Air Week: June 20-26, 2022
Leiber & Stoller’s Spark Records
The “Juke In The Back” is proud to present one of the premiere, short-lived R&B record labels of the 1950s. Started by songwriters Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller after they were stiffed on royalty payments for Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog,” Spark records only lasted for a year and a half. In that time they wrote and produced some of early rock’s most defining songs like “Riot In Cell Block #9” and “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” for The Robins, “Love Me” for Willie & Ruth (Elvis Presley would go on to cut it), “One Bad Stud” for San Francisco’s The Honey Bears and many more. Spark was cut short in 1955, when Atlantic Records offered Leiber & Stoller an offer they couldn’t refuse. Catch the Spark Records story this week on the “Juke In The Back” with Matt The Cat.
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