Search - Leiber & Stoller, Various :: There's a Riot Goin' On! : The Rock 'N' Roll Classics of Leiber & Stoller

That ain't no freight train that you hear

Johnny Heering | Bethel, CT United States | 04/26/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD spotlights the songwriting of Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller. They were one of the top non-performing songwriting teams of the rock and roll era. The were well known for writing humorous songs, but they were equally capable of writing serious songs. Many of their best known songs are featured here, although with a mere 18 songs, it covers a small fraction of their great songs. Most of these songs have been recorded by several artists, so they had a variety of performances to choose from. Some of the performances that are here aren't the best choices, in my opinion, but they are still good. I do find it a bit odd that there is only one song here by The Coasters, but this is still a solid CD. Recommended to fans of the early rock and roll era."

You might not know Lieber & Stoller but you know their songs

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 05/31/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller went into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and while you may well not recognize the names of this song writing team, you most definitely know their music. These were the guys who wrote "Hound Dog" (originally for Big Mama Thornton before Elvis covered it), "Charlie Brown," "Kansas City," "Love Potion No. 9," "Jailhouse Rock," "On Broadway," "(I) Who Have Nothing," and "Stand By Me." In the early days of rock 'n' roll Leiber and Stoller were two of the most important songwriters who changed the sound of American music by fusing R&B with pop. They even added string arrangements on "There Goes My Baby" by the Drifters, the first time that was done with R&B. They gave Phil Spector his start in the music business and even started Red Bird records, where they hired Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich as the main songwriting team writing for some of the best girl groups of the Sixties like the Dixie Cups and the Shangrai-Las. With "There's A Riot Goin' On! The Rock 'n' Roll Classics of Lieber and Stoller" you can get the best of the songs they wrote performed by some of the artists of the period. I like the idea of having a disc with 18 songs written by the same pair of songwriters rather than having to go through various albums by the Coasters, Drifters and others to come up with the same result. I am surprised there are not comparable collections but together for Barry & Greenwich, King & Goeffin, and so forth."