Friedman Josh Alan - Tell the Truth Until They Bleed

BY JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN

BOOKS

BLACK CRACKER

I, GOLDSTEIN: MY SCREWED LIFE (with Al Goldstein)

WHEN SEX WAS DIRTY

WARTS AND ALL (with Drew Friedman)

TALES OF TIMES SQUARE

ANY SIMILARITY TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL (with Drew Friedman)

NOW DIG THIS: THE UNSPEAKABLE WRITINGS OF TERRY SOUTHERN (co-editor, with Nile Southern)

ALBUMS

FAMOUS & POOR

THE WORST!

BLACKS N JEWS

JOSH ALAN BAND

If you enjoy this book, tell someone about it.

Wyatt Doyle Books
from New Texture

Copyright 2008, 2015 by Josh Alan Friedman

All Rights Reserved.

Tell the Truth Until They Bleed was originally published by Backbeat Books, an imprint of Hal Leonard Corp., in 2008

Portions of this book appeared, in different form, in the Dallas Observer, Texas Monthly, Blab, Tower Records Pulse!, Al Aronowitzs Blacklisted Journalist, and WFMUs LCD magazine.

Cover by Wyatt Doyle

Wyatt Doyle, Editor
Editorial Consultant: Sandee Curry / SandeeCurry.com
Book design and layout by Wyatt Doyle

Special Thanks: Michael Ochs, Jonathan Hyams, Michael Simmons, John Speaks and Hudson Marquez

BlackCrackerOnline.com

NewTexture.com

Booksellers: Tell the Truth Until They Bleed and other New Texture books are available through Ingram Book Company.

ISBN 978-0-9827239-6-8

ISBN 978-0-9884621-8-2 (eBook)

First Wyatt Doyle Books Edition: March 2015

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Chloe Mae

The old record biz was founded by tough guys and hustlers who were music fanatics with unique taste. Each carved out his own territory in jazz, folk, blues, or pop. By the 1970s, these pioneers began dying or selling off their companies. Among those who appear in this book, it is producer Joel Dorn who defines the sea change from the old music business to the new:

The record business became a real business. It had been this magnificent cottage industry from its inceptionall of a sudden, music became a part of everybodys business. Now there were lawyers walking around in fuckin Nehru suits listening to the Grateful Dead, with Trans-America, Warner-Seven Arts, Gulf & Western buying up all these properties. Instead of buying a steel mill, theyd buy a record company and run it the same way.

I began these stories in the 1990s, after moving from New York to Texas. Most were done (in different form) for Robert Wilonsky at the Dallas Observer. The story of Leiber & Stoller is told here for the first timeanywhere.

Whats so dirty about blues and rock n roll? You really want the trut about this rotten fuckin business? Have a seat.

Josh Alan Friedman
Texas, 2007

Jerry Leiber (right) and Mike Stoller (left) with the hillbilly act that absolutely wrecked their song Hound Dog.
(Photofest)

IN 1952, Lester Sill, an impeccably dressed promoter for the R&B label Modern Records in Los Angeles, took a keen interest in two Jewish boys. Sill made a date for Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, both nineteen, to visit bandleader Johnny Otis in his East Los Angeles garage. His twelve-piece band rehearsed there. Otis was ringmaster over a dozen R&B acts, each signed to a different label. The Johnny Otis Revue performed all across the chitlin circuit, that loose affiliation of Negro music and vaudeville clubs throughout the South. After two months of roadwork he brought em back hot off the road to make records. Audiences assumed Otis, the embodiment of rhythm and blues, was high yaller. But he was white, the son of Greek immigrants. Likewise, in the business of race music, folks were later taken aback to find that songwriters Leiber & Stoller were white.

At the garage, six acts awaited. Each got up on a makeshift stage to strut their best shit for the visiting white boys. Little Esther, who recorded for Savoy, begged, she screamed, and she shouted Release Me. Three Tons of Joy, a trio of circus-size gospel gals, waddled onto the rickety stage, nearly plummeting through the wooden planks, to offer up some old-time religion. And each sang better than Aretha, remembers Jerry Leiber. He got a momentary flash for a song title: 1500 Pounds of Woman Comin Your Way. Last was Big Mama Thornton, on Don Robeys Peacock label, out of Houston. She did Ball and Chain.

It killed us, says Jerry.

The boys sped off to Mike Stollers house, a fifteen-minute drive. Adrenaline pumping like a maniacas it always did when his genius explodedJerry shouted dummy lyrics. He beat on the roof of the car. He had two thirds of a song finished as they pulled into the driveway. They went right to the piano. Mike didnt even sit down, just started jamming along with Jerry, filling in a rhythmic pattern and four choruses.

I yelled, he played, remembers Leiber. The groove came together and we finished in twelve minutes flat. I work fast. We raced right back to lay the song on Big Mama.

The six-foot, three-hundred-pound blues shouter grabbed the lyrics, which were freshly scribbled on a paper bag, out of Jerrys hand. Her eyes bugged out at the page and she started crooning. As if it were Blue Moon. This was ludicrous; Jerry knew she was putting them on.

Mama, said Jerry, it dont go that way.

White boy, she answered, dont tell me how it go. I know how it go. It go like this. Big Mama shook, stuck out her chin, pulled apart her cheeks, and flapped her tongue like a snake, pulling some kind of grotesque Big Mammy shtick.

Johnny Otis marched over to kosher the scene. Whats going on? She acted like a kid caught being naughty in class. Mama, you want a hit? said Otis. Dont run these guys off. Be nice. These guys write hits. Maybe you already got one in your hands.

Suddenly contrite, she gave a yassuh.

Mama, I want you to listen at how it go, instructed Otis. So Mike went back to the piano and Jerry stood on the garage stage with Johnnys band and sang Hound Dog. Halfway through, Big Mama smiled, started shaking her tail feather. Then she got up and copied what Jerry did, right to the letter.

I threw in a few hollers to make it go, recalled Big Mama later.

Otis usually used four horns, but decided to keep only the rhythm section for Hound DogPete Lewiss funky blues guitar figure, Albert Winston on upright bass, and Johnny Otis on drums, with the snare turned off for a hollow ring. Jerry and Mike were in the control booth. After two takes, Peacock #1612, Hound Dog backed with Nightmare, was released the first week of March 1953; it froze at number one on the R&B charts for three months.

Cashbox, Rhythm N Blues Ramblings, March 28, 1953:

Not in the longest time has a record hit the nation with such a startling and crashing impact as has Hound Dog, the Willie Mae Thornton etching on Peacock label. The gal belts the rhythmic Latin tempo tune with a frenzied performance that pops your thermometer and reaction around the country simply fascinates this office as reports pour in from the R&B belt....