tagged w/ Songwriters
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The New York Times...
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August 22, 2011
Jerry Leiber, Prolific Writer of 1950s Hits, Dies at 78
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Jerry Leiber, the lyricist who, with his partner, Mike Stoller, wrote some of the most enduring classics in the history of rock ’n’ roll, including “Hound Dog,” “Yakety Yak,” “Stand By Me” and “On Broadway,” died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 78.
The cause was cardio-pulmonary failure, said Randy Poe, president of Leiber & Stoller Music Publishing.
The team of Leiber and Stoller was formed in 1950, when Mr. Leiber was still a student at Fairfax High in Los Angeles and Mr. Stoller, a fellow rhythm-and-blues fanatic, was a freshman at Los Angeles City College. With Mr. Leiber contributing catchy, street-savvy lyrics and Mr. Stoller, a pianist, composing infectious, bluesy tunes, they set about writing songs with black singers and groups in mind.
In 1952, they wrote “Hound Dog” for the blues singer Big Mama Thornton. The song became an enormous hit for Elvis Presley in 1956 and made Leiber and Stoller the hottest songwriting team in rock ’n’ roll. They later wrote “Jailhouse Rock,” “Loving You,” “Don’t,” “Treat Me Nice,” “King Creole” and other songs for Presley, despite their loathing for his interpretation of “Hound Dog.”
In the late 1950s, having relocated to New York and taken their place among the constellation of talents associated with the Brill Building, they emerged as perhaps the most potent songwriting team in the genre.
Their hits for the Drifters remain some of the most admired songs in the rock ’n’ roll canon, notably “On Broadway,” written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and “Stand By Me” with Ben E. King. With Phil Spector, Mr. Leiber wrote the Drifters hit “Spanish Harlem.”
They wrote a series of hits for the Coasters, including “Charlie Brown,” “Young Blood” with Doc Pomus, “Searchin’,” “Poison Ivy” and “Yakety Yak.”
“Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” a 1954 hit written for the Robins, became the title of a Broadway musical based on the Leiber and Stoller songbook. In 1987, the partners were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller have written some of the most spirited and enduring rock ’n’ roll songs," the hall said in a statement when they were inducted. “Leiber and Stoller advanced rock ’n’ roll to new heights of wit and musical sophistication.”
Jerome Leiber was born on April 25, 1933, in Baltimore, where his parents, Jewish immigrants from Poland, ran a general store. When Jerry was 5, his father died and his mother tried, with little success, to run a small store in one of the city’s worst slums. When he was 12, she took him to Los Angeles.
It was while attending Fairfax High in Los Angeles and working in Norty’s Record Shop that he met Leonard Sill, a promoter for Modern Records, and confessed that he wanted to be a songwriter. After Sill urged him to find a pianist who could help him put his ideas onto sheet music he met Mr. Stoller through a friend, and the two began writing together
“Often I would have a start, two or four lines,” Mr. Leiber told Robert Palmer, the author of “Baby, That Was Rock & Roll: The Legendary Leiber and Stoller” (1978). “Mike would sit at the piano and start to jam, just playing, fooling around, and I’d throw out a line. He’d accommodate the line — metrically, rhythmically.”
Within a few years they had written modestly successful songs for several rhythm-and-blues singers: “K.C. Lovin’ ” for Little Willie Littlefield, which under the title “Kansas City” became a No. 1 hit for Wilbert Harrison in 1959.
In 1952, Sill arranged for Mr. Leiber and Mr. Stoller to visit the bandleader Johnny Otis and to listen to several of the rhythm-and-blues acts who worked with him, including Big Mama Thornton, who sang “Ball and Chain” for them. Inspired, the partners went back to Mr. Stoller’s house and wrote “Hound Dog.”
“I yelled, he played,” Mr. Leiber told Josh Alan Friedman, the author of “Tell the Truth Until They Bleed: Coming Clean in the Dirty World of Blues and Rock ’n’ Roll” (2008). “The groove came together and we finished in 12 minutes flat. I work fast. We raced right back to lay the song on Big Mama.”
In 1953 they formed Spark Records, an independent label, with Sill, but without national distribution it failed to score major hits. Atlantic Records, which had bought the Leiber and Stoller song “Ruby Baby” and “Fools Fall in Love” for the Drifters, signed them to an unusual agreement that allowed them to produce for other labels. The golden age of Leiber and Stoller began.
Their seemingly endless list of hit songs from this period included “Love Potion No. 9” for the Clovers (later a hit for the Searchers).
