This set of compilation CDs dates back ten years. There are three CDs, one featuring the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, another collecting the songs of Otis Blackwell, and the third featuring covers of songs by Chuck Berry. The first two are mostly made up of the original recordings of the songs or at least notable early versions and for the most part date back to the 1950s, while the recordings on the third CD are mostly from the 1960s and 1970s (the originals were of course recorded by Chuck Berry himself). The notes below are the ones I originally wrote to accompany the CDs.
Is That All There Is? - The Songs of Leiber and Stoller
Hound Dog (Leiber/Stoller*) Big Mama Thornton
Framed (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
Riot in Cell Block #9 (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
K.C. Lovin' (Leiber/Stoller) Little Willie Littlefield
Smokey Joe's Cafe (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
L'Homme A La Moto [Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots] (Leiber/Stoller) Edith Piaf
Hound Dog (Leiber/Stoller*) Elvis Presley
Love Me (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Searchin' (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Young Blood (Leiber/Pomus/Stoller) The Coasters
Jailhouse Rock (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Don't (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Yakety Yak (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
King Creole (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Riot in Cell Block #9 (Leiber/Stoller) Wanda Jackson
Love Potion No.9 (Leiber/Stoller) The Clovers
Charlie Brown (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Kansas City [K.C. Lovin'] (Leiber/Stoller) Wilbert Harrison
Poison Ivy (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Saved (Leiber/Stoller) LaVern Baker
Stand By Me (King/Leiber/Stoller) Ben E. King
Three Cool Cats (Leiber/Stoller) The Beatles
I'm A Woman (Leiber/Stoller) Peggy Lee
She's Not You (Leiber/Stoller/Pomus) Elvis Presley
On Broadway (Leiber/Mann/Stoller/Weil) The Drifters
I (Who Have Nothing) (Donida/Leiber/Mogol/Stoller) Ben E. King
Some Other Guy (Leiber/Stoller/Barrett) The Beatles
Ruby Baby (Leiber/Stoller) Dion & the Belmonts
(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care (Leiber/Stoller) Queen
Is That All There Is? (Leiber/Stoller) Peggy Lee
*In addition to Leiber and Stoller, Thornton's bandleader Johnny Otis also initially received a credit as part of original publishing deal and later claimed to have helped write the song, though Leiber and Stoller denied this and their position was upheld in court. Thornton herself also claimed at one point to have had a hand in it, but later clarified that it was mainly a matter of her transforming it through her interpretation of the song. The Presley version had somewhat different lyrics from the original; the changes had been made by singer Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, whose version Presley learned (though he also owned a copy of the original), but Bell failed to claim credit for his new lyrics, not having gotten permission from Leiber and Stoller to change their song in the first place.
All Shook Up - The Songs of Otis Blackwell
Fever (John Davenport[Blackwell]/Eddie Cooley) Little Willie John
Don't Be Cruel (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
All Shook Up (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
It's No Lie (Blackwell) Gene Vincent
Paralyzed (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
Great Balls of Fire (Blackwell/Hammer) Jerry Lee Lewis
Breathless (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
Just Keep It Up (Blackwell) Dee Clark
Hey Little Girl (Blackwell/Stevenson) Dee Clark
Handy Man (Blackwell/Jones) Jimmy Jones
Let's Talk About Us (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
Make Me Know It (Blackwell) Elvis Presley
Livin' Lovin' Wreck (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
(Such An) Easy Question (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
Return to Sender (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
One Broken Heart for Sale (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
Home in Your Heart (Blackwell/Scott) Otis Redding
Daddy Rollin' Stone (Blackwell) The Who
Fever (John Davenport[Blackwell]/Eddie Cooley) Peggy Lee
All Shook Up (Blackwell/Presley) Paul McCartney
Rock and Roll Music - The Songs of Chuck Berry
Roll Over Beethoven* ELO (1973)
Carol The Rolling Stones (1964)
Johnny B. Goode Jimi Hendrix
Rock And Roll Music The Beatles (1964)
Brown Eyed Handsome Man Buddy Holly
Memphis, Tennessee Elvis Presley (1965)
Come On The Rolling Stones (1963)
Little Queenie Jerry Lee Lewis
Sweet Little Sixteen** The Beach Boys(as "Surfin' USA")
Too Much Monkey Business The Beatles
You Can't Catch Me The Rolling Stones (1965)
You Never Can Tell Emmylou Harris (1977)
Back in the U.S.A. Linda Ronstadt
I Got To Find My Baby The Beatles
No Particular Place To Go George Thorogood
Around and Around The Rolling Stones
Havana Moon Carlos Santana
Johnny B. Goode Elvis Presley (1970)
Roll Over Beethoven The Beatles (1963)
Memphis, Tennessee The Animals
Brown Eyed Handsome Man Nina Simone
Too Much Monkey Business The Yardbirds
Sweet Little Sixteen The Beatles
Little Queenie (live) The Rolling Stones (1970)
C'est La Vie (You Never Can Tell) Bob Seger
All songs by Chuck Berry except:
*Words by Chuck Berry, Music by Chuck Berry and Ludwig van Beethoven
**Words by Brian Wilson, Music by Chuck Berry
This series of CDs collects songs by different songwriters who were prominent in the fifties. First, I'll discuss the Leiber and Stoller collection. Lyricist Jerry Leiber and composer Mike Stoller were the most successful songwriting team of the early rock and roll era, and played an important role in popularizing the rhythm and blues sound. Even before Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley started making records, Leiber and Stoller were writing songs for various R & B singers and groups. This CD only contains a few of these early tracks (most are somewhat difficult to find), but songs like "Hound Dog" and "K.C. Lovin'" are good examples of their early work, and their songs for the Robins introduced comedy rock and roll, a genre they continued to produce many songs in, particular with the later incarnation of the Robins, the Coasters ("Searchin'", "Yakety Yak", etc.). Aside from the Coasters, the other artist they had the most hits with was Elvis, starting with his remake of "Hound Dog", followed by "Love Me" and "Jailhouse Rock" and continuing on into the sixties. They also wrote for many other artists such as Ben E. King and Peggy Lee (one of my favorites is the song they wrote for LaVern Baker, "Saved").
