Jerome "Jerry" Leiber an
American songwriting and was recording and producing partners with Mike Stoller died from cardiopulmonary failure he was 78 .. Stoller was the composer and Leiber the lyricist. His most famous songs include "
Hound Dog", "
Jailhouse Rock", "
Kansas City", "
Stand By Me" (with
Ben E. King), and "
On Broadway" (with
Barry Mann and
Cynthia Weil).
(April 25, 1933 – August 22, 2011)
Overview
Leiber and Stoller's initial successes were as the writers of such
crossover hit songs as "
Hound Dog" and "
Kansas City." Later in the 1950s, particularly through their work with
The Coasters,
they created a string of ground-breaking hits that are some of the most
entertaining in rock and roll, by using the humorous vernacular of the
teenagers sung in a style that was openly theatrical rather than
personal, songs that include "
Young Blood," "
Searchin'," and "
Yakety Yak."
[2] They were the first to surround black music with elaborate production values, enhancing its emotional power with
The Drifters in "
There Goes My Baby" and influencing
Phil Spector who worked with them on recordings of the Drifters and
Ben E. King. Leiber and Stoller went into the record business and, focusing on the "
girl group" sound, released some of the greatest classics of the
Brill Building period.
[3]
They wrote hits including "
Love Me," "
Loving You," "
Don't," "
Jailhouse Rock," and "
King Creole," among others, for
Elvis Presley.
[4]
The pair were inducted into the
Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985 and the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
[5]
Biography
1950s
Both born to Jewish families, Leiber came from
Baltimore, Stoller from
Long Island, but they met in Los Angeles in 1950, where Stoller was a
freshman at
Los Angeles City College while Leiber was a senior at
Fairfax High. Stoller had graduated from
Belmont High School. After school, Stoller played piano and Leiber worked in a record store and, when they met, they found they shared a love of
blues and
rhythm and blues. In 1950,
Jimmy Witherspoon recorded and performed their first commercial song, "Real Ugly Woman."
Their first hit composition was "Hard Times," recorded by
Charles Brown, which was a rhythm and blues hit in 1952. "
Kansas City," which was first recorded in 1952 (as "K. C. Loving") by rhythm & blues singer
Little Willie Littlefield, became a No. 1 pop hit in 1959 for
Wilbert Harrison. In 1952 they wrote "
Hound Dog" for blues singer
Big Mama Thornton, which became a hit for her in 1953. The 1956
Elvis Presley rock version, which was a takeoff of the adaptation that Presley picked up from
Freddie Bell's lounge act in Las Vegas,
[6] was a much bigger hit. Presley's showstopping mock-burlesque version of "Hound Dog," playfully bumping and grinding on the
Milton Berle Show, created such public excitement that on the
Steve Allen Show they slowed down his act, with an amused Presley in a tuxedo and blue suede shoes singing his hit to a
basset hound.
Allen pronounced Presley "a good sport," and the Leiber-Stoller song
would be forever linked to Presley. Their later songs often had lyrics
more appropriate for
pop music, and their combination of rhythm and blues with pop lyrics revolutionized pop, rock and roll, and punk rock.
They formed
Spark Records in 1953 with their mentor,
Lester Sill. Their songs from this period include "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and "Riot in Cell Block #9," both recorded by
The Robins.
[7]
The label was later bought by
Atlantic Records,
which hired Leiber and Stoller in an innovative deal that allowed them
to produce for other labels. This, in effect, made them the first
independent record producers.
[7] At Atlantic, they revitalized the careers of
The Drifters and wrote a number of hits for
The Coasters, a spin-off of the Robins. Their songs from this period include "
Charlie Brown," "
Searchin'," "
Yakety Yak,"
[8] "
Stand By Me" (written with
Ben E. King), and "
On Broadway" (written with
Barry Mann and
Cynthia Weil). For the Coasters alone, they wrote twenty-four songs that appeared in the US charts.
In 1955 Leiber and Stoller produced a recording of their song "
Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots" with a white vocal group, the Cheers.
[7] Soon after, the song was recorded by
Édith Piaf
in a French translation titled, "L'Homme à la Moto." The European
royalties from another Cheers record, "Bazoom (I Need Your Lovin'),"
funded a 1956 trip to Europe for Stoller and his first wife, Meryl, on
which they met Piaf. Their return to New York was aboard the ill-fated
SS Andrea Doria, which was rammed and sunk by the Swedish liner
MS Stockholm.
The Stollers had to finish the journey to New York aboard another ship.
After their rescue, Leiber greeted Stoller at the dock with the news
that "
Hound Dog" had become a hit for Elvis Presley.
