DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. We continue our R&B, rockabilly and rock 'n' roll series with lyricist Jerry Leiber and composer Mike Stoller, who wrote some of the most memorable rock 'n' roll songs of the 1950s and '60s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KANSAS CITY")
WILBERT HARRISON: (Singing) I'm going to Kansas City. Kansas City here I come. I'm going to Kansas City. Kansas City here I come. They got some crazy little women there, and I'm gonna get me one.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JAILHOUSE ROCK")
ELVIS PRESLEY: (Singing) The warden threw a party in the county jail. The prison band was there, and they began to wail. The band was jumping, and the joint began to swing. You should have heard those knocked-out jailbirds sing. Let's rock. Everybody, let's rock.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ON BROADWAY")
GEORGE BENSON: (Singing) They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway. They say there's always magic in the air.
THE SEARCHERS: (Singing) I took my troubles down to Madame Rue, you know, that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth. She's got a path on 34th and Vine selling little bottles of Love Potion No. 9.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RUBY BABY")
DION AND THE BELMONTS: (Singing) Oh, Ruby, Ruby, I want ya. Like a ghost, I'm gonna haunt 'ya. Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, will you be mine sometime?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHARLIE BROWN")
THE COASTERS: (Singing) Fe-fe, fi-fi, fo-fo, fum, I smell smoke in the auditorium. Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown. He's a clown, that Charlie Brown. He's gonna get caught, just you wait and see. Why's everybody always pickin' on me?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STAND BY ME")
BEN E KING: (Singing) When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see, no I won't be afraid. Oh, I won't be afraid just as long as you stand, stand by me. So darling, darling, stand by me, oh, stand by me. Oh stand, stand by me, stand by me. If the sky that we look upon...
BIANCULLI: Leiber and Stoller wrote for Elvis Presley, The Coasters, the Drifters and Ben E. King. They not only wrote songs, they often produced them. In act, Leiber and Stoller were the first rock 'n' roll producers to actually get credit on a record for their work. One of rock's greatest producers, Phil Spector, got his start as one of Leiber and Stoller's assistants.
Leiber and Stoller met in LA when Leiber was still in high school, and they were soon writing songs professionally. Leiber was the lyrics half of the team, and he was known for sassy phrases that captured the vernacular spoken by young people of his day.
Jerry Leiber died in 2011 at the age of 78. Terry spoke to Leiber and Stoller in 1991. They began by listening to the original 1953 version of "Hound Dog" sung by Big Mama Thornton.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOUND DOG")
BIG MAMA THORNTON: (Singing) You ain't nothing but a hound dog, been snoopin' round my door. You ain't nothing but a hound dog, been snoopin' round my door. You can wag your tail, but I ain't gonna feed you no more. You told me you was high class, but I can see through that. Yes, you told me you was high class, but I can see through that. And daddy, I know you ain't no real cool cat. You ain't nothing but a hound dog...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
TERRY GROSS: Well, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, welcome to FRESH AIR. The record we've been listening to, Big Mama Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog," was your first major hit as songwriters and producers. What was it about her that led to this song?
JERRY LEIBER: Well, Mike and I were invited to Johnny Otis' rehearsal studio to listen to and look at some of his artists. Big Mama was one of them, and she was really formidable. She was scary-looking. She was big, and she must have weighed about, oh, anywhere from 275 to 350. And she had this really gutty, guttural growling sound in her voice.
And the both of us fell in love with her, and we just loved what she looked like, and we loved what she sounded like. She sang "Ball And Chain," and we decided to take off that minute and go to Mike's house and try to write something for her.
GROSS: Well, how did you come up with this song, though?
LEIBER: Well, Mike was driving, and I was banging on the roof of the car. And I was trying to come up with something nasty that would be at the same time playable that wouldn't be censored, you know. And the closest I could get to what I was thinking was you ain't nothing but a hound dog.
GROSS: So you were thinking four-letter word, epithet, and what you came up, though, with hound dog.
LEIBER: Right, which sort of, you know, made it - it felt right, and it seemed like it would be passable.
GROSS: Mike, let me ask you how you think Elvis handled this song differently from Big Mama Thornton.
