Kansas City (Leiber and Stoller song)
December 29, 1952
Kansas City, also KC Loving is a blues song from 1952, written by Jerry Leiber and the Mike Stoller for Little Willie Littlefield and later became a standard of rhythm and blues and rock ' n ' roll. The song reached the charts in versions by Wilbert Harrison, Rocky Olson, Hank Ballard and Little Richard until the year 1959.
Genesis
A distant relative of the song is Jim Jackson Jim Jackson's Kansas City Blues, added on October 10, 1927 in Chicago. His lyrical content was the idea of default for subsequent Leiber / Stoller composition. Other cover versions already followed on 17 December 1927 by Lonnie Johnson, on 21 January 1928 by Willie Jackson, William Harris on October 9, 1928, Blind Jesse Harris Kansas City in a recording of the Library Of Congress on 25 July 1937. All versions missed the charts. Thus, the insignificant Kansas City was brought to the musical center, which had been reinforced a little later by the Kansas City jazz.
The young songwriter duo Leiber / Stoller met in 1952 in New York producers Ralph Bass, who also headed the newly founded label Federal Records, a subsidiary label of King Records. To label included, inter alia, Little Esther, Johnny Otis and since February 1952 Little Willie Littlefield. For the latter, Leiber / Stoller received the order to bring some compositions to recordings.
Stoller developed at the piano on the concept of a 12 - bar blues melody, but at first could not decide whether to write the song in the melodic or traditional blues itself. He opted for the melodic version, which paved the way for later Rock & Roll and Pop versions. Bodies spontaneously sang a text on the Kansas City (Missouri ), which tells about a man who is drawn over a woman to Kansas City, even if he has to go on foot. Citations are the corner 12th Street / Vine Street in the former Jazz District, one of the centers of the early jazz of Charlie Parker. Leiber's idea was, Littlefield offer a traditional blues with this geographically - musical connotation. Stoller, however, wanted a more unusual melodies with high recognition value in purely instrumental presentation. In the following discussion the congenial partners about authenticity of Blue tracks, the composer sat by his extravagant and lilting melody.
Recording and publication
Leiber and Stoller met with Littlefield in the House of Maxwell Davis, the former band leader at Federal Records to present him with the new piece. The host made on 15th August 1952 an arrangement and himself played the tenor saxophone. These came with Jewell Grant on baritone saxophone, Herman Mitchell on guitar, Ralph Hamilton on bass and Jesse Sailes on drums renowned studio musician. The label co-owner Ralph Bass changed the title for publication in KC Loving, which sounded in his opinion, more appealing than Kansas City. Mike Leadbitter was 1973 opinion, Little Willie Littlefield was the author of the play and had sold the song credits in a moment of weakness to Leiber and Stoller.
The first recording date for Littlefield August 18, 1952 was scheduled in Los Angeles. Based on the 12-bar Blue structure Littlefield was accompanied by Maxwell Davis and the other studio musicians. In the same session Littlefield still took the Leiber / Stoller compositions Pleading At Midnight on ( B-side of KC Loving ) and Striking On You Baby / Blood is Redder Than Wine. Following the publication on 29 December 1952 ( Federal # 12110 ) of the title as the previous Littlefield plates was not perceived moderate chart.
Million Sellers
Bobby Robinson produced with Wilbert Harrison arranged in the rockabilly style Kansas City / Listen, My Darling ( Fury # 1023) was added to the New York Bell Sound Studios for $ 40 studio costs. The recording session with Harrison was held on 25 February 1959, he was accompanied by guitarist " Wild" Jimmy Spruill with a barbed - sharp guitar solo and King Curtis (tenor saxophone), Harrison plays piano. In less than half an hour the song towards the end of the recording session was created. Following the publication on 23 March 1959, the single reached on 13 April 1959 in the Pophitparade where they from 18 May 1959, two weeks rank one, even seven weeks in the Rhythm & Blues charts, finished. She was able to prevail against four simultaneously published versions of Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, a re-release of Littlefield's original, Rocky Olson and Ronald & The Rebels. Shortly after the release of the single Chess Records released a similar version with Rocky Olson, trying to make it through pressure on local disc jockeys of the Midwest Fury of the plate competition. Olson's Kansas City but only reached the sixtieth place in the charts. Until the end of 1959 version were sold over three million copies of Harrison. Harrison remained mainly because this one hits in memory. Bobby Robinson, owner of the independent labels Fury Records, suggested some features of the distribution businesses with bigger labels.
Litigation
After Harrison had market version so successful, he was sued by Savoy Records on $ 1 million damages for breach of contract. Herman Lubinsky, owner of Savoy Records, claimed that his former contract artist Harrison would continue with him under contract and had wrongly taken for Fury. The court ruled in 1959 first that Wilbert Harrison in Fury Records for the time being allowed to publish any plates until the end of the dispute. Therefore, there was at Fury Records no real follow-up single, as a substitute offered the small label Glades a single of which, however, was unsuccessful.
In 1961, Savoy Records got right, because with Harrison a legal record contract would have existed. Fury Records was allowed to let the song though record, but not to publish on their own label. Therefore, Herman Lubinsky was legally awarded compensation of $ 13,500 in 1961, Fury allowed to publish Littlefield plates again immediately. But Harrison had long been missing out on its success.
Statistics, cover versions and Awards
Kansas City, whose copyright registered titles continue to KC Loving is, received a BMI Award. Alone under the title Kansas City lists BMI on a total of 184 different compositions.
More competition was created by the rock-' n'- roll singer Little Richard, who had taken the title during its first session for Specialty Records on September 14, 1955, the studio band under the direction of Bumps Blackwell in multiple takes. On board emerged from this session in a timely manner only Little Richard's breakthrough hit Tutti Frutti. Only when Richard had interrupted his musical career in 1957, Specialty published in 1959 so far held back material in the form of the album The Fabulous Little Richard. Kansas City is thereby coupled as a medley with Richards own composition Hey- Hey- Hey- Hey from 1958. The medley reached in June 1959 in the UK charts and number 26 was used by the Beatles at their reception on 18 October 1964 as a template for the cover version, which appeared on the album Beatles for Sale. However, your version was not aware of the copyright for the part composed by Richard Hey- Hey- Hey- Hey. As the following publication of the Beatles Discography All Together Now September 1976 the managing copyright Musikverlag Venice Music noticed, they agreed on an estimated $ 30,000 pay restitution to Little Richard. Due to his co-authorship of the medley Little Richard thus benefited financially from the sale later success of British stars.
Trini Lopez ranked 23rd in the American pop charts on Reprise Records in November 1963. In March 1967 James Brown's version was followed by King Records with a 55th place in the pop charts and a 23rd place in the R & B charts.
In Germany, Trini Lopez, Brenda Lee and the Beatles were able to place in the charts with Kansas City. The version of the Beatles was not released in the UK and the U.S. as a single, while in Germany the licensee Odeon. Another composition, however, under the same title Kansas City, has become known in Germany by the Les Humphries Singers. She reached in January 1974 in Germany (Rank 2), Austria (Rank 15) and Switzerland ( Rank 1) high chart positions.
The Coverinfo.de database lists 57 cover versions of the title, the BMI leads 21 performers. Mike Stoller's son Peter lists the official website of songwriter 352 known versions of the piece. Kansas City is among the vielgecoverten pop music history.
On 25 August 2005, the song by the City Council as the official song of Kansas City (Missouri ) has been selected. Wilbert Harrison's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001.