[6]
Stoller's reply was, "Elvis who?" They would go on to write more hits
for Presley, including the title songs for three of his movies—
Loving You, Jailhouse Rock,[9] and
King Creole—as well as the rock and roll Christmas song, "Santa Claus Is Back in Town," for Presley's first Christmas album.
Post-1950s
In the early 1960s,
Phil Spector served an apprenticeship of sorts with Leiber and Stoller in
New York, developing his
record producer's craft while observing and playing guitar on their sessions, including the guitar solo on
The Drifters' "
On Broadway."
After leaving the employ of Atlantic Records—where they produced, and often wrote, many classic recordings by The Drifters with
Ben E. King—they produced a series of records for
United Artists Records, including hits by
Jay and the Americans ("She Cried"),
The Exciters ("Tell Him"), and
The Clovers ("
Love Potion #9," also written by Leiber and Stoller).
In the 1960s, Leiber and Stoller founded and briefly owned
Red Bird Records, which issued
The Shangri-Las' "
Leader of the Pack" and
The Dixie Cups' "
Chapel of Love."
After selling Red Bird, they continued working as independent
producers and songwriters. Their best known song from this period is "
Is That All There Is?" recorded by
Peggy Lee in 1969 and earning her a
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy. Earlier in the decade, they had had a minor hit with Lee with "
I'm a Woman." Their last major hit production was "
Stuck in the Middle With You" by
Stealers Wheel, taken from the band's 1972 eponymous debut album, which the duo produced. In 1975, they recorded
Mirrors, an album of art songs with Peggy Lee. A remixed and expanded version of the album was released in 2005 as
Peggy Lee Sings Leiber and Stoller.
In the late seventies,
A&M Records recruited Leiber and Stoller to write and produce an album for
Elkie Brooks. The album
Two Days Away (1977) proved a success in the UK and most of Europe. Their composition "
Pearl's A Singer" (written with Ralph Dino & John Sembello) became a hit for Brooks, and remains her
signature tune. They produced another album for her,
Live and Learn, in 1979. In 1978,
mezzo-soprano Joan Morris and her
pianist-
composer husband
William Bolcom recorded an album,
Other Songs by Leiber and Stoller,
featuring a number of the songwriters' more unusual (and satiric)
works, including "Let's Bring Back World War I," written specifically
for (and dedicated to) Bolcom and Morris; and "Humphrey Bogart," a
tongue-in-cheek song about obsession with the
actor.
[10]
In 1982,
Steely Dan member
Donald Fagen recorded their song, "
Ruby Baby," on his album,
The Nightfly. That same year, former
Doobie Brothers member
Michael McDonald released "
I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)," adapted from Leiber and Stoller's "
I Keep Forgettin'."
With collaborator Artie Butler, Stoller wrote the music to the
musical The People in the Picture, with book and lyrics by
Iris Rainer Dart. Stoller and Butler's music received a 2011
Drama Desk Award nomination.
Jerry Leiber died in
Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 78 on August 22, 2011, from cardio-pulmonary failure.
[1] He was survived by his sons Jed, Oliver, and Jake.
[11]
Awards and honors
They won
Grammy awards for "
Is That All There Is?" in 1969, and for the cast album of
Smokey Joe's Cafe, a 1995
Broadway musical revue based on their work.
Smokey Joe's Cafe was also nominated for seven
Tony awards, and became the longest-running musical revue in Broadway history.
Other awards include:
Legacy
In the 1950s the
rhythm and blues
of the black entertainment world, up to then restricted to black clubs,
was increasing its audience-share in areas previously reserved for
traditional pop music, and the phenomenon now known as "
crossover" became apparent.
[4]
Leiber and Stoller affected the course of modern popular music in
1957 when they wrote and produced the crossover double-sided hit by The
Coasters, "
Young Blood"/"
Searchin'."
[9] They released "
Yakety Yak," which was a mainstream hit, as was the follow-up, "
Charlie Brown." This was followed by "
Along Came Jones," "
Poison Ivy," "Shoppin' for Clothes," and "
Little Egypt (Ying-Yang)."
[2]
They produced and co-wrote "
There Goes My Baby," a hit for
The Drifters in 1959,
[14] which introduced the use of
strings for
saxophone-like
riffs, a
tympani for the Brazilian
baion rhythm they incorporated, and lavish production values into the established black R&B sound, laying the groundwork for the
soul music that would follow.
[3]
In 2009,
Simon & Schuster published
Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, written by Leiber and Stoller with
David Ritz.
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External images
