Mortimer "Mort" Shuman (November 12, 1938 - November 2, 1991) was an American singer, pianist and songwriter whose work connected the Brill Building pop era with French popular music and the theatrical songwriting tradition of Jacques Brel. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrant parents, he developed an early interest in piano and rhythm and blues. Although he briefly studied philosophy, music soon became his profession. He absorbed much of his musical education in Harlem clubs, where he encountered the blues, gospel and R&B styles that shaped his writing.
At 16, Shuman met singer and songwriter Doc Pomus, who became his mentor and most important creative partner. Their collaboration began in the late 1950s and soon placed them among the leading songwriting teams working in New York's Brill Building. Pomus generally supplied the lyrics while Shuman composed the melodies, although both contributed to the complete songs. Their partnership produced a remarkable sequence of pop and rock and roll standards, including "A Teenager in Love" for Dion and the Belmonts, "This Magic Moment," "Sweets for My Sweet" and "Save the Last Dance for Me" for the Drifters, and "Can't Get Used to Losing You" for Andy Williams.
Elvis Presley recorded many Shuman-Pomus compositions, among them "A Mess of Blues," "Little Sister," "Surrender," "Suspicion," "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame" and "Viva Las Vegas." The latter became one of the defining songs associated with Presley's screen career. Shuman and Pomus also wrote for artists such as Fabian, Bobby Darin and Ray Charles. Their work was notable for combining strong melodic hooks with lyrics that gave otherwise accessible pop songs a more dramatic emotional tension.
After the songwriting partnership ended in the mid-1960s, Shuman worked in London before settling in France. His growing command of French enabled him to write, translate and perform across linguistic and cultural boundaries. In 1966, he encountered the work of Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel and became a major advocate of his songs in the English-speaking world. With Eric Blau, Shuman adapted Brel's material for the stage production Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which opened off-Broadway in 1968 and became an international success. Shuman's English adaptations helped introduce Brel's theatrical and emotionally intense writing to a wider audience.
Shuman also established a successful career as a recording artist in France. His French-language songs included "Le Lac Majeur," "Un Ete de Porcelaine," "Papa-Tango-Charly," "Sha Mi Sha" and "Brooklyn by the Sea," the last reflecting his continuing attachment to his Brooklyn upbringing. He worked with French performers and songwriters including Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell and Michel Sardou, while also contributing songs to recordings by international artists such as Janis Joplin and the Small Faces.
His later work included albums such as My Death, Voila Comment, Imagine and Distant Drum, as well as music for stage and screen. Shuman died in London in 1991 at the age of 52. His songwriting legacy was recognized with induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Ahmet Ertegun Award in 2010. While his name is often linked to "Viva Las Vegas" and "Save the Last Dance for Me," his broader achievement was the unusual range of his career: he was simultaneously a hit songwriter, solo performer, translator, musical dramatist and cultural mediator between American popular music and Europe.