Word: leiber
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...Before Leiber and Stroller came to Atlantic, Ertegun did a little of everything: scouted and signed acts, produced sides, wrote songs. But the lyrics weren?t exactly sophisticated (example: "Don?t you know I love you, love you so/ Don?t you know I love you, love you so/ Don?t you know I love you so/ And I?ll never let you go/ Don?t you know I love you, love you so") and the production values came up a little short in the jizz category...
...Stand By Me," and even less the ethereal urban love song "Spanish Harlem," couldn?t be designated as R&B, or blues, or rock. But pop was mutating faster than a B-movie monster. Leiber and Stoller were orchestrating those changes; King and the Drifters and a dozen other soloists and groups were giving them voice. The godfather of this strange, beautiful new creature was Atlantic?s co-founder, Ahmet Ertegun. And his adopted family was a handsome one indeed. In the late ?50s he had the top of the pops: ballad group (The Drifters) and comic group (The Coasters...
...doncha treat me wrong/ Come and love your daddy all night long," etc.). Nor was the notion of releasing a jazzy, largely instrumental number in two parts; the year before, Cozy Cole (whose drumming career had stretched from Jelly Roll Morton to Charlie Parker, and who had recorded a Leiber-Stoller number as "Hound Dog Special" in 1954) enjoyed a two-sided hit with "Topsy." What was unusual was the four-part structure: three verses of piano, then four verses of blues patter, then the "What?d I say" chorus, and finally two minutes of boy-call-and-girl-response...
...founded the company; or even since 1954, when Big Joe Turner?s "Shake, Rattle and Roll," an Atlantic song covered and euphemized for white folks by Billy Haley, ushered in what became known as rock ?n roll. An artistic and commercial restlessness sent agreeable tremors through the industry. As Leiber and Stoller could simultaneously produce the Coasters and the Drifters, a performer like Darin could quickly switch from rocker to saloon singer...
...KINGMAKERS In the early ?50s, Atlantic occasionally bought the national rights to local R&B hits. One of these was Leiber and Stoller?s "Smokey Joe?s Cafe." A lurking melodrama in the "Hernando?s Hideaway" fashion (but written a year before that Broadway tune), it?s sung by L&S? L.A. discoveries the Robins. It features an almost maniacally comic attack by lead singer Carl Gardner. The vocal could have come right off the Chitlin Circuit of black vaudeville; imagine Mantan Moreland as a great belter. The production is full, clear and incorrigibly boppin?- Leiber and Stoller...