Jerry Leiber, RIP: Is That All there Is? (sung by Peggy Lee)

August 25, 2011 at 1:37 am (black culture, jazz, Jim D, music, The blues, United States)

Jerry Leiber, right, and Mike Stoller examine the sheet music for Jailhouse Rock, one of several songs they wrote for Elvis Presley

No one sold black culture to white kids like Jerry Leiber, whose lyrics to such songs as Hound Dog, Love Potion No 9, Yakety Yak, Stand By Me, Spanish Harlem and Jailhouse Rock, mostly set to music by his friend, co-composer and business partner Mike Stoller, were a vital force in the transformation of popular music in the second half of the 20th century. When Leiber, who has died aged 78, wrote a line such as “I took my troubles down to Madam Ruth / You know, that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth”; “Who walks in the classroom, cool and slow? / Who calls the English teacher ‘Daddy-O’?”; or (as interpreted by Elvis Presley) “They said you was high-classed, but that was just a lie / You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine”, young ears were pinned back by the pungent informality of the language, the vividness of the exotic imagery and the earthy irreverence of the humour, such a long way from the strait-laced moon-and-June lyrics of Tin Pan Alley and all the product of Leiber’s childhood immersion in the music and conversation of his African-American neighbours…

…read the rest here

• Jerome (Jerry) Leiber, lyricist, record producer and song publisher, born 25 April 1933; died 22 August 2011

(From the Guardian)

Below: Possibly Leiber and Stoller’s best number (especially when sung by the fabulous Peggy Lee):

Unfortunately, that clip cuts out before the end of the song; so here’s the original recording in full: thank you for the music, Jerry.