Songwriter Jerry Leiber Dies at 78

Rolling Stone ^ | 08/22/11 | ANDY GREENE

[redroller]

Coasters were the best there ever were.

[spankalib]

RIP

Do you know about this too?

http://www.myspace.com/wreckingcrewfilm

Seems like you might enjoy...
cheers!

[dfwgator]

Always liked Bad Company’s version of “Young Blood”

[Revolting cat!]

Dion “Ruby Baby”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRjviO8negQ

[Revolting cat!]

“Down Home Girl”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp2q3yK8Lrs

[spankalib]

Down in Miami Springs, at a place called the Flick...where J Buffet was the opening act to warm the crowd up...Dion played Abraham Martin and John. It was the first time...I remember, that I heard an actual voice sing. He wouldn’t do Purple Haze after Jimmy died...
Dion singing that song taught me
I’d be doing something else for life...

There were no cell phones to record my life then. I wish I could share it with you all.

[Free Vulcan]

I grew up on their stuff without knowing even who they were. Yakity-yak, Charlie Brown, Along Came Jones, Working in a Coal Mine, Poison Ivy, Youngblood, and my favorite Down in Mexico.

Their version of If I Had a Hammer is amazing and haunting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUlV2ki1w1k

You are right - they are the best.

[metesky]

Within three years of meeting each other, Leiber and Stoller were the hottest songwriters in the business –writing hits for the Drifters, Coasters and the Robins and many other R&B groups of the era.

Rock trivia: The Coasters and The Robins were the same group, The Robins transitioning into The Coasters.

[OldPossum]

In 1956, their career went to a higher level when Elvis Presley took "Hound Dog" – which they wrote for Big Mama Thornton four years earlier – and turned it into a gigantic hit.

I have heard that version a number of times and think that it is much, much superior to the way that Elvis treated it.

[Revolting cat!]

Interesting, if arguable, that so many of the Leiber-Stoller compositions had to wait for the second, third, etc, version to get a definitive recording. Examples: “Down Home Girl”, “One Kiss Led to Another”.

[FlingWingFlyer]

My favorite Leiber/Stoller song.

RIP Jerry and thanks for all of the great music you gave us. You done good!

[redroller]

You somehow managed to miss their best song, which was Run Red, Run.

[Free Vulcan]

Did not know about that song. Dad or my aunt must have never had a A or B side of that one. I’ll have to dig around on Youtube.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[Fiji Hill]

My favorite Leiber/Stoller song ("Just Tell Her Jim Said 'Hello").

This song might be part of the same story.

[FlingWingFlyer]

LOL! I think you might be right! Thanks!

[Puppage]

“Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte