Jerry Leiber Quotes

Jerry Leiber — American Musician born on April 25, 1933, died on August 22, 2011

Lyricist Jerome "Jerry" Leiber and composer Mike Stoller were American songwriting and record producing partners. They found initial successes as the writers of such crossover hit songs as "Hound Dog" and "Kansas City". Later in the 1950s, particularly through their work with The Coasters, they created a string of ground-breaking hits—including "Young Blood", "Searchin'", and "Yakety Yak"—that are some of the most entertaining in rock and roll, by using the humorous vernacular of teenagers sung in a style that was openly theatrical rather than personal. They were the first to surround black music with elaborate production values, enhancing its emotional power with The Drifters in "There Goes My Baby", which influenced Phil Spector, who studied their productions while playing guitar on their sessions... (wikipedia)

Elvis was incredibly cooperative. He would try anything. He wasn't a diva, no prima donna. When it came to work, he was a workhorse.

Red-hot songs were born on the black streets of Baltimore, where I delivered five-gallon cans of kerosene and ten-pound bags of coal.

I felt black. I was as far as I was concerned. And I wanted to be black for lots of reasons. They were better musicians, they were better athletes, they were not uptight about sex, and they knew how to enjoy life better than most people.

'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy. 'Kansas City' was maybe eight minutes, if that. Writing the early blues was spontaneous. You can hear the energy in the work.

The early influences, in many ways, were in Baltimore. I was passing open windows where there might be a radio playing something funky. In the summertime, sometimes there'd be a man sitting on a step, playing an acoustic guitar, playing some kind of folk blues. The seed had been planted.

Jerry Leiber Quotes

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