Dolores Diana Sorbello

1940 - 2021
LORI BURTON, SONGWRITER, SINGER, PRODUCER, STUDIO OWNER DIES AT 80

Lori Burton (born Dolores Diana Squeglia), co-writer of the Young Rascals hit "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore," has died at the age of 80. Burton was a singer, songwriter, record producer and recording studio owner throughout her career in the Sixties and Seventies.

With her writing partner Pam Sawyer, Burton penned two (out of the ten) songs on the Young Rascals debut album ("I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" and "Baby Let's Wait"), which was released in 1966 and launched the "blue-eyed soul" band's career. Burton also co-wrote "Try to Understand" for Lulu and "All or Nothing" for Patti Belle & the Blue Bells. "Baby Let's Wait" was later a hit for the Royal Guardsman. The partners went on to write and produce for Motown.
As a singer, Burton was the lead vocalist for the Brill Building "girl group" the Whyte Boots on their album "Nightmare" in 1966. She wrote, performed and produced her own album "Breakout" for the Mercury label in 1967. Burton later contributed back-up vocals on several John Lennon solo albums in the Seventies that were recorded at Record Plant New York recording studio, which she owned along with her husband and production partner Roy Cicala.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1940, Burton began writing songs at the age of 14 in a recording studio that her father had built in the basement of their family house; it was there that her boyfriend and future-husband Cicala began his training as a recording engineer. After adopting the stage name Lori Burton (for the actor Richard Burton), she recorded the song "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah (That Boy of Mine)" for Morris Levy's Roulette Records. It was at Roulette that she met Pam Sawyer.

Burton and Sawyer originally wrote the song "I Ain't Gonna Eat My Heart Out," hoping to have it recorded by one of the British-Invasion rock bands, Burton told the Record Plant Diaries Oral History Project:
"Pam and I agreed to meet with the Rascals and I played "I Ain't Gonna Eat My Heart Out" on the piano. They loved it and they loved "Baby Let's Wait" too. So, we went to A&R Studios and I got Roy to record them. The Rascals came into A&R after hours and, before you know it, they were laying down tracks for 'Good Lovin'' and 'How Can I Be Sure.' Roy recorded everything on that first album."

According to May Pang, Lori was one of the anonymous "44th Street Fairies" credited on Lennon's "Walls and Bridges" album. She rehearsed with a short-lived Lennon band, the BOMFs, that backed up Lennon in his last live performance in 1975.
Burton is survived by her son Jade Cicala and his wife Jacqueline; her daughter Shaun Grandioso and her husband Giuseppe; and her grandchildren Sabrina, Jaden and Lianna. She was predeceased by her husband Marius Sorbello, her grandson Stuart Canales and her brother James Squeglia.