Al Gorgoni is an American guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

, born October 11, 1939, known for his work as a session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

 during the 1960s and 1970s. Growing up in Philadelphia, his family moved to The Bronx

The Bronx

The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...

 where he took up the guitar at age 14.

His first recording sessions took place in 1959, playing on demo recordings with Brill Building

Brill Building

The Brill Building is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood...

 songwriters Barry Mann

Barry Mann

Barry Mann is an American songwriter, and part of a successful songwriting partnership with his wife, Cynthia Weil.-Career:...

, Cynthia Weil

Cynthia Weil

Cynthia Weil is a prominent American songwriter. She is famous for having written many songs together with her husband Barry Mann....

, Carole King

Carole King

Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...

, Gerry Goffin

Gerry Goffin

Gerry Goffin is an American lyricist. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 with former songwriting partner and first wife, Carole King. he has co-written six Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers.-Career:Goffin enlisted with the Marine Corps Reserve after graduating from...

, and Phil Spector

Phil Spector

Phillip Harvey "Phil" Spector is an American record producer and songwriter, later known for his conviction in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson....

. Gorgoni eventually moved into proper sessions, appearing on hit singles such as "The Name Game

The Name Game

"The Name Game", or "The Banana Song", is a children's singalong rhyming game that creates variations on a person's name. It was written by U.S...

" by Shirley Ellis

Shirley Ellis

Shirley Ellis is an American soul music singer and songwriter of West Indian origin. She is best known for her novelty hits "The Nitty Gritty" , "The Name Game" and "The Clapping Song"...

, "Sherry

Sherry (song)

"Sherry" is a song written by Bob Gaudio and originally recorded by The Four Seasons. It was their first nationally-released single and also their first number one hit, initially reaching the top of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on September 15, 1962...

," "Walk Like A Man" and "Big Girls Don't Cry" by The Four Seasons, "Leader of the Pack

Leader of the Pack

"Leader of the Pack" is a 1964 pop song recorded by girl group The Shangri-Las. It became number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 28, 1964.-Original Shangri-Las recording:...

" by The Shangri-Las

The Shangri-Las

The Shangri-Las were an American pop girl group of the 1960s. Between 1964 and 1966 they charted with often heartbreaking teen melodramas, and remain best known for "Leader of the Pack" and "Remember ".- Early career :...

, and "Chapel of Love

Chapel of Love

"Chapel of Love" is a song written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector, and made famous by The Dixie Cups in 1964, spending three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. There have also been many other versions of this song...

" by The Dixie Cups

The Dixie Cups

The Dixie Cups are an American pop music girl group of the 1960s. They are best known for their 1964 million selling disc, "Chapel of Love".-Career:...

. Other hits featuring Gorgoni's playing are "The Sound of Silence

The Sound of Silence

"The Sound of Silence" is the song that propelled the 1960s folk music duo Simon & Garfunkel to popularity. It was written in February 1964 by Paul Simon in the aftermath of the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. An initial version preferred by the band was remixed and sweetened, and has become...

" by Simon & Garfunkel, "Brown Eyed Girl

Brown Eyed Girl

"Brown Eyed Girl" is a song by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. Written and recorded in 1967 by Van Morrison and produced by Bang Records chief Bert Berns, it was first released in May 1967 on the album Blowin' Your Mind!. When released as a single, it rose to number eight on the...

" by Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

, "I'm A Believer

I'm a Believer

"I'm a Believer" is a song composed by Neil Diamond and recorded by The Monkees in 1966 with the lead vocals by Micky Dolenz. The single, produced by Jeff Barry, hit the number one spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending December 31, 1966 and remained there for seven weeks,...

" by The Monkees

The Monkees

The Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...

, "At Seventeen

At Seventeen

"At Seventeen" is a song by Janis Ian, released in 1975 on Between the Lines and as a single. Ian's most successful recording, the song is a commentary on adolescent cruelty, the illusion of popularity, and teenage angst, as reflected upon from the maturity of adulthood...

" by Janis Ian

Janis Ian

Janis Ian is an American songwriter, singer, musician, columnist, and science fiction author. Ian first entered the folk music scene while still a teenager in the mid-sixties; most active musically in that decade and the 1970s, she has continued recording into the 21st century...

, "Sugar Sugar" by The Archies

The Archies

The Archies are a garage band founded by Archie Andrews, Reggie Mantle, and Jughead Jones, a group of adolescent fictional characters of the Archie universe, in the context of the animated TV series, The Archie Show...

, and "Brand New Key

Brand New Key

"Brand New Key" is a pop song written by folk singer Melanie, which became a novelty hit in 1971-72. Taken from Melanie's album Gather Me, it was also known as "The Rollerskate Song" due to its chorus. It was her biggest hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in December 1971 and...

" by Melanie

Melanie

Melanie is a feminine given name derived from the Greek μελανία , "blackness" and that from μέλας , meaning "dark". Borne in its Latin form by two saints: Melania the Elder and her grand-daughter Melania the Younger, the name was introduced to England by the Normans in its French form Melanie...

.

Gorgoni has worked with a diversity of other artists including B.J. Thomas, Astrud Gilberto

Astrud Gilberto

Astrud Gilberto is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She is well known for the Grammy Award-winning song "The Girl from Ipanema".-Biography:...

, Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond

Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades from the 1960s until the present....

, Blood Sweat & Tears, Laura Nyro

Laura Nyro

Laura Nyro was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved considerable critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry, and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th...

, Richard

Richard Fariña

Richard George Fariña was an American writer and folksinger.-Early years and education:Richard Fariña was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Cuban and Irish descent. He grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn Technical High School...

 and Mimi Fariña

Mimi Fariña

Mimi Baez Fariña was a singer-songwriter and activist, the youngest of three daughters to a Scottish mother and Mexican-American physicist Albert Baez .- Early years:Fariña's father, a physicist affiliated with Stanford University and MIT, moved his family...

, Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin

Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...

, Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

 and Tammi Terrell

Tammi Terrell

Thomasina Winifred Montgomery, known as Tammi Terrell was an American singer-songwriter most notable for her association with Motown and her duets with Marvin Gaye. As a teenager she recorded for the Scepter–Wand, Try Me and Checker record labels. She signed with Motown in April 1965 and enjoyed...

, Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, and Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

.