Details
Synopsis
In 1950 a couple of rhythm and blues-loving teenagers named Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller met, discovered their mutual affection for R&B, and, as Jerry and Mike put it in this autobiography, it was the beginning of an argument that has been going on for more than fifty years with no resolution in sight. They had their first success with a song called "Hard Times" that became an R&B hit in 1952. They followed it another bluesy composition, "Hound Dog," for the inimitable Big Mama Thornton. A few years later "Hound Dog" would become a #1 hit for Elvis Presley, and Jerry and Mike became the King's favorite songwriters. They went on to write for the Coasters, the Drifters and many others. Along the way they mentored an ambitious young writer-producer named Phil Spector and influenced musician Burt Bacharach. Here they describe how two young guys created the soundtrack for a generation.--From publisher description.
| Size | | Length: | 322 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 18.2 oz |
Industry Reviews
"Leiber and Stoller were among the pioneers who helped bring black and white musical forms together. It has been a historically fraught process, but the collision of cultures is probably what has given such energy and tension to American music. HOUND DOG is an important part of that story."
(06/12/2009)
"[HOUND DOG] moves back and forth between Leiber and Stoller's voices, in passages that read like casual conversation taken down and massaged into print. Their narratives veer off in different directions, they don't sound anything alike, but together they come up with one of the more breezily entertaining music books in years."
(06/17/2009)
"HOUND DOG does an entertaining job....It's a fast-paced book, with Leiber and Stoller alternating as narrators as they make their way through an almost-departed world in which small, independent record labels...could dominate entire genres of music, particularly the blues and its pop-oriented cousin, rhythm and blues."
(07/12/2009)
"[A] a compelling piece of oral history...."
(06/14/2009)
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