Legendary Lyricist Gerry Goffin Dies

Famed US songwriter and Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer Gerry Goffin has passed away at home in Los Angeles, The New York Times has reported.

Goffin, who was 75, scored more than 50 Top 40 hits with his songs, a great many of which he wrote with first wife and songwriting partner Carole King. Their collaboration was something of a whirlwind -- they married in 1959 and had divorced by 1968, though they worked together for a few years after the fact -- but prodigiously fruitful, yielding such renowned #1s as Will You Love Me Tomorrow as performed by The Shirelles, Steve Lawrence's Go Away Little Girl (a consequent hit for Donny Osmond) and Little Eva's The Loco-Motion (later covered by Kylie Minogue), as well as other high-placing hits as The Chiffons' One Fine Day and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, made famous by Aretha Franklin.

In other words, taking into account his other collaborations with songwriters such as Barry Mann, Russ Titelman, Barry Goldberg and Michael Masser -- which bore hits for acts such as Rod Stewart, Gladys Knight & The Pips and The Monkees -- the man was responsible for great chunk of the US popular music landscape in the mid- to late-20th century.

Gerry Goffin was born in Brooklyn on February 11, 1939, and had started a career as a chemist at the time he met King, with whom he shared a romance worthy of being the focus of Tony Award-nominated Broadway show Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.

Following the pair's divorce, Goffin chalked up an Oscar nomination with Michael Masser for the theme to Mahogany (1975), as performed by Diana Ross. In addition, his So Sad The Song, from Pipe Dreams, was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1977.

His later work, during the 1980s and 1990s, still earned him accolades, most notably for being the brain behind Whitney Houston's 1985 smash hit Savin' All My Love For You.

King has released a statement via Facebook in the wake of Goffin's passing. "Gerry Goffin was my first love," she wrote. "He had a profound impact on my life and the rest of the world. Gerry was a good man and a dynamic force, whose words and creative influence will resonate for generations to come."

He is survived by his wife, Michelle, and five children. A cause of death has not been reported.