Leiber And Stoller

Shimmying across Southern California, "Smokey Joe's Cafe" has arrived at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, after a recent stop at L.A.'s Wilshire Theatre. The touring cast is different from the one at the Doolittle Theatre in 1994, but the effects are largely the same.

The Drifters had so many lead singers during their glory days that it's hard even for fans of the R&B group to recall just who sang what. Remember the Drifters' classic rendition of "White Christmas" in the '50s? That was Clyde McPhatter on lead. And what about "Up on the Roof" in the early '60s? Rudy Lewis was the lead singer. Or "Under the Boardwalk"? Johnny Moore sang lead.

The 1996-97 Broadway Series that will be announced today by the Orange County Performing Arts Center has been designed to offer something for everyone--the classic, the commercial and the chestnut.

Singer Solomon Burke, keyboardist Keith Emerson and songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller are scheduled to speak tonight at a tribute to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun at American Cinematheque's Mods & Rockers Film Festival. Ertegun, a native of Turkey, would have been 84 today. He died last December after suffering a head injury in October. The 7:30 p.m.

After a year of presenting only established Broadway shows, the Ahmanson Theatre's 1994-95 season will take a more adventurous approach. The American premiere of a David Hare play, a new musical revue devoted to the work of Los Angeles-based songwriters Leiber and Stoller, and a stage adaptation of Maxine Hong Kingston's "The Woman Warrior" will join Neil Simon's latest Broadway hit and the already announced "Miss Saigon."

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the legendary songwriting team whose career was nurtured in nightclubs and after-hours jazz and blues joints along Central Avenue, last week gave something back to the community that gave them their start.

When Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" caused a sensation in 1956, few pop observers were shrewd enough to see either the young rock singer or the song as anything more than a passing novelty. Not even Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller--who wrote the song--expected "Hound Dog" to last much beyond the seven weeks Elvis' record stayed on top of the national sales charts.

Legendary songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller plan to stand by the catalog of hits they've written during their five decades in the music business, but they've auctioned the rest of their holdings. Leiber and Stoller, the composers of such classics as "Stand by Me" and "Jailhouse Rock," agreed to sell their Trio and Quartet music catalogs, which include nearly 20,000 titles by other songwriters, to independent music publisher Windswept Classics and trading giant Itochu Corp.