Irving Berlin was the greatest songwriter of all time. I was in awe of him. But his music wasn't my music. My music was the blues. — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
Red-hot songs were born on the black streets of Baltimore, where I delivered five-gallon cans of kerosene and ten-pound bags of coal. — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
Elvis was incredibly cooperative. He would try anything. He wasn't a diva, no prima donna. When it came to work, he was a workhorse. — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
Elvis Presley, you can't define him in a couple of sentences, but he was a country boy and he was very respectful. — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
The Jewish background is not that far from the black groove. Blacks are downtrodden, Jews are downtrodden, therefore they have something in common in… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
Our songs did not transcend being R&B hits. They were R&B hits that white kids were attracted to. And if people bought it, it… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
Irving Berlin was the greatest songwriter of all time. I was in awe of him. But his music wasn't my music. My music was… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
And there's always one special element. In 'There Goes My Baby,' it's the out-of-tune timpani. 'Stand by Me,' it's the bass pattern. Of course,… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
Listen to any cantor, any good hazan, sing and you can hear a little bit of Ray Charles going on. — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
I felt black. I was as far as I was concerned. And I wanted to be black for lots of reasons. They were better… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
I was brought up in black neighborhoods in South Baltimore. And we really felt like we were very black. We acted black and we… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
It's self-effacing, it's hard-luck, the shtetl stories. All those Coasters things are an amalgam of Yiddish and black humor. — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
The first memory I have was my sisters dancing to the radio when they played records by Benny Goodman and Harry James and of… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
The early influences, in many ways, were in Baltimore. I was passing open windows where there might be a radio playing something funky. In… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
Teenagers especially are very, very conscious about what is hip and what is lame and what is square and what is out and what… — Jerry Leiber Copy Share Image
