Songwriter Ellie Greenwich, 68, passed away on Wednesday, and it’s no overstatement to say that music in the early Sixties wouldn’t have been the same without her talent. Barely into her twenties at the time, she helped pen a solid dozen or so of the decade’s most memorable hits, from “Leader Of The Pack” and “Chapel Of Love” to “Hanky Panky” and “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” many written with her Brill Building partner and then-husband, Jeff Barry.

Actually, if you subtracted the couple’s musical progeny, Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound would have had a much weaker foundation. Just take a gander at this list of Greenwich-Barry tunes produced by Spector, recorded by artists signed to his Philles label:

Bob B. Soxx & The Blue-Jeans – “Not Too Young To Get Married”

The Crystals – “All Grown Up,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Girls Can Tell,” “Heartbreaker,” “I Wonder,” “Little Boy,” “Then He Kissed Me”

Darlene Love – “A Fine, Fine Boy,” “Chapel Of Love,” “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” “Run Run Runaway,” “Wait ‘Til My Bobby Gets Home”

The Ronettes – “Baby, I Love You,” “Be My Baby,” “I Can Hear Music,” “I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine,” “I Wonder,” “Keep On Dancing,” “Why Don’t They Let Us Fall In Love”

Ike & Tina Turner – “I’ll Never Need More Than This,” “River Deep, Mountain High”

Here are two of my all-time favorites from this list:

Purchase The Ronettes – “Be My Baby” via iTunes.

Purchase Ike & Tina Turner – “River Deep, Mountain High” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.

Quite the output, isn’t it? And Greenwich has a hand in two other Spector hits, written when she was earlier paired with Tony Powers: Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans’ “Why Do Lovers Break Each Other’s Hearts” and Darlene Love’s “(Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry.”

The titles alone belie simple themes, but it’s ridiculously crazy how good these songs were for their time, and even more so that they still resonate today. Yes, Spector’s mad genius played a big role, but the song comes first. So thanks for the music, Ellie, but especially the memories.