As early rock’n’roll’s most successful and influential songwriters and first true producers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller had an impact on the development of the genre that has been immeasurable. Through a partnership of over 40 years, they brought to the world a stream of classic songs in various styles—including rhythm and blues (R&B), jazz, cabaret and, most notably, rock’n’roll.
Leiber and Stoller were both born in 1933. Leiber grew up in Baltimore, delivering groceries from his mother’s store to the local black patrons. Stoller was raised in New York City and received piano lessons from the great master stride piano playing James P. Johnson. Their families eventually moved to Los Angeles, the Leibers in 1945 and the Stollers in 1949.
As a teenager in L.A., Leiber worked at a record store and began writing blues lyrics. In search of a collaborator, a friend recommended Stoller, and they began their songwriting partnership in 1950. From the start, the two young, white Jewish boys got along well, both sharing a passion for boogie-woogie and the blues. A key element of their style was the use of melody that, while remaining grounded in the blues, gave their songs a pop-like appeal.
While at the record store, Leiber met the sales manager of the prominent R&B label Modern Records, Lester Sill, whom he greatly impressed by singing some of his and Stroller’s compositions on the spot. Sill let Leiber and Stoller audition material for a young R&B group called the Robins, and their career as songwriters was under way. Sill introduced them around Los Angeles so they could pitch songs to other groups in the R&B scene, but they weren’t always happy with the results. “We didn’t write songs, we wrote records. We became producers in self-defence,” explains Leiber. They began overseeing their songs in the studio, starting with “Hound Dog,” sung by “Big Mama” Thornton, and launched their own label, Spark Records, in 1954.
However, Atlantic Records was impressed with Leiber and Stoller’s work with the Robins (especially the socially authentic “black” elements in Leiber’s lyrics), and convinced the pair to sign a contract and move the group, renamed the Coasters, to New York in 1955. Their exuberant novelty numbers, “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” “Yakety Yak,” “Poison Ivy,” “Along Came Jones,” “Charlie Brown,” and “Young Blood,” sold millions and helped popularise Leiber and Stoller’s innovative production style. Elvis PRESLEY, having recorded “Hound Dog” and “Love Me,” requested Leiber and Stoller for his movie soundtracks, which resulted in classic cuts such as “Jailhouse Rock” and “(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care.” At this time, they began pursuing a sweeter pop-oriented sound with the Drifters, as on “There Goes My Baby,” and “On Broadway,” and with the Drifters' lead singer Ben E. King, on “Spanish Harlem” and “Stand by Me.”
In 1963, they formed Blue Cat/Red Bird Records, which, despite quality recordings by the Shangri-Las and the Dixie Cups, was not a great success. In 1966, the duo sold their interest in the record company. But 1966 was also the year they wrote the wonderfully bizarre “Is That All There Is?” So central was the duo’s role to the development of rock’n’roll that music critic Robert Palmer believed that the marked change of direction evident in this song showed that “the Golden Age of rock’n’roll had come to an end.”
Leiber and Stoller’s contributions as songwriters and producers were so vast that envisaging popular music today without them is impossible. Even if they had written only “Hound Dog,” their names would have been immortalised, but the fact that they continued to churn out hit after hit proved that their partnership possessed a creative vitality that was truly unique.
Greg Bower
SEE ALSO:
BOOGIE-WOOGIE; RECORD COMPANIES; ROCK’N’ROLL.
FURTHER READING
Palmer, Robert. Baby, That Was Rock and Roll: The Legendary Leiber and Stoller (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
The Coasters: Young Blood Elvis Presley: Presley Sings Leiber.