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http://www.there1.com/leiber.html


http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibit_home_page.asp?exhibitId=17


http://www.laurasmidi.com/cgi-bin/shmtitles.cgi?newtitle=Jerry%20Leiber


http://www.geocities.com/spectropop/hleiberstoller.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Leiber


http://www.mcportsmouth.freeserve.co.uk/a/lest.htm


http://www.pioneertheatre.org/season/3_read.html

JERRY LEIBER (By Colin
Kilgour) Born Jerome Leiber, 25 April 1933, Baltimore, Maryland Songwriter,
Record Producer and Arranger. One half of the legendary Leiber and Stoller.
This is ostensibly a BTBWY piece on Jerry but the two of them are
inseparable, plus they almost share their date of birth, so here they are,
together as usual ..... Michael Stoller was born only weeks earlier than
Jerry, on March 13, 1933 in Belle Harbor, Queens, New York. Mixed in with my
own wordage here, I acknowledge the use of some of the fine writing from
Dave Tianen and the dude from the mcportsmouth website which I quote later.
>From the beginning Leiber served as the sharp-witted lyricist, while the
classically trained but jazz and R&B loving Stoller wrote the music. Both
started to play piano before they were 10. They put the growl in the hound
dog, the rock in the jailhouse and the magic in "Love Potion Number Nine."
Ahmet Ertegun describes them as the first independent record producers in
the business (first and best?). They've penned more than 50 hits including
"Kansas City," "Stand by Me," "On Broadway," "Yakety Yak," "Love Me,"
"Spanish Harlem," "Charlie Brown," "Treat Me Nice," "Young Blood," "I Who
Have Nothing," "Is That All There Is?" and "There Goes My Baby". The hits of
The Drifters, the Coasters and Elvis Presley all drew heavily from the work
of Leiber and Stoller. Other artists who have cut their tunes include The
Beatles, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Ray Charles, John Lennon, Edith
Piaf, Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters, The Everly Brothers, John Mellencamp,
Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Conway Twitty, Joni Mitchell,
Count Basie, Dion, Peggy Lee, The Monkees, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Neville
Brothers, Johnny Mathis, Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin, Billy Eckstine, Ben E.
King, Barbra Streisand, Luther Vandross and Donna Summer. They were also
innovators. Leiber and Stoller were among the first to use strings on R&B
records and through such tunes as "Spanish Harlem" they were among the first
to introduce Latin rhythms into rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is said to have
been formed from a fusion between black rhythm and blues and white
entrepreneurship. If so, then the foremost of the fair-skinned founding
fathers must be Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. They are in the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Record Producers Hall of
Fame. In 1995 they added Broadway to their list of conquered realms when
"Smokey Joe's Cafe: the Songs of Leiber and Stoller" opened and garnered
seven Tony nominations. The production also won the Grammy for best musical.
"They just wrote plain great songs and their songs matched exceptionally
well with the artists who recorded them," says Howard Kramer, assistant
curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. "Their music was
clever, it was thought-provoking. When they started out, people were
basically just doing love songs. Leiber and Stoller wrote story songs about
a kid getting yelled at by his parents. No one was doing that." A major
source of Leiber and Stoller's success and power was their ability to bridge
both racial barriers and musical genres. Their funny and funky contributions
to the Coasters stand in contrast to their ethereal "Dance With Me" (the
Drifters, 1959) and the gospely "Stand By Me" (Ben E. King, 1961). The
breadth is even evident in their association with their most famous single
partner, Elvis Presley, who managed to ride some of Big Mama's rollick in
"Hound Dog", to choreograph Leiber and Stoller's high-spirited title tune
for his "Jailhouse Rock" film, then tame himself down to a genteel jump in
"Treat Me Nice" and croon passionately on "Don't". When he was five Jerry's
father died and his mother took the insurance money and opened up a grocery
store on the edge of the black ghetto. It became Jerry's job to deliver
groceries to the homes of black customers. It was at these homes that he
heard the rhythm and blues that would become an important part of his life.
With his mother working from dawn to dusk, Jerry grew up on the streets. At
the age of nine he began taking piano lessons at his Uncle Dave's house. But
Uncle David hated the sound of the boogie-woogie licks his nephew kept
hammering away at and stopped the lessons. In 1945, his mother moved them
out to Los Angeles on a Greyhound bus. At 13 there, he wanted to be an
