Elvis Sings Leiber and Stoller Tunes

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the songwriting team whose 40th anniversary will be saluted by ASCAP on June 27 at the Palladium in Hollywood, have written hits for such varied artists as Peggy Lee, the Drifters and LaVern Baker.

But the team is best known for a series of songs recorded by Elvis Presley in the ‘50s and ‘60s--including almost a dozen tunes that served as the musical foundation of Presley’s most prized films: “Loving You,” “King Creole” and “Jailhouse Rock.”

Those songs and more can be found in “Elvis Presley Sings Leiber & Stoller,” a lively, 20-song retrospective album package from RCA that opens with “Hound Dog,” the first Leiber and Stoller selection that the late rock star recorded.

Though most of the Leiber and Stoller material Presley recorded was written, in effect, on assignment, Presley found “Hound Dog” on his own. He probably heard blues singer Big Mama Thornton’s version of it in 1953 because the record went to No. 1 on the R&B; charts, but Leiber doesn’t think Presley decided to record it until he hard the song again a few years later in a Las Vegas lounge.

“You’ve got to remember it was written as a woman’s song, but Freddy Bell--who (also) recorded it before Elvis--changed the words a little so that it was a man’s song,” Leiber once explained. “My guess is Elvis saw Bell do it in Vegas and realized it could work for him.”

The song worked so well for Presley in 1956--when, with the flip side “Don’t Be Cruel,” it spent 11 weeks at No. 1--that the singer’s publishers asked Leiber and Stoller for some more material for Presley movies. Among the tunes the pair eventually delivered: “Loving You,” “Baby I Don’t Care,” “Trouble,” “Jailhouse Rock” and “King Creole.”

In addition, the album contains other songs written for Presley--from “Santa Claus Is Back in Town” and “Girls Girls Girls”--as well as a few Leiber and Stoller songs that Presley included in albums or films even though they had already been recorded by other artists. The latter include “Little Egypt” (originally done by the Coasters) and “Saved” (a hit in 1961 for LaVern Baker).

Also on the Presley front, RCA has assembled a three-disc box set titled “Collector’s Gold” that will consist almost entirely of unreleased material.

The material will be drawn chiefly from alternate versions of familiar Presley tunes, songs from films that weren’t included in soundtrack albums and live 1969 appearances in Las Vegas, according to Pete Howard’s ICE newsletter. The set, an RCA spokesman said this week, is due in mid-August.