MIKE STOLLER: How he handled it differently? Well, he handled it very differently. He didn't sing it in the same tradition of blues intonation that Big Mama used. And also the lyrics were considerably different because Big Mama's - the way the song was written for Big Mama, it was really about a gigolo. It's a woman complaining about a gigolo.
And Elvis couldn't sing that song. So he sang a version of it which I think, as I'm told, he heard from a lounge act in Las Vegas that he heard singing the song in Vegas.
Now, I had heard that he knew Big Mama's record and loved it, but it was only after he heard this lounge act do it that it seemed appropriate for a male singer.
GROSS: A lot of the songs that you wrote over the years were novelty songs - songs like "Charlie Brown," "Love Potion No. 9," "Yakety Yak," "Poison Ivy." I think I just named all Coasters songs here. But how did you get so involved with novelty songs?
LEIBER: We didn't think of them as novelties. We thought...
STOLLER: Dark dramas.
(LAUGHTER)
STOLLER: We were both trying to imitate Tolstoy and Dickens, and I guess we just fell short of the mark. We wrote novelty songs because we're both essentially gag writers, and we like to tell funny stories and anecdotes.
BIANCULLI: Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller speaking to Terry Gross in 1991. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to our R&B, rockabilly and rock 'n' roll week and Terry's 1991 interview with lyricist Jerry Leiber and composer Mike Stoller.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: One of the things that you are famous for having pioneered was bringing a string section to rock 'n' roll or to rhythm and blues.
LEIBER: That was Mike's fault.
GROSS: Yeah. Let me ask you. You know, on the The Drifters' recording...
LEIBER: (Laughter).
GROSS: ...Of "There Goes My Baby," that's the classic example of you bringing strings on. What went through your mind to do it?
STOLLER: I can tell you exactly what was on my mind - just the line, the melodic line. And I was playing it. I used to joke about this one because it sounded like Borodin, and it sounded like one of the Caucasian melodies. And...
LEIBER: I don't know if you get the pun, but he's been saying this for many years, and I always thought it was funny...
GROSS: Right.
LEIBER: ...The fact that he would use a Caucasian melody on this recording.
STOLLER: But it was - Jerry heard it, and he said, that sounds like strings, and I said, why not? And so why not? We had five violins and one cello, and they were all basically playing in unison.
LEIBER: 'Cause Jerry Wexler wouldn't spring for six violins and two celli.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: Now, another thing that happened on this record was you introduced a Latin rhythm that you used...
STOLLER: The baion rhythm was one that both Jerry and I adored, and we had always looked for a place to use it. We'd used it maybe once before on a early record that was not particularly successful, and we had the opportunity to use it on this record date. And there happened to be a timpani left over from another recording session in the studio, and we used it.
Now, the drummer was not a percussionist. He was a - just a trap drummer, and he didn't know how to use the tuning pedal on the timp. So he played one note throughout the entire thing, which gave it a rather bizarre, muddy bottom with all kinds of weird overtones. And it was kind of fascinating, though. And that's where we first...
LEIBER: Used...
STOLLER: ...Had a successful use of that baion rhythm, which in case anybody's wondering is boom, boom-boom, boom, boom-boom.
LEIBER: Which finally was used, I think, and is responsible for maybe over a thousand hits because this Brazilian rhythm supports a slow ballad without the ballad seeming to be slow or sluggish. It keeps it moving. And everyone from Burt Bacharach to Phil Spector to you name it have leaned heavily on the support of this rhythm pattern.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THERE GOES MY BABY")
THE DRIFTERS: (Singing) Bo-bo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo. There she goes. Doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo. There she goes. Doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo. Bo-bo. Doo-doo, doo-doo. Bo-bo. Doo-doo, doo-doo. There goes my baby, moving on down the line. Wonder where, wonder where, wonder where she is bound? I broke her heart and made her cry. Now I'm alone, so all alone. What can I do? What can I do? There goes my baby. Whoa.
GROSS: My guests were the songwriting and production team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. I want to thank you both very much for talking with us.
LEIBER: Thanks.
STOLLER: It was fun.
LEIBER: Righto. Yeah, it was fun.
BIANCULLI: Songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller speaking with Terry Gross in 1991. Coming up, we conclude this week's R&B, rockabilly and rock 'n' roll series of interviews, which continues through Labor Day, with record producer Jerry Wexler. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
