{"id":6256,"date":"2026-09-12T09:30:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T13:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=6256"},"modified":"2026-09-12T14:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T18:12:17","slug":"kansas-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City (K.C. Loving &#8211; Leiber &#038; Stoller)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kansas City (KC Loving)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T5PmU3-CTLg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Kansas City&#8221; was one of the first songs to be recorded from the dynamite rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. They met in Los Angeles while Jerry was still in high school and Mike just out, and started by writing blues. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-6271\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg?resize=194%2C236&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg?w=305&amp;ssl=1 305w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg?resize=247%2C300&amp;ssl=1 247w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/>Their first hit was &#8220;Hard Times,&#8221; recorded by Charles Brown; their second was &#8220;Hound Dog,&#8221; recorded by Big Mama Thornton. In between, they had this one, which didn&#8217;t make much noise when Little Willie Littlefield recorded it in 1952, but became a huge hit and a standard when Wilbert Harrison recorded it in 1959.<\/p>\n<p>Leiber and Stoller are among my all-time favorite singers and record producers, and I can recall most of the brilliant &#8220;playlets&#8221; they created for the Coasters word for word and note for note, but doubt I&#8217;ll ever post them, because there&#8217;s no way I could do them justice. We&#8217;ll see&#8230; I may come up with work-arounds for a couple, but so far the only samples of their repertoire I&#8217;ve posted have been variants of basic 12-bar blues: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/riot-number-nine\/\">Riot in Cell Block #9<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/framed\/\">Framed<\/a>,&#8221; which are\u00a0based on Muddy Waters&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hoochie-coochie-man\/\">Hoochie Coochie Man<\/a>&#8221; riff, and the sprightlier &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/run-red-run\/\">Run Red Run<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is an even more basic blues. Stoller later explained that his idea was to write something like &#8220;Going to Chicago,&#8221; which had been a defining hit for Jimmy Rushing with the Count Basie Orchestra, but\u00a0 where most blues songs are defined by the lyric and singers rework the phrasing and melody from verse to verse, he wanted to write a &#8220;melodic blues,&#8221; which would be recognizable even if it were just played as an instrumental.<\/p>\n<p>The result feels like a standard blues, but it&#8217;s internally cohesive in a way that sets it apart. The melody is simple but instantly recognizable, and almost everyone sings the four verses Leiber wrote to fit Stoller&#8217;s melody, no more, no less. (Little Richard was an exception, recording it as a straightforward blues shout, as were the Beatles, because they covered Richard&#8217;s version.)<\/p>\n<p>As with a lot of classic rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll songs, I don&#8217;t remember consciously learning this, but my version is faithful to Leiber and Stoller&#8217;s original. Though I first learned it from the Wilbert Harrison record, which had the tag line, &#8220;They&#8217;ve got some crazy little women there and I&#8217;m gonna get me one,&#8221; I switched over as soon as I heard the original, &#8220;They&#8217;ve got a crazy way of loving there and I&#8217;m gonna get me some.&#8221; It&#8217;s clearly better that way.<\/p>\n<p>Though I&#8217;ve known this forever, I never performed it because I just played it as a blues shuffle and since it had been done by hundreds (thousands?) of other people, I had nothing to add and avoided it in favor of less familiar\u00a0 shuffles. But when I began fooling around with it for this project, I found it felt most comfortable to sing in the key of A and\u00a0 gravitated to the Gary Davis\/Blind Boy Fuller diminished-chord-pull-off lick, and that got me to the D9 shape, which I think of as a Scrapper Blackwell thing (though I probably got it via Josh White), and to someone from the East Coast, Indianapolis (where Blackwell was from) is just down the road from Kansas City, so it all made sense.<\/p>\n<p>(I&#8217;ve spent enough time driving around that part of the country to know how far apart those cities are, but it&#8217;s all so flat&#8230; a friend of mine told a story about one of her bandmates failing to make a gig in Winnipeg because she started driving from a previous gig in Iowa and, &#8220;I kept driving and driving, but I wasn&#8217;t getting anywhere, so I stopped.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6270\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Wilbert-Harrison-e1787665707248.jpg?resize=221%2C268&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"221\" height=\"268\" \/>Stoller later said his favorite recording of this was by Joe Williams, who did a really nice version with a Basie-style big band, and I just heard another big band version that Leiber and Stoller produced on a terrific two-LP set by T-Bone Walker. Both are excellent, and in other news, I picked up a later LP by Wilbert Harrison, where he does a one-man band thing. Not what I expected and not earthshaking, but solid blues. There&#8217;s a lot of good stuff out there&#8230; and I&#8217;m gonna get me some.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Kansas City&#8221; was one of the first songs to be recorded from the dynamite rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. They met in Los Angeles while Jerry was still in high school and Mike just out, and started by writing blues. Their first hit was &#8220;Hard Times,&#8221; recorded by Charles &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Kansas City (K.C. Loving &#8211; Leiber &#038; Stoller)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Kansas City (K.C. Loving - Leiber &amp; Stoller) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A familiar &quot;melodic blues&quot; from the ace rock &#039;n&#039; roll songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, backed with some nice acoustic blues licks.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kansas City (K.C. Loving - Leiber &amp; Stoller) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A familiar &quot;melodic blues&quot; from the ace rock &#039;n&#039; roll songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, backed with some nice acoustic blues licks.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-12T13:30:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-12T18:12:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"305\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Kansas City (K.C. Loving &#8211; Leiber &#038; Stoller)\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-12T13:30:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-12T18:12:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":747,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2027\\\/08\\\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/\",\"name\":\"Kansas City (K.C. Loving - Leiber & Stoller) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2027\\\/08\\\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-12T13:30:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-12T18:12:17+00:00\",\"description\":\"A familiar \\\"melodic blues\\\" from the ace rock 'n' roll songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, backed with some nice acoustic blues licks.