity is disorderly, his disorder generous".
In 1991, Shuman underwent liver surgery. He was hospitalized again two weeks before his death.
A few years later, his remains were transferred to the vault of his in-laws, at the Pins-Francs cemetery, in the of Bordeaux.
On May 27, 1992, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at the 23rd annual Induction and Awards Dinner held at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers.
On March 15, 2010, Shuman was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the 25th annual induction ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. He was one of the 2010 recipients of the Ahmet Ertegun Award from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He joined his early collaborator Doc Pomus, who was inducted in 1992.
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