In the mid-1960s, Mr. Leiber and Mr. Stoller concentrated on production. They founded Red Bird Records, where they turned out hit records by girl groups like the Dixie Cups (“Chapel of Love”) and the Shangri-Las (“Leader of the Pack,” “Walking in the Sand”).
They sold the label in 1966 and worked as independent producers and writers. Peggy Lee, who had recorded their song “I’m a Woman” in 1963, recorded “Is that All There Is?” in 1969.
Mr. Leiber is survived by three sons, Jed, Oliver and Jake, and two grandchildren.
With Mr. Stoller and David Ritz, Mr. Leiber wrote a 2009 memoir, “Hound Dog: The Leiber & Stoller Autobiography.”
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PHOTO:
From left, Mike Stoller, Elvis Presley and Jerry Leiber at MGM Studios in 1957.The New York Times...
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August 22, 2011
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August 22, 2011
Nick Ashford, of Motown Writing Duo, Dies at 70
By BEN SISARIO
Nick Ashford, who with Valerie Simpson, his songwriting partner and later wife, wrote some of Motown’s biggest hits, like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough“ and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing,” and later recorded their own hits and toured as a duo, died Monday at a hospital in New York City. He was 70 and lived in Manhattan.
Mr. Ashford had throat cancer and was undergoing treatment, but the cause of his death was not immediately known. His death was announced by Liz Rosenberg, a friend who is a longtime music publicist.
One of the primary songwriting and producing teams of Motown, Ashford & Simpson specialized in romantic duets of the most dramatic kind, professing the power of true love and the comforts of sweet talk. In “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” from 1967, their first of several hits for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, lovers in close harmony proclaim their determination that “no wind, no rain, no winter’s cold, can stop me, baby,” but also make cuter promises: “If you’re ever in trouble, I’ll be there on the double.”
Gaye and Terrell also sang the duo’s songs “Your Precious Love,” “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” and “You’re All I Need to Get By.” Diana Ross sang their “Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand,” and when she rerecorded “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough“ in 1970, it became the former Supreme’s first No. 1 hit as a solo artist.
“They had magic, and that’s what creates those wonderful hits, that magic,” Verdine White of Earth, Wind and Fire told The Associated Press after learning of his friend’s death. “Without those songs, those artists wouldn’t have been able to go to the next level.”
Nickolas Ashford was born in Fairfield, S.C., and raised in Willow Run, Mich., where his father, Calvin, was a construction worker. He got his musical start at Willow Run Baptist Church, singing and writing songs for the gospel choir. He briefly attended Eastern Michigan University, in Ypsilanti, before heading to New York, where he tried but failed to find success as a dancer.
In 1964, while homeless, Mr. Ashford went to White Rock Baptist Church in Harlem, where he met Ms. Simpson, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate who was studying music. They began writing songs together, selling the first bunch for $64. In 1966, after Ray Charles sang “Let’s Go Get Stoned,” a song Ashford & Simpson wrote with Joey Armstead, the duo signed on with Motown as staff writers and producers.
They wrote for virtually every major act on the label, including Gladys Knight and the Pips (“Didn’t You Know You’d Have to Cry Sometime”) and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (“Who’s Gonna Take the Blame”).
While writing for Motown, Ashford & Simpson nursed a desire to perform, which Berry Gordy Jr., the founder and patriarch of the label, discouraged. They left the label in 1973 and married in 1974.
Ashford & Simpson’s initial collaborations sold poorly, but by the late ‘70s, songs like “Don’t Cost You Nothing,” “It Seems to Hang On” and “Found a Cure” became hits on the R&B charts. Their biggest hit as a solo act was “Solid,” which reached No. 12 on the pop chart and No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1984.
They also continued to write hits for other people. “I’m Every Woman“ was a hit for Chaka Khan in 1978, and later for Whitney Houston on the soundtrack to the 1992 film “The Bodyguard.” In 1996, they opened the Sugar Bar on West 72nd Street in Manhattan, where they often presided over open mic nights. Recently, they received a songwriting credit on Amy Winehouse’s song “Tears Dry on Their Own,” which contains a sample from “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
Besides his wife, Mr. Ashford is survived by two daughters, Nicole and Asia; his brothers Paul, Albert and Frank; and his mother, Alice Ashford.
Ashford & Simpson toured throughout their career, their harmony and vocal interplay illustrating the passion of their lyrics and of their life together.
“When Ms. Simpson sits down at the piano and begins to sing in a bright pop-gospel voice, unchanged since the 1970s,” Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote in a review in 2007, “she awakens the spirit and tosses it to Mr. Ashford, whose quirkier voice, with its airy falsetto, has gained in strength from the old days. Soon they are urging each other on. By the time their romantic relay winds to a close, both are sweating profusely, and the audience is delirious.”
