Toni Wine

Although best known as one of the many fine pop songwriters to emerge from the offices of the legendary Brill Building, Toni Wine also recorded as a solo artist. Born and raised in New York City, she was a child prodigy who studied classical piano at the Julliard School of Music before going to work at Screen-Gems Publishing, where she initially collaborated with a series of writers including Gerry Goffin, Howie Greenfield and Steve Venet. Although the first Wine composition committed to vinyl was the Cookies' "Only to Other People," she didn't truly hit her stride as a composer until beginning a three-year collaboration with Carole Bayer; the first fruits of their partnership, the Mindbenders' "A Groovy Kind of Love," topped the U.S. pop charts in March of 1965. By this time Wine was also recording as a solo act, releasing a handful of singles for Colpix to little notice. In 1969, she joined with the uncredited likes of Ron Dante, Ellie Greenwich and Andy Kim to record as the fictional cartoon group the Archies, contributing vocals to the blockbuster "Sugar, Sugar"; the following year, according to some reports, Wine reunited with fellow Brill Building alum Tony Orlando to lend vocals to her song "Candida," which was nevertheless attributed to another then-fictional group, Dawn, before rocketing up the charts. (Some accounts also place Wine at the sessions for Orlando's follow-up, "Knock Three Times.") After recording a handful of bubblegum-flavored solo singles, in the early 1970s Wine married famed producer Chips Moman and relocated to Memphis, where she released material for Atco and Monument in addition to a busy career as a writer and session vocalist. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide