Thursday, May 30, 2002 7:32:43 AM
Rock 'n' Roll Artists A-Z...The Coasters
Formed Los Angeles, 1955; ended in the late 60s, though 'Coasters' groups still surface on the oldies circuit.
The received wisdom has it that rock'n'roll was dying on its feet during the period between Buddy Holly's death and The Beatles' invasion of the USA. However, the music that came out during this time - the first rumblings of Berry Gordy and Motown, the infectious New Orleans rhythms of The Showmen and Huey 'Piano' Smith, and especially the comedy of The Coasters - was perhaps more joyous and more intensely rhythmic than anything by Elvis, Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly. The neglect of this music is perhaps down to subconscious racism, but probably has more to do with the fact that this music was producer's music par excellence, lacking an even remotely iconic presence. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the remarkable Coasters.
The Coasters evolved out of The Robins, a Los Angeles-based R&B vocal group who recorded for Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's Spark records. The Robins had several regional hits in California, most notably "Riot In Cell Block #9" (sung by future "Louie, Louie" composer Richard Berry) and "Smokey Joe's Cafe". Impressed by the songwriting talents of Leiber and Stoller, who not only wrote The Robins' hits, but the R&B staples "Hound Dog" and "Kansas City" as well, Atlantic offered the duo an indepenent production deal. Carl Gardner (vocals) and Bobby Nunn (vocals) from The Robins decided to join Leiber and Stoller and recruited vocalists Billy Guy and Leon Hughes to become The Coasters. Their first single, "Down In Mexico" (1956), contained almost all of the elements that would characterize their style: novel rhythms, a prominent, honking sax, and a lyric that told a comically mysterious story in an exotic setting.
After a few lacklustre singles, The Coasters hit their stride with "Searchin'" (1957). Leiber and Stoller's lyric brilliantly combined a detective story with poetic boasting, but it was the music that pushed the song into the American Top 3. The feel was reminiscent of Fats Domino with a slightly less funky New Orleans rhythm and drunken piano, played by Stoller himself. Although Leiber and Stoller are now recognized as one of the greatest songwriting partnerships in pop history, it was their instinctive musical and rhythmic feel that was reponsible for their success. The flip side, "Young Blood", went into the Top 10 in its own right and was the first example of the comedic style that The Coasters are best remembered for. "Yakety Yak" (1958) justly went straight to the top of the American charts on its release and has since become one of the classic rock'n'roll songs. The lyric itself was hilarious but it was Nunn's basso profundo 'Don't talk back' and King Curtis's sax solo that made the song. This sax embodied the rock'n'roll horn sound and would reappear on "Charlie Brown" (1959), the utterly bizarre "Along Came Jones" (1959), whose rhythm was based on a banjo riff, and "That Is Rock & Roll" (1959), which was also based on a banjo. By this time, Hughes and Nunn had left and were replaced by a succession of singers including Will Jones and Obie Jessie. The Coasters closed out 1959 with a string of remarkable songs. "Poison Ivy" abandoned the sax in favour of a harder, guitar-based rhythm and was constructed around a dazzling extended metaphor filled with over-the-top internal rhymes, while "What About Us", along with Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", pioneered rock'n'roll's exploration of race and class issues. "Run Red Run", meanwhile, was perhaps their best song. On the surface it was another one of Leiber and Stoller's comic playlets, but underneath was an extraordinary political statement. As Leiber puts it, 'once the monkey knows how to play [poker], he knows how to understand other things. And once he understands that he's being cheated and exploited, he becomes revolutionary.' After 1959, the hits dried up with the exception of "Little Egypt" (1961) and the wonderful "Shoppin' For Clothes" (1960), whose depiction of cool was so perfect that it's been sampled by both Barry Adamson and The Jungle Brothers in their portraits of hipness. The Coasters continued until the late 60s with little success, and numerous versions of the band continue to play the 'oldies' circuit. Leiber and Stoller continued writing and producing hits for The Drifters, Ben E. King, The Dixie Cups and Elvis - they were not only early rock'n'roll's greatest songwriters, but its greatest producers as well. In the unwritten history of popular music's miscegenation, Leiber and Stoller, two Jewish kids from the Bronx, occupy a central role, for they created rock'n'roll's metaphors and lingo, and its rhythmic language too.
The Very Best Of The Coasters (1994; Rhino/Atlantic). The cream of the crop from Rhino's 50-song retrospective, Coastin' Classics. This shows off Leiber and Stoller's enormous talent for mixing the comic and the political, and suggests why things like Red Wedge and Rock Against Racism are such abject failures.
by Peter Shapiro
]
Breaking Clay Makes My Day!
Formed Los Angeles, 1955; ended in the late 60s, though 'Coasters' groups still surface on the oldies circuit.
The received wisdom has it that rock'n'roll was dying on its feet during the period between Buddy Holly's death and The Beatles' invasion of the USA. However, the music that came out during this time - the first rumblings of Berry Gordy and Motown, the infectious New Orleans rhythms of The Showmen and Huey 'Piano' Smith, and especially the comedy of The Coasters - was perhaps more joyous and more intensely rhythmic than anything by Elvis, Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly. The neglect of this music is perhaps down to subconscious racism, but probably has more to do with the fact that this music was producer's music par excellence, lacking an even remotely iconic presence. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the remarkable Coasters.
The Coasters evolved out of The Robins, a Los Angeles-based R&B vocal group who recorded for Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's Spark records. The Robins had several regional hits in California, most notably "Riot In Cell Block #9" (sung by future "Louie, Louie" composer Richard Berry) and "Smokey Joe's Cafe". Impressed by the songwriting talents of Leiber and Stoller, who not only wrote The Robins' hits, but the R&B staples "Hound Dog" and "Kansas City" as well, Atlantic offered the duo an indepenent production deal. Carl Gardner (vocals) and Bobby Nunn (vocals) from The Robins decided to join Leiber and Stoller and recruited vocalists Billy Guy and Leon Hughes to become The Coasters. Their first single, "Down In Mexico" (1956), contained almost all of the elements that would characterize their style: novel rhythms, a prominent, honking sax, and a lyric that told a comically mysterious story in an exotic setting.
After a few lacklustre singles, The Coasters hit their stride with "Searchin'" (1957). Leiber and Stoller's lyric brilliantly combined a detective story with poetic boasting, but it was the music that pushed the song into the American Top 3. The feel was reminiscent of Fats Domino with a slightly less funky New Orleans rhythm and drunken piano, played by Stoller himself. Although Leiber and Stoller are now recognized as one of the greatest songwriting partnerships in pop history, it was their instinctive musical and rhythmic feel that was reponsible for their success. The flip side, "Young Blood", went into the Top 10 in its own right and was the first example of the comedic style that The Coasters are best remembered for. "Yakety Yak" (1958) justly went straight to the top of the American charts on its release and has since become one of the classic rock'n'roll songs. The lyric itself was hilarious but it was Nunn's basso profundo 'Don't talk back' and King Curtis's sax solo that made the song. This sax embodied the rock'n'roll horn sound and would reappear on "Charlie Brown" (1959), the utterly bizarre "Along Came Jones" (1959), whose rhythm was based on a banjo riff, and "That Is Rock & Roll" (1959), which was also based on a banjo. By this time, Hughes and Nunn had left and were replaced by a succession of singers including Will Jones and Obie Jessie. The Coasters closed out 1959 with a string of remarkable songs. "Poison Ivy" abandoned the sax in favour of a harder, guitar-based rhythm and was constructed around a dazzling extended metaphor filled with over-the-top internal rhymes, while "What About Us", along with Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", pioneered rock'n'roll's exploration of race and class issues. "Run Red Run", meanwhile, was perhaps their best song. On the surface it was another one of Leiber and Stoller's comic playlets, but underneath was an extraordinary political statement. As Leiber puts it, 'once the monkey knows how to play [poker], he knows how to understand other things. And once he understands that he's being cheated and exploited, he becomes revolutionary.' After 1959, the hits dried up with the exception of "Little Egypt" (1961) and the wonderful "Shoppin' For Clothes" (1960), whose depiction of cool was so perfect that it's been sampled by both Barry Adamson and The Jungle Brothers in their portraits of hipness. The Coasters continued until the late 60s with little success, and numerous versions of the band continue to play the 'oldies' circuit. Leiber and Stoller continued writing and producing hits for The Drifters, Ben E. King, The Dixie Cups and Elvis - they were not only early rock'n'roll's greatest songwriters, but its greatest producers as well. In the unwritten history of popular music's miscegenation, Leiber and Stoller, two Jewish kids from the Bronx, occupy a central role, for they created rock'n'roll's metaphors and lingo, and its rhythmic language too.
The Very Best Of The Coasters (1994; Rhino/Atlantic). The cream of the crop from Rhino's 50-song retrospective, Coastin' Classics. This shows off Leiber and Stoller's enormous talent for mixing the comic and the political, and suggests why things like Red Wedge and Rock Against Racism are such abject failures.
by Peter Shapiro
] Breaking Clay Makes My Day!
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