actor. When he was sixteen, he began working in a record store on Fairfax
Avenue. He was listening to rhythm and blues and began jotting down his own
blues lyrics in a series of notebooks. But he could not write music so he
began searching for a collaborator. Mike Stoller's mother took him to
Broadway shows and his Aunt Ray gave him piano lessons. But after a few
months, Mike gave up on the lessons. The summer he was seven, Mike heard
black children playing boogie-woogie on an old up-right piano at an
interracial summer camp. He began imitating the patterns, and around 14/15
he took lessons with the great stride pianist and jazz composer James P.
Johnson who had tutored Fats Waller. Before long Mike drifted away from the
lessons and went back to playing boogie and blues by ear. In 1949, the
family moved to Los Angeles and Mike played in a Latino dance band. Before
the dawn of rock, in 1950, here they were then, both teenagers transplanted
to L.A. from the East Coast. Stoller dug jazz but played with dance bands
while attending Los Angeles City College. Through a drummer friend he met
Leiber then a student at Fairfax High with that after-school job at a record
store. They spent that summer writing songs that reflected their shared love
of black pop music and before the year was out Jimmy Witherspoon had
recorded and performed Leiber and Stoller's "Real Ugly Woman" in concert.
Their adopted rhythm-and-blues roots continued to serve the pair well when
in 1952, Jerry came up with the words to " K.C. Loving," which was later
retitled "Kansas City" and recorded by a staggering number of rock and
rhythm-and-blues artists with Wilbert Harrison's ascending to the top of
Billboard's charts. The team were just 19 years of age. Around this time, L
& S decided to relocated themselves back east to New York to be closer to
the virtual teen pop factory centred in and around New York's Brill
Building. Leiber and Stoller were a leading force in the late 50s/1960s
songwriting Mecca centred on the Brill. There they worked with and became
mentors to such new leading song originators as Burt Bacharach and Hal
David, Barry Mann and Carole King, Neil Sedaka, and Doc Pomus and Mort
Shuman. They also provided a songwriting job for a hungry kid named Neil
Diamond. They yet again unwittingly furthered the evolution of rock by
taking under their wings a young producer, Phil Spector, arguably under L &
S, evolving the predecessor of his "wall of sound". Nor did they limit
themselves to composing. Leiber and Stoller have often been quoted as saying
they didn't write songs, they wrote records On August 13, 1952, Leiber and
Stoller became de facto producers when they supervised Johnny Otis band
singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's recording of their song "Hound Dog."
Invited to a rehearsal, Leiber and Stoller ended up producing the session as
well. "Hound Dog" shot to the top of the R&B charts and Leiber and Stoller
were on their way. Presley's seminal number one hit with the song was still
another three years away. Thornton's side sold well enough to elicit an
"answer record" titled "Bear Cat" from Rufus Thomas, which helped jump start
Sun Records, future home of rock pioneers Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl
Perkins (+ Cashman). Late in 1953, Jerry, Mike, and Lester Sill started
Spark Records. Now Leiber and Stoller could produce records officially. Late
in 1955, Atlantic Records became interested in Spark and its young
masterminds. When Atlantic made their offer, Jerry and Mike decided that
they hadn't really wanted to run a record company anyway and in 1956 they
dissolved Spark. 1956 was the year that truly launched Leiber and Stoller.
It started out when a 21-year-old sensation named Elvis Presley recorded a
pumped-up version of "Hound Dog" and turned it into one of the biggest hits
of the entire rock era. Following a two month trip to Europe, Stoller
learned about Presley's recording after being rescued from the wreck of the
Italian cruise ship Andrea Doria near New York. Leiber greeted him with the
news at a dock there. At first, they hated the Presley version ....... "But
we love it now" ......... Leiber added that "it grew on me, like a million
dollar bond!" "In the beginning, we did have a disdain for Elvis," Leiber
admits. "Our respect for him grew over time. Our disdain was the disdain we
felt for white people. We were pretty high hat about it. People who thought
we were white just because we were white, didn't get it. We considered
ourselves black. We thought all these white kids like Ricky Nelson were a
joke." Qualifying the change of opinion regarding Presley, this came about
as they realised that his love and depth of knowledge of R & B rivalled
their own. Leiber says "He had an ear touched with magic and he had a
musical soul that went everywhere. He was incredible and yet he was just a
shit kicking country boy - go figure it out". "Hound Dog" began an immensely
profitable relationship between the two young songwriters and Presley who
