Rock and Roll; Interview with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller [Part 1 of 7]

To me and it's all here and we're going to slay. We're slated you only stay this way in your state meaning like yeah I love it looks great it's comfortable it sure looks good that way. Yeah what I would try to do first just to get each of you to just give us a little bit about what your background was coming into the collaboration before you may I mean like say one thing you know your involvement in theatre like you know if you mention something about there might you know this study in classical music just you know because we said you know I just want to warn you that we both had influences prior to that I was sure I had drum lessons and Fred Walker's you know music so I still wanted to tell and I just want to know I want to print what I will but I don't really know and he gave me a few If he's prepared because he's prepping us for what he thinks is going to have more let me ask you a question and you're going yes you're you've got it yet.

OK. Because I looked twice though. Yeah all right I just want you to be prepared for some earlier stuff. They can always Yeah right. Yeah. Oh yeah same. Yes. OK. OK. Yes you have to say the question again. I do. OK. Yeah. I want to hear a little bit about your early musical background before you met. Well I was born in Baltimore Maryland and my mother had a little grocery store on the perimeter of the black ghetto. So I was very much involved with what was going on down there. And I took drum lessons for about a year and I took piano lessons for about six months. My uncle came home from his business one day I was. I used to practice at his house. They had they had a piano. My mother couldn't afford a piano and I used to practice

piano there and I picked up some X and he heard him and he threw me out of the house and he said you know if I ever write that again you know you know I can practice piano here. And I stopped piano lessons and I stopped practicing there obviously and I guess my earliest influence in terms of music was the folk sort of Polish folk music that they played at these dances that my mother used to take us to. And I think it was really body we that did it. The first record I bought was Derek Sampson's express part one part two and I played that record until it was white. Well I guess the first music that I remember hearing and playing I guess I was about three years old and I used to play records Strauss asylum is down 12 gauge

RCA red label records. My mom had WQXR playing all the time and I was the New York classical music station so I recognized many classical works that I couldn't tell you what they were but I could sing along with you to this day. I started taking piano lessons when I was five and it lasted a few weeks. I was studying with my dad who was a. Brilliant concert pianist. Although she was a recluse at that time I didn't curve my fingers properly and she hit my hounds and that was the end of that. I was in tears. Took a while before I started again with the local door to door piano teacher in my neighborhood. But when I was seven I went away to a summer camp to an

interracial summer camp in New Jersey. And that's when I first heard boogie woogie from an older camper A. Black fellow and in the old barn on an upright piano. And I would hang out and just watch him. And then when he left I'd try to imitate what I'd heard him do and how his fingers moved and that was my first love. Real love was boogie woogie. Oh later I threw a neighbor who heard me play. I guess I was about 8 or 9. He hooked me up with James P. Johnson and I took about five lessons from James P. Johnson who of course is a brilliant stride pianist and composer but I only want to know which.

And so I did pick up a few licks and learned a few things about structure from him. Now when you got to getting up to the point where you met in L.A.. What were you both doing when you were working at a record store were you studying music. I was in I was not a high school Mike was a year ahead of me he was in junior college already and I was working at Norris a record shop on Fairfax. After school from like three thirty to six an. And I was I started writing songs in my more lyrics that say lyrics in my junior year in my notebook and I hooked up with a kid in school who was a drummer a real good drummer and we were writing songs together and we got to a point where he missed a few sessions and I finally caught him in the hall one afternoon and I

put it to him you know I said look you know you can be a songwriter. And he said you know I I really have to work in the evenings he said because I have to you know contribute to the income of my family. And I really I really can't afford to keep writing these songs because you can't make any money. You know like doing this he said I got to play some gigs or something like that he said but I know a guy I think might be interested in writing songs and he gave me. He said I played I played a dance last week with him and he's real good. And we play like you know like. Downtown close to East L.A. and he gave me Mike Stoller's telephone number and said I should give him a call and I called him up and tell him what happened. Well I I had a friend in Los Angeles City College who. Played piano and

he had a gig that paid $3 and he got offered a major gig that paid five bucks. So he turned over the three dollar job to me which was he still lay on a Sunday afternoon. And that's where I met this drummer whose name somehow Jerry as his last name was somehow has been forgotten. And then Mike Horwitz. We never sat in front of someone else I don't know the real reason just right. OK we're there. It's all yours. Well I guess one of the early influences or the earliest influence on me musically was probably will be the first record I ever bought was a record by Derek Sampson called Body express part one part two. And I played the record until it was white.

No pun intended. I went to summer camp when I was seven years old. I started going there and there was an interracial summer camp and that's where I first heard somebody play boogie woogie on an old upright piano in the barn. And I tried to imitate what they were doing and tried to make my fingers move that way and you know that was my first love. But you know I just say that that was what you brought you together. I say in a way I did boogie woogie and the books you know. You know you had a book full of lyrics that Mike looked at and they were all blues. That's really I think the basic sort of. Understanding appreciation we had Jerry tell me on the phone he said he was a songwriter and wanted to collaborate with me writing songs and I thought that was the last thing that I thought I would want to do especially

because I imagine these songs were something that they weren't and when I looked in his notebook and I saw a line and ditto marks and a rhyming line and I realized there were 12 bar blues and I said hey I like the blues. Let's do it. Did you know did you have earlier other friends that when you're your age they were like you know what you had to work with whatever it was a big blues fans or before. Not at all you know I didn't know anybody that was even mildly or remotely interested in school in high school I used to come out of school and listen to Hunter Hancock and not the other kids were interested in that kind of music but then again they didn't grow up where I grew up I was born in Baltimore Maryland and I moved to California when I was 12 and I went to junior high school and everybody out here in California was listening to the sort of what was on the pop charts and I was still you know doing

it for the Blues grooves on the radio and naif of course had a blues jockey out here as well and I was well into that music. Mike what was your musical storied musical activities at this time briefly. Right about this time that you met Jerry. Were you studying good. Let me say something about playing those games for the Latino scene. Well what I was doing at that time this is one hundred forty nine thousand nine hundred fifty. I had just moved to New York and I attended high school here Belmont High School which was largely Chicano. And I was playing with a Mexican band just to get it. Let's write a song. M.L. sorry.