Videos by American Songwriter
And it was Freddie Bell who rewrote the lyrics?
Stoller: Yeah. Or…somebody did.
Leiber: I wrote, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog/Quit snoopin’ ‘round my door/You can wag your tail/but I ain’t gonna feed you no more/You told me you was high class/but I can see through that/You told me you was high class/ but I can see through that/and Daddy I know…
Stoller: “you ain’t no real cool cat/You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.” Freddie Bell’s is, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog/cryin’ all the time…
Leiber & Stoller: “…you ain’t never caught a rabbit/and you ain’t no friend of mine.”
Leiber: Nonsense! He liked the lick. He liked the sound.
Stoller: She was singing to a man. And he was singing to a dog [laughter].
Leiber: She was singing to a gigolo, to be very precise. Somebody that was sponging off of her. That’s what it was about. I didn’t like Elvis’s record. Mama’s record was it. Pete Lewis playing that guitar solo, and [Big Mama] screaming her heart out…that was it.
Stoller: It was nervous sounding. It didn’t have that insinuation.
Leiber: It’s really sort of an imitation that never really turned out well.
Stoller: It’s a matter of aesthetics. It’s where you live.
Do you remember how “Kansas City” came about?
Leiber: I loved the song, “Sorry, But I Can’t Take You”: [sings] “We’re goin’ to Chicago, sorry, but I can’t take you.” I was influenced by that song, and I wanted to have something like that. So I sang words for “Kansas City” to Mike like I sang “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.”
Stoller: I said I wanted to write blues with a tune, so that if it’s played instrumentally, people will recognize it as that song.
Leiber: I said, “I want it to be a blues shout. I don’t want it to have a predictable melody-some jazz melody. I want it to be a blues. I want it to be really raw, and I don’t want it to be phony.” He said, “Well, who’s writing the music, you or me?” I said, “Well, I guess you are.” So he wrote the music, and it became the big standard that it became. I loved the sound of it syllabically. Kan-sas Ci-ty. Chicago was good, but I liked Kansas City better…because Chicago is halting, consonant-wise. Kansas City just rolls out.
Stoller: And Kansas City was the center…
Leiber: …of jazz, yeah.
Stoller: Blues and jazz-blues.
“Kansas City” has been recorded many times…by Joe Williams, Little Richard, James Brown, Peggy Lee, Little Milton…even The Beatles recorded it.
Stoller: I didn’t like The Beatles’ record of it.
Why?
Stoller: Because they neglected to sing my melody the way it was written.
Leiber: We don’t like the greatest records…the greatest names.
Stoller: But the Joe Williams version…
Leiber: …was killer. Well, I mean, it’s Joe Williams for me too.
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