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Mike Leiber & Jerry Stoller |
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In addition to those top 40 hits above they wrote several that we know today but, didn’t make the top 40 when they were released. Those not quite so famous songs include … | |
| Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber helped define the music of the 1950’s and were the leading force in the 1960s songwriting mecca, The Brill Building, in NYC. There they worked with and co-wrote with relative unknowns like Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Phil Spector, Barry Mann, Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. They also provided a songwriting job for a hungry kid named Neil Diamond. If Bill Haley was the supreme deity of Rock and Roll, Leiber and Stoller must have written the commandments! No songwriting team did more to enrich the rock repertoire in the first decade and only a few have matched their total output since that era. Both songwriters were born in 1933, Leiber in Baltimore and Stoller in Queens, N.Y. Both of them took piano lessons at an early age. Oddly they didn’t meet on the east coast. As teenagers they met in Los Angeles in 1950 and started writing songs together the same afternoon. From the beginning Leiber handled the lyrics, while Stoller wrote the music. Although they were 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 a genuine part of that crowd. Their breakthrough as songwriters came in 1953 when a singer with the Johnny Otis Band named Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton cut the Leiber-Stoller tune "Hound Dog." Invited to a rehearsal, Leiber and Stoller ended up producing the recording session as well. "Hound Dog" shot to the top of the R&B charts and Leiber and Stoller were on their way. While the two friends had success with so many songs, a couple of their tunes exemplify the magnitude of their contributions. Kansas City, has been recorded by more than 50 top artist and sold millions. Another of their compositions, Stand By Me, has charted 5 times since its inception. The two men have often been quoted as saying they didn't write songs, they wrote records. Also very successful producers, their works included virtually all the hits of the Coasters hits and were brought in to produce the recording sessions for the Elvis movie "Jailhouse Rock." With enormous contributions to the music of the 1950’s and through their music, contributions to our very culture, these two innovators have rightfully been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Record Producers Hall of Fame. | |
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