You may not know her name, but you know her songs

The Ronettes - "Be My Baby"
The Ronettes - "Baby I Love You"
The Ronettes - "Walking in The Rain"
The Crystals - "Then He Kissed Me"
The Crystals - "Da Doo Ron Ron"
The Crystals - "Little Boy"
Darlene Love - "A Fine, Fine Boy"
Darlene Love - "(Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry"
Darlene Love - "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"
The Dixie Cups - "Chapel of Love"
Ike & Tina Turner - "River Deep - Mountain High"
The Shangri-Las - "Leader of The Pack"
The Beach Boys - "I Can Hear Music"
Manfred Mann - "Do Wah Diddy"
Tommy James & The Shondells - "Hanky Panky"

If Ellie Greenwich only had helped to write "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" -- the greatest Christmas song of all time -- she would have been on the Mount Rushmore of roll and roll songwriters.

But just take a look (and another listen to) the others in that list. Working in the Brill Building in NYC, she painstaking helped to craft one small masterpiece after another, often with partner Jeff Barry. Very few have been able to chronicle the rush of emotions, teen angst, and impending heartbreak of first romance better than Greenwich.

Brian Wilson said "Be My Baby" is the greatest song ever written. That may be overstating it just a bit, but it's no hyperbole to say Ellie Greenwich, who died last week at the age of 66, was one of the finest songwriters of her era.