turned to them for a string of hits that eventually included "Jailhouse
Rock," "Love Me," "Don't," "Loving You," "Treat Me Nice," "She's Not You,"
"Trouble" and "King Creole." Although the money was great, Leiber and
Stoller weren't necessarily enthralled with their role as movie-score
contract writers. In 1957, Presley's song publishers sent the team to New
York City to write the music for "Jailhouse Rock." Unfortunately, Leiber and
Stoller spent a lot of time partying in Harlem and very little time writing.
Finally, in desperation publisher Jean Aberbach cornered them in their hotel
room, pushed a sofa in front of the door and demanded they start writing.
That afternoon Leiber and Stoller wrote four songs, including "Jailhouse
Rock," and were back in the clubs by nightfall. The boys were brought in to
produce the recording sessions for the Elvis movie "Jailhouse Rock". That
was a great success but their liaison with Elvis would soon end. It's a pity
that L & S didn't extend their working relationship with Elvis. Certainly
the Army intervened for Private 53310761 but Tom Parker's disrespectful and
ignorant attitude towards the two writers, put paid to any further musical
synergy from the combined wonderful talents of the three guys. The April &
May 1957 sessions for J Rock took place mostly at the Radio Recorders studio
in Hollywood where the boys had cut Big Mama Thornton's original of 'Hound
Dog'. Four songs (the exceptions were 'Don't Leave Me Now' and 'Young and
Beautiful') were L & S compositions. Jorgensen tells us that it was Jerry
who was basically session boss (Ertegun has testified to Jerry's way of
getting the best out of people). Owing to Bill Black's failure to nail it
down, Elvis himself took control of Bill's new electric Fender bass to
contribute the bubbly opening figure to 'Baby I Don't Care'. Mike Stoller
played piano on the EP version of 'I Want To Be Free'. Although a pair of
Jewish white boys, both of them were immersed in the culture of the blues.
They hung out in black clubs, had black girlfriends and considered
themselves genuine hipsters. Elvis was not the only Star on their agenda
during the late 1950s; this was the period of their most intense creativity.
Atlantic were desperate for a new success having lost a major player in Ray
Charles. The Drifters became that act. On April 24, 1959, Atlantic released
The Drifters "There Goes My Baby", produced by Leiber and Stoller and the
first rock and roll hit which prominently featured strings. No drums, just
that baio beat. It's a most wonderful fusion of many factors .......Ben E
King's R & B 'Church' voice, tympani, Jewish Stan Applebaum's plaintive
string arrangement - all combining to make a stunning, original sound.
Atlantic's Jerry Wexler hated it at first, calling it "an exercise in
cacophony ....... like two radio stations cross-tuned". He later came
around. A disc which is maybe easy to 'forget' or take for granted is Ben's
'Spanish Harlem'. Revisit this ...... great imagery of that rose growing up
through the concrete city jungle and a sound like it's from another planet.
A L & S produced gem. In the dying minutes of the 'Harlem' session, Mike and
Jerry quickly completed a song Ben E had brought them and the anthem 'Stand
By Me' was created. In the excellent L & S Biography TV Channel documentary
'Words and Music', King tells how strange it felt in the studio to be
surrounded by cellos, kettle drums etc. - outpourings of the musical
imaginings of the dynamic duo that was Leiber & Stoller. The most successful
Leiber and Stoller collaboration however was with the Atlantic recording
group the Coasters. L & S wrote, produced and even played on such Coasters
hits as "Yakety Yak," "Charlie Brown," "Young Blood," "Searchin'," "Little
Egypt," "Poison Ivy" and "Along Came Jones". "The Coasters were an extension
of our personalities," Leiber says. "The other artists like the Drifters
were themselves but the Coasters were our persona. They were good singers
for sure but they were great comedians". Forty years later the memories
still glowed for Coaster Billy Guy ...... "We had more fun than any group.
That was the most fun in the world, the studio. I hated the stage. In the
studio we had King Curtis on sax. We had a crew that wouldn't quit. We just
had a ball. Every time you went in there was no doubt it was going to be a
hit. That was when music was fun". In 1961, L & S's accountant suggested a
standard audit of Atlantic which revealed unpaid royalties. This was a
shock, their 'family' had let them down. It was a sad end to a 6 year
relationship and the team soon cut a deal with United Artists. They quickly
began to rebuild and hardly missed a beat. The calibre of artistes wasn't as
high but acts like Jay and the Americans & The Exciters kept them busy.
About a year along there was a reconciliation with Atlantic who had suffered
a musical drought in their absence. The magic soon hit back home as L & S