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2027\\\/08\\\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg?fit=305%2C370&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2027\\\/08\\\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg?fit=305%2C370&ssl=1\",\"width\":305,\"height\":370},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/kansas-city\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Kansas City (K.C. Loving &#8211; Leiber &#038; Stoller)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"description\":\"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\",\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"width\":70,\"height\":85,\"caption\":\"Elijah Wald\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Kansas City (K.C. Loving - Leiber & Stoller) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"A familiar \"melodic blues\" from the ace rock 'n' roll songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, backed with some nice acoustic blues licks.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Kansas City (K.C. Loving - Leiber & Stoller) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","og_description":"A familiar \"melodic blues\" from the ace rock 'n' roll songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, backed with some nice acoustic blues licks.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/","og_site_name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","article_published_time":"2026-09-12T13:30:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-09-12T18:12:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":305,"height":370,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Elijah Wald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ElijahWald","twitter_site":"@ElijahWald","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Elijah Wald","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/"},"author":{"name":"Elijah Wald","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"headline":"Kansas City (K.C. Loving &#8211; Leiber &#038; Stoller)","datePublished":"2026-09-12T13:30:48+00:00","dateModified":"2026-09-12T18:12:17+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/"},"wordCount":747,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg","inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/","name":"Kansas City (K.C. Loving - Leiber & Stoller) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg","datePublished":"2026-09-12T13:30:48+00:00","dateModified":"2026-09-12T18:12:17+00:00","description":"A familiar \"melodic blues\" from the ace rock 'n' roll songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, backed with some nice acoustic blues licks.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg?fit=305%2C370&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2027\/08\/Leiber-and-Stoller.jpg?fit=305%2C370&ssl=1","width":305,"height":370},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Kansas City (K.C. Loving &#8211; Leiber &#038; Stoller)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/","name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9","name":"Elijah Wald","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","width":70,"height":85,"caption":"Elijah Wald"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1"}}]}},"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2535,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/framed\/","url_meta":{"origin":6256,"position":0},"title":"Framed (Robins\/Leiber &#038; Stoller\/racism)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to cell phone videos and Black Lives Matter, it has become a lot harder for white Americans to ignore how badly black Americans are routinely treated by the US legal system... though that doesn't mean everybody now gets it, or wants to get it. One way people don't get\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Robins-for-framed-300x196.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1468,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/riot-number-nine\/","url_meta":{"origin":6256,"position":1},"title":"Riot in Cell Block Number Nine (The Coasters)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Though my record-buying at Dayton\u2019s focused on prewar blues, there were a handful of notable exceptions \u2013 most significantly, a trio of reissue albums on the Atlantic label featuring the Drifters, the Clovers, and \u2013 far and away most memorably \u2013 the Coasters. Aside from Chuck Berry and Ray Charles,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Coasters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Coasters-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2940,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/run-red-run\/","url_meta":{"origin":6256,"position":2},"title":"Run Red Run (The Coasters)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Among the fringe benefits of hanging out in Vancouver was a friend of Maggie's who collected old 45s and made me a tape of oddities and rarities, including LaVerne Baker's \"Saved,\" the Court Jesters' \"Roaches,\" and the Coasters doing \"Run Red Run\" and \"What About Us?\" Produced and supplied with\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/coasters-coast.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5202,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/under-the-boardwalk\/","url_meta":{"origin":6256,"position":3},"title":"Under the Boardwalk (The Drifters)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 25, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I always liked the Drifters, as who didn't? Like most vocal group fans, I particularly liked the original line-up featuring Clyde McPhatter, a defining lead vocalist of the early Rhythm and Blues era, and I've paid tribute already with a version of their early hit, \"Money Honey\" -- not that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Drifters-Boardwalk-e1715238537321.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1182,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kansas-city-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":6256,"position":4},"title":"Kansas City Blues (I&#8217;m Going to Move to Kansas City)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the defining blues hits of the late 1920s for Jim Jackson, and the Apollonian ideal of a Dave Van Ronk guitar accompaniment.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Van Ronk in the tradition","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Van-Ronk-in-the-tradition.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1499,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/bully-of-the-town\/","url_meta":{"origin":6256,"position":5},"title":"Bully of the Town (May Irwin and others)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The first huge hit of the ragtime song era, with all sorts of messy background, though I first heard it from the Holy Modal Rounders and didn't know that.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Bully-Song2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6256"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6322,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6256\/revisions\/6322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}