Jerry Leiber

Jerry Leiber

Leiber and Stoller were an American Grammy award-winning songwriting and record production duo, consisting of lyricist Jerome Leiber (April 25, 1933 – August 22, 2011) and composer Michael Stoller (born March 13, 1933). They wrote numerous standards for Broadway. Leiber and Stoller found success as the writers of such crossover hit songs as "Hound Dog" (1952) and "Kansas City" (1952). Later in the 1950s, particularly through their work with the Coasters, they created a string of ground-breaking hits—including "Young Blood" (1957), "Searchin'" (1957), and "Yakety Yak" (1958)—that used the humorous vernacular of teenagers sung in a style that was openly theatrical rather than personal.Leiber and Stoller wrote hits for Elvis Presley, including "Love Me" (1956), "Jailhouse Rock" (1957), "Loving You", "Don't", and "King Creole". They also collaborated with other writers on such songs as "On Broadway", written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil; "Stand By Me", written with Ben E. King; "Young Blood", written with Doc Pomus; and "Spanish Harlem", co-written by Leiber and Phil Spector. But the riff to 'Harlem' was originally conceived by Spector and his then-girlfriend, Beverly Ross, who, in her autobiography 'I was the First Woman Phil Spector Killed', (2013), wrote she was so shocked to discover it a few months later in the King version, she fell into a year-long depression. They were sometimes credited under the pseudonym Elmo Glick. In 1964, they launched Red Bird Records with George Goldner and, focusing on the "girl group" sound, released some of the notable songs of the Brill Building period.In all, Leiber and Stoller wrote or co-wrote over 70 chart hits. They were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

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