transformed the Mann/Weil 'On Broadway' into a classic. Having formed their
first label Spark, during the early pre-rock stage of their career, Leiber
and Stoller began shifting more of their attention from writing to producing
with their formation of Red Bird in 1964. It became a hit factory. Although
they also issued blues on their Blue Cat subsidiary, Red Bird served as a
nest for "girl groups" such as the Dixie Cups and Shangri-Las, as well as
for the prolific husband and wife song writing duo of Jeff Barry and Ellie
Greenwich. Girl groups were passing out of style by the time Leiber and
Stoller sold Red Bird in 1966 for one dollar. This was mainly as a result of
dodgy dealing by their business associate there, him being one bad hombre
(in the TV i/view, the guys said he cast no shadow and had no reflection in
a mirror!). The boys had become bored with the Red Bird roster but whilst in
residence, they did turn down Sam and Dave, The Rascals and Steely Dan so
maybe their halos were slipping. The Golden Age of rock and roll had also
come to an end but the genre was soon to be reborn under the guidance of
Spector, their former apprentice. Leiber and Stoller relaxed from their
hectic pace of making records in the late '50s and early '60s, reappearing
briefly by producing " Stuck In the Middle With You (Stealers
Wheel,1972=Gerry Rafferty of 'Baker Street' fame). The song hit commercial
heights again in 1993 when included on the soundtrack of Quentin Tarantino's
Reservoir Dogs. But for the two multi-talented songwriters, the term 'rock
royalty' should mean something more than just the money they continue to
collect from their numerous hits generated during rock's first decade. They
were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and most of the
above-mentioned tunes (and a few lesser known) are currently being showcased
in the stage show Smokey Joe's Cafe. . . The Songs of Leiber and Stoller. If
you see the show it will surely help remind you how much fun rock used to
be. Although his son co-wrote "Forever Your Girl" with Paula Abdul and
another son plays guitar for Rod Stewart, Jerry Leiber admits he doesn't
listen to contemporary rock much. Randy Poe, who works in their office, says
that Stoller mostly listens to jazz and Leiber to Debussy. "In the main what
is out there now is built on technique," Leiber says. "The writing is a bit
thin. The writing is not as important as it used to be, because of
television and videos. The song is being illustrated for you. When music was
an audio experience, you had to be able to see the story in your head. A lot
of the humour has been lost, but that's because the world's not that funny
anymore". Selected Discography: Elvis Presley-- King of Rock 'n' Roll (RCA)
Ben E. King-- Anthology (Rhino) Drifters-- Very Best of (Rhino) Phil
Spector-- Back To Mono (ABK) There's a Riot Goin' On: The Rock & Roll
Classics of Leiber & Stoller (Rhino) The Coasters: 50 Coastin' Classics
(Rhino) Elvis Presley Sings Leiber and Stoller (BMG) Rockin' and Driftin'
with the Drifters (Rhino) Smokey Joe's Cafe: The Songs of Leiber & Stoller
(Atlantic Theatre) Joel Kaye and Chuck Kaye are pseudonyms for Jerry Leiber
and Mike Stoller. The name Elmo Glick is a pseudonym for Jerry Leiber and
Mike Stoller jointly. Some quotes: They were amazing Groove Makers
(unattributed) They took chances ...... stepping into new territory - Ben E
King The most exciting producers I ever saw in a studio - Burt Bacharach
Clearly these 2 guys were and still are, an entire act in themselves .....
any time, any place! - Colin Kilgour It seems Jerry is on his second triple
by-pass and still raising hell at any opportunity. He once described the
pairing this way ....... "Mike is the guy that has no engine and Jerry is
the guy that has no brakes". Some team they made. They are great raconteurs
who seem amazed that the songs they wrote and/or produced to glory, have
survived. It seems they didn't expect them to be destined to live much
beyond a six-week chart span. We know different. Website:
http://www.mcportsmouth.freeserve.co.uk/a/all.htm be sure there to view.
Click here to see the FULL list of Leiber and Stoller songs check out the
various alternate artist recordings
http://www.mcportsmouth.freeserve.co.uk/a/lest.htm Reading: Robert Palmer,
Baby That Was Rock & Roll : The Legendary Leiber and Stoller. New York :
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978 but this seems elusive! Steve Walker told us
a few weeks back (from a Mike Stoller letter in the bumper 20th anniversary
edition of NDT) that the voice on the two bridges on The Coasters' "That Is
Rock And Roll" is none other than his partner-in-crime, Jerry Leiber For
further information, in the SAO archive for March 13, 2002 you can also read
Dik's BTBWY piece on Mike Stoller. Oh yes, and as if he weren't exceptional
enough, Jerry Leiber has one brown eye and one blue one! Happy Birthday to
them both, Jer. Colin Kilgour -

 

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