Leiber and Stoller yakkety yak about it all
When Elvis Presley recorded “Hound Dog,’’ he changed some of the words without telling songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. But who was going to complain to Elvis? “Whether I liked his interpretation or not is beside the point. We were in the right place at the right time,’’ Stoller recalls giddily.
That’s an understatement.
Leiber and Stoller helped spearhead the transition from R&B to rock in the ’50s, going on to compose more hits than any duo not named Lennon and McCartney. Born on the East Coast (Leiber in Baltimore, Stoller in Queens), they were mesmerized by black voices and first wrote “Hound Dog’’ for Big Mama Thornton. Because they were still underage when Thornton recorded it, their mothers had to sign the contract.
The highs and lows of that seminal, soon-to-be-big-business era are catalogued in flamboyant detail in this new, page-turning autobiography. Author David Ritz, who also has overseen projects on Marvin Gaye and Ray Charles, helps edit it, though in an unusual way. It consists entirely of conversations with Leiber and Stoller, with their comments alternating throughout like one long barroom chat. And we get some great insider memories - mostly from Leiber, who admits to fighting Norman Mailer in a nightclub scrap, drinking with James Dean, and getting testy with Colonel Tom Parker, Presley’s manager. He calls Parker “fat and smart and a nonstop talker whose ego was always on parade.’’ (Elvis, on the other hand, was “completely open and never acted like a diva.’’)
But the focus of the book is on music. Lieber and Stoller were born within a few weeks of each other in 1933 and seem like blood brothers throughout. Their lives were shaped early - Stoller’s mom once dated George Gershwin - and they complemented each other’s abilities with Leiber penning the lyrics and Stoller the music. Both were precocious talents; Stoller was 8 when he learned boogie-woogie from James P. Johnson, Fats Waller’s mentor.
The duo met when both moved to Los Angeles, then clicked instinctively on hits for the Coasters (“Yakkety Yak,’’ “Poison Ivy’’) and the Robins (“Riot in Cellblock No. 9’’). And after Presley scored with “Hound Dog,’’ they were approached by his music publisher, Jean Aberbach, to contribute to the “Jailhouse Rock’’ soundtrack, the project that took Presley to another level. The pair delayed the writing until Aberbach came to a hotel where they were staying in New York. He put a sofa against the door and said he wasn’t leaving until he had the songs. So Leiber and Stoller wrote four tunes in four hours, including the title track. Their chemistry never faltered, nor did their process - Leiber says he wrote with Camel cigarettes in one hand and Courvoisier brandy by his side.
They weren’t good at playing music-business politics, though. They alienated Parker by trying to pitch a song to Presley directly, and feuded with Atlantic Records cofounder Jerry Wexler, who didn’t like their “overpriced production’’ on the Drifters’ “There Goes My Baby’’ (which then shot to number one, shutting him up in a hurry) or the overtime charges racked up on Ben E. King’s “Spanish Harlem,’’ which they wrote to show their versatility.
They also took fledgling producer Phil Spector under their wing, but Leiber says Spector was an “annoying presence . . . [who] wore ambition like a topcoat; it was all over him.’’
In later years, Leiber and Stoller worked with Procol Harum and Stealers Wheel, plus wrote Peggy Lee’s underrated album “Mirrors.’’ They also had the savvy to buy up other music catalogs, including those of Broadway shows “Cabaret,’’ “Fiddler on the Roof,’’ and “Godspell.’’
Leiber and Stoller forever changed the course of pop music, and the major appeal of this book is that they get to discuss it all in their own words.
Steve Morse, a freelance writer, can be reached at spmorse@gmail.com. 
