Elliot A. Willensky (August 6, 1943 – March 29, 2010) was an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

lyricist A lyricist is a songwriter who writes lyrics (the spoken words), as opposed to a composer, who writes the song's music which may include but not limited to the melody, harmony, arrangement and accompaniment. Royalties A lyricist's income ...

and

music producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

. He wrote

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

's first solo hit "

Got to Be There ''Got to Be There'' is the debut solo studio album by American singer Michael Jackson, released by Motown on January 24, 1972, four weeks after the Jackson 5's ''Greatest Hits (The Jackson 5 album), Greatest Hits'' (1971). It includes the Got to ...

" and the

Jermaine Jackson Jermaine La Jaune Jackson (born December 11, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter and bassist. He is best known for being a member of the Jackson family. From 1964 to 1975, Jermaine was second vocalist after his brother Michael of The Jackson ...

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "The Voice", she is one of the bestselling music artists of all time, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide. Houston in ...

duet "If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful." Willensky composed the music for the 1999

off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...

''Abby's Song'' and served as the music coordinator for the

Tony Orlando and Dawn Tony Orlando and Dawn is an American pop music group that was popular in the 1970s, composed of singer Tony Orlando and the backing vocal group Dawn (Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson). Their signature hits include " Candida", " Knock Thre ...

variety show on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

Biography

He was born in

Bayonne, New Jersey Bayonne ( ) is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is situated on a peninsula located between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east. As of ...

on August 6, 1943, to Raymond Willensky and Gertrude Berlin. He attended

Bayonne High School Bayonne High School (BHS) is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades in Bayonne, in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States, operated by the Bayonne Board of Education. The school has been ...

and graduated from

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

with a degree in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

. He undertook

post-graduate Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...

studies at Boston University and the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

and worked as a research scientist of the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

. Willensky left the scientific field to become a songwriter in 1969. Arguably Willensky's most well-known work is "Got to Be There," which was Michael Jackson's first solo hit and reached number 4 on the

R&B singles chart The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 p ...

in 1971. The song reached number 5 on the R&B chart again in 1983 when it was covered by

Chaka Khan Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan (), is an American singer. Her career has spanned more than five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Known as the " Qu ...

. The song has also been covered by

The Miracles The Miracles (also known as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles from 1965 to 1972) were an American vocal group that was the first successful recording act for Berry Gordy's Motown Records, and one of the most important and most influential groups ...

in 1972,

Boyz II Men Boyz II Men (pronounced ''boys to men''), also known as B2M, is an American vocal harmony group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, best known for emotional ballads and a cappella harmonies. They are currently a trio composed of baritone Nathan M ...

in 2007, and an instrumental version by jazz guitarist/singer

George Benson George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist. A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, pla ...

in 1993. Willensky continued his affiliation with the Jackson family into the 1980s, writing the noted

and

duet, "If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful," which appeared on Jermaine's 1986 '' Precious Moments'' album. He died from a stroke on March 29, 2010 in

Summit, New Jersey Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern- central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United Sta ...

. In 2021, a play entitled Elliot and Me, conceptualized by Elliot Willensky and his younger brother Steven Willensky, and finished after Elliot's death by Steven Willensky and Scott Coulter, debuted at the Hudson Theater Works in

Weehawken, New Jersey Weehawken is a Township (New Jersey), township in the North Hudson, New Jersey, northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey, Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located largely on the Hudson Palisades overlooking the North River ...

References

1943 births 2010 deaths American musical theatre composers American television composers Bayonne High School alumni Jewish American songwriters Musicians from Bayonne, New Jersey Boston University College of Arts and Sciences alumni Songwriters from New Jersey 21st-century American Jews {{US-songwriter-stub