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Jerry Leiber Pioneer Rock-Songwriter Dies at 78

Typical of the way writers are treated in the music business, he and his partner were out of the public eye; however, even with more than 50 years separating them from their glory days, you still know their songs, and you hear them all the time.

Jerry Leiber died Monday at 78 due to heart failure, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Although the name may not ring a bell to most, Leiber was a key figure in the birth of rock-n-roll, writing many early hits, including the songs that made Elvis Presley famous, such as “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock.” Leiber mostly addressed lyrics, while his writing partner, Mike Stoller, penned the accompanying music.

Upon news of his death, industry figures praised Leiber’s contribution to the genre.

“The music world lost today one of its greatest poet laureates,” Terry Stewart, president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, told the Associated Press. “Jerry not only wrote the words that everyone was singing, he led the way in how we verbalized our feelings about the societal changes we were living with in post-World War II life. Appropriately, his vehicles of choice were the emerging populist musical genres of rhythm and blues and then rock and roll.”

The ongoing collaboration between Leiber and Stoller went on for decades, and Leiber dubbed it “the longest-running argument in show business.” Apart from the Elvis hits, the duo are also responsible for other defining hits of the 50s/60s, such as “Yakety Yak,” “On Broadway,” “There Goes My Baby,” “Stand by Me” and “Love Potion No. 9.” Call it inspiration, homage or even theft, but Leiber and Stoller may be among the figures most responsible for mining black music such as early blues and converting it into a mass-marketed behemoth that could also be credited for ushering in the era of the teenager. Their approach to songwriting could be argued to still influence popular music today.

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