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PHOTO: Richard Termine for The New York Times
Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson performing in 2006 at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan.
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August 22, 2011
Nick Ashford, of Motown Writing Duo,... more
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Grammy Award Winning Artist Krayzie Bone of the rap/hip-hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony launches http://conquertheindustry.com
Where he takes on a new role as mentor and guide in a search for hot new talentGrammy Award Winning Artist Krayzie Bone of the rap/hip-hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony... more
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In 2007, the world lost two of its most revered Country Music Hall of Fame members -- Porter Wagoner and Hank Thompson -- along with a host of other influential singers, songwriters, musicians and executives. Here's the partial roll call:
Patrick
Bourque, 29, former bassist for Emerson Drive, Sept. 25 in Montreal.
Frank Callari, 55, former manager of the Mavericks, Ryan Adams, Lucinda Williams and Junior Brown, Oct. 26 in Nashville.
Henson Cargill, 66, recording artist whose signature hit was the 1968 "Skip a Rope," March 24 in Oklahoma City, of complications from surgery.
Tex Davis (real name William Doucette), 93, former record promoter and co-writer of the Gene Vincent rock classic "Be-Bop-A-Lula," Aug. 29 in Nashville.
Ralph Ezell, 54, former bass player for the group Shenandoah, Nov. 30, in South Dakota, of an apparent heart attack.
Dan Fogelberg, 56, award-winning singer and songwriter, Dec. 16 in Maine, of prostate cancer.
Ray Goins, 71, bluegrass banjo player and former member of the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers and the Goins Brothers bands, July 2 in Pikeville, Ky.
Lee Hazlewood, 78, record producer and songwriter best known for writing Nancy Sinatra's 1996 hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," Aug. 4 in Henderson, Nev., of renal cancer.
Doyle Holly, 70, former bassist for Buck Owens' Buckaroos and later a solo artist, Jan. 13 in Nashville, of prostate cancer.
John Hughey, 73, former steel guitarist for Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Vince Gill and the Time Jumpers, Nov. 18 in Nashville.
Pete (Sneaky Pete) Kleinow, 72, steel guitarist and original member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Jan. 6 in Petaluma, Calif., following a battle with Alzheimer's.
Hilly Kristal, 75, founder of New York's CBGB music club, Aug. 28 in New York City, of lung cancer.
Janis Martin, 67, rockabilly singer once billed as "the Female Elvis," Sept. 3 in Durham, N.C., of cancer.
George McCorkle, 60, co-founder of and guitarist for the Marshall Tucker Band, June 29 near Nashville, of cancer.
Robert W. McLean, 60, investment manager and philanthropist who donated Mother Maybelle's signature 1928 Gibson L-5 guitar and Bill Monroe's 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolin to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum, circa Sept. 25 in Shelbyville, Tenn., an apparent suicide.
Terry McMillan, 53, harmonica player and percussionist, Feb. 2 in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
Jim Nesbitt, 75, writer and performer of such comic country songs as "Please Mr. Kennedy" and "A Tiger in My Tank," Nov. 29 in Florence, S.C.
Jim Porter, 79, steel guitarist and one of the earliest members of Hank Williams' Drifting Cowboys band, Dec. 15 in Hoover, Ala.
Boots Randolph, 80, pop recording artist ("Yakety Sax," "Hey, Mr. Sax Man") and former Nashville A-team saxophone sideman, July 3 in Nashville.
Del Reeves, 73, Grand Ole Opry star, impressionist and recording artist ("Girl on the Billboard," "The Belles of Southern Bell"), Jan. 1 in Centerville, Tenn.
Glen Sutton, 69, member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and producer and former husband of singer Lynn Anderson, April 18 in Nashville, of an apparent heart attack.
Clarence "Tater" Tate, 76, former fiddler and bass player in Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys band and later a sideman for other mainstream bluegrass acts, Oct. 17 in Jonesborough, Tenn., of lung cancer.
Hughie Thomasson, 55, pioneering southern rock guitarist and member of the Outlaws band, Sept. 9 in Brooksville, Fla., of an apparent heart attack.
Hank Thompson, 82, songwriter, bandleader, member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and singer of the 1952 hit "The Wild Side of Life," Nov. 6 near Fort Worth, Texas, of lung cancer.
Porter Wagoner, 80, singer, songwriter, producer, television personality, member of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame and career-making mentor to Dolly Parton, Oct. 28 in Nashville, of lung cancer.
In 2007, the world lost two of its most revered Country Music Hall of Fame members --... more
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