Biography
Jerry Leiber helped shape the sonic landscape of mainstream music during the early 1960s through his role in the celebrated songwriting and production duo Leiber & Stoller. Tracks including “Hound Dog,” “Yakety Yak,” and “Jailhouse Rock” stand as witty, comic vignettes whose countless plays have woven them deeply into shared cultural memory. Born in Baltimore, Leiber was five when his widowed mother launched a grocery near a Black neighborhood, an environment that sparked his early immersion in the area’s music, fashion, and mannerisms. During his teenage years the family relocated to California amid the peak of the bebop jazz scene. At sixteen he started composing blues lyrics and soon afterward crossed paths with pianist Mike Stoller. The more extroverted partner, Leiber used his quick-witted slang and restless drive to draw the reserved Stoller into their joint songwriting venture. Over the following decade the pair dominated both the R&B and pop charts. After the breakthrough success of “Hound Dog”—first cut by Big Mama Thornton and later by Elvis—they joined Atlantic and supplied material for acts such as the Coasters and the Drifters. While Stoller composed the music, Leiber supplied the sharply entertaining words, whether delivering the playful satire of “Down Home Girl” or the lyrical grace of “Spanish Harlem.” His verses sought to distill the Black American experience, and few writers have matched the resulting catalog. Jerry Leiber succumbed to heart failure in Los Angeles on August 22, 2011, at the age of seventy-eight.
Singles