Leiber and Stoller occasionally collaborated with other songwriters, particularly in the sixties when they were often too busy with production and other duties to concentrate on songwriting. "On Broadway", for instance, was written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (actually I probably shouldn't have included this one, as Leiber and Stoller just reworked the Mann/Weil original), "She's Not You" with Doc Pomus, and "Stand By Me" with Ben E. King. Another song which might have been a collaboration was "Hound Dog", as bandleader Johnny Otis claimed he helped write it, but he lost a court case over the rights. Leiber also worked without Stoller on occasion, most notably when he collaborated with Phil Spector on "Spanish Harlem", but here I've only included songs they both worked on.
In a few cases, the versions I've included here are not the originals. Since both versions of "Hound Dog" are distinctive and worth a listen they are both included here. Likewise, I included both the original "K.C. Lovin'" and Wilbert Harrison's remake entitled "Kansas City", since it was the latter version that was a big hit (in fact it's not unlikely that even the Beatles, who covered the song, never heard the original). Finally, while the Robins' version of "Riot in Cell Block #9" is the original classic, I decided the version from the "Queen of Rockabilly" Wanda Jackson was also worth including. In several cases I didn't have the original, so I included a later version, including "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots" (the original was by The Cheers; here you get a French version by the famed singer Edith Piaf!), "Love Me" (originally recorded by Willy and Ruth, but Elvis made it a hit), "Three Cool Cats" (the Coasters), "Ruby Baby" (The Drifters), "Some Other Guy" (Richie Barrett, who co-wrote the song) and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" (Elvis). The pair also wrote many other songs which don't appear here, some of which were sizable hits (e.g. the Drifters' "Drip Drop").
By the late sixties, Leiber and Stoller were no longer as hot as they had been a few years earlier, but they continued to write and had the occasional hit. The most notable of their later songs was the final song in this collection, "Is That All There Is?", written for Peggy Lee and covered by many other artists including P.J. Harvey. An interesting fact about the original (released in 1969) is that it was arranged and conducted by a young songwriter named Randy Newman, still a comparative unknown at the time (though he'd already written a few hits and released his first solo album).
Otis Blackwell was another key songwriter of the fifties, though he wasn't as prolific a hitmaker as the Leiber and Stoller team. Nevertheless, some of the greatest rock and roll classics were written or co-written by Blackwell, including "Fever", "Don't Be Cruel", "All Shook Up", "Great Balls of Fire", and "Return to Sender". You will note that many of these were hits for Elvis, one artist that Blackwell had in common with Leiber and Stoller; in fact between the three of them, they wrote a large proportion of Elvis's classic hits, including some of the very biggest ones. Other than Elvis, however, Blackwell generally wrote for different artists than Leiber and Stoller. Ironically, Leiber and Stoller, who were white (Jewish, actually), wrote most of their songs for African-American artists, while Blackwell, who was black, wrote mostly for white artists.
Blackwell collaborated on many of his hits with other writers, such as Winfield Scott, Jack Hammer, Eddie Cooley and B.W. Stevenson. Though he had his greatest successes writing for other artists, he did occasionally record himself, one example being "Daddy Rollin' Stone", which was later covered by the Who (the version which appears here). He also made an album in which he recorded his own versions of his most successful hits for others.
When you first put on the Rock And Roll Music CD, and you hear Beethoven's Fifth, you might think at first that it's a classical music compilation. But after a minute, that Chuck Berry guitar comes in and you realize you're listening to ELO's cover of "Roll Over Beethoven", and what it is in fact a compilation of Chuck Berry covers. Chuck Berry, of course, was one of the most important artists of the rock and roll era. Unlike Leiber, Stoller, and Blackwell, he wrote songs for himself, not for others. But it is a tribute to the esteem in which he and his songs are held that they have been frequently covered by later rock artists.
Aside from ELO's brilliant mix of Beethoven and Berry on "Roll Over Beethoven", this CD includes covers of Berry songs by rock luminaries such as Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Carlos Santana. The Beatles and the Stones appear the most frequently, as both bands covered many Berry tunes -- not a big surprise considering they were all huge Chuck Berry fans (as I mentioned elsewhere, John Lennon once said "If you were going to give rock & roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."). "Come On", released in June 1963, was the very first Stones single, and they continued to frequently cover Berry songs on their albums. As for the Beatles, aside from the two Berry covers which appeared on their albums, they frequently did Berry songs in their BBC appearances.
There are of course many more Chuck Berry covers than I was able to fit on one CD, especially since certain classics have been covered multiple times. Some examples include the Beatles BBC performances of "Johnny B. Goode", "Memphis, Tennessee", "Carol", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Too Much Monkey Business", versions of "Johnny B. Goode" by Jerry Lee Lewis and the Grateful Dead, a live cover of "Little Queenie" by the Stones, the MC5's recording of "Back in the U.S.A.", Paul McCartney's cover of "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" from his excellent rock and roll album Run Devil Run, and Levon Helm's cover of "Havana Moon".
Without Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Otis Blackwell, and Chuck Berry, not only would the world have missed out on many great songs, but rock and roll as we know it would not have existed. Their contributions to the popular music of America (and the rest of the world as well) were beyond price, as one listen to these CDs will show.
