Mick Hartley

Cultural appropriation? Tell it to Mike Stoller of Leiber and Stoller, the Jewish songwriting team who wrote all those classic R'n'B numbers – Kansas City, Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock, Yakety Yak, Charley Brown, Poison Ivy, There Goes My Baby, Stand By Me. There's a great interview with the guy in Tablet – Rhythm and Jews.

From interviewer David Samuels:

I remember once being in a recording studio with members of the rap group the Wu-Tang Clan back in the 1990s and one of the artists in that group was riffing about the history of white people stealing black people’s music, and the example he gave was Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” which he said that Elvis stole from a black performer. And I looked at him I said, “True, but the song was written by two Jewish guys.” And he looked at me funny, like he was mad at me, but also like at the same time he was wondering if that could possibly be true.

 And this exchange:

The DNA of this country, the modern version of it, is a thing that you helped to shape, or at least to filigree. What can you tell me about it?

From the beginning, all of the stuff that we did was inspired by our familiarity and knowledge and love of black popular music. The blues, boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues. And people say, “You guys were responsible for that music crossing over.” That made us very proud. Since then, many more have. But if that is something that we did, then that made us very proud. Because, of course, there’s all kinds of influences in American music, but I think the strongest influence is from black people.

What spoke to you in that music?

It was the rhythm, it was the rhythm. And it had a humor in it, even in the blues songs. You know, the humor, as Jerry used to say, was akin to Yiddish humor. Like, “If it wasn’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”

You can imagine an old Jewish guy saying that, too.

Yeah.

So yes, black music of course. but the Jewish contribution to American popular music is immense, from Irving Berlin on down. In fact Cole Porter was about the only composer in what might loosely be called the Great American Songbook who wasn't Jewish. So it's funny – and appropriate – that they also featured so significantly in the history of black music.

But yes…cultural appropriation…boo, hiss.

Here's what I wrote in 2011, on Jerry Leiber's death:

There must have been so many white kids who got their first introduction to Black Music and the world of Rhythm and Blues through a Leiber and Stoller song. They were also, it's worth remembering, part of the extraordinary story of the Jewish contribution to American popular culture at the time, along with Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, and nearly all of the other Brill Building songwriters, plus Phil Spector (nevermind, later on, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Simon and Garfunkel…).

Though we should resist the urge to make out that literate witty lyrics only arrived in Black Music with Leiber and Stoller. Ray Charles, to give just one example, was recording It Should've Been Me back in 1953, and Greenbacks in 1955. The latter in particular has the kind of hip vernacular and storyline that, frankly, Jerry Leiber could only dream of writing:

As I was walking down the street last night
A pretty little girl came into sight
I bowed and smiled and asked her name
She said, "Hold it bud, I don't play that game"
I reached in my pocket, and to her big surprise
There was Lincoln staring her dead in the eyes….