Mike Stoller Explores New Album And Legacy

Songwriter Mike Stoller has inspired millions as co-author, with late songwriting partner Jerry Leiber, of some of the greatest songs of all time for some of the greatest artists like Elvis Presley and Ben E. King — “Stand By Me,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Hound Dog,” “On Broadway,” “Charlie Brown,” “I Keep Forgettin’.”

Now, at 90 years old, Stoller remains an inspiration for the way he keeps going strong as an artist. He is behind a just released album, Brendan McCreary Sings The Love Songs of Mike Stoller, featuring vocalist Brendan McCreary and pianist John Beasley. The three of them teamed up for a video, premiering here, talking about the album and the impact of Leiber Stoller songs.

In addition, when we jumped on the phone this past week, he had just returned to his L.A. home from New York, where he was work shopping a new musical, Beaches, he had written the music for. Yeah, at 90, Stoller is still having fun as an artist as we discussed.

Steve Baltin: It feels like the world is just getting worse, and it’s very hard to know how to handle that from the perspective of how do you go on about your daily business. You need to do so. But it’s also, we’re all in tune with what’s going on and it’s just very difficult to, I think, stay focused and not be discouraged.

Mike Stoller: Of course. And I was just in New York doing workshop with Iris Dart, who was writing the book and the lyrics, and invited me to write music for her show Beaches. And she has a son who was in Paris, an Israeli, and her grandson kept visiting her in New York. And I said to her, “Hey, how are we doing this? The world has gone mad and we’re writing a musical.” And she said, “Yeah, but we have to do that.” So, okay.

Baltin: But with everything you went through making music during the Civil Rights era, you know that art becomes a very necessary escape.

Stoller: Exactly. That’s what she was referring to and I understood, of course. But anyway, so what are we talking about today?

Baltin: You just made a video that we are premiering this week. It’s the video you made with Brendan and John. So tell me about the album and how you ended up working with the two of them.

Stoller: Well, it all started with a phone call, just a bit pre-pandemic from a fellow named Ward Roberts, who’s a relative of Cole Porter’s. And he had decided he wanted to do a documentary about Cole Porter. And he invited various songwriters, apparently to talk about their relation in any way possible, influence, , etcetera. And he called me and I’m a big fan of Cole Porter, most people are. And at one point he asked, he said, “You and Jerry wrote ‘Loving You’ as what you called your Irving Berlin song.” And he said, “Did you ever write anything in any way influenced by or in any way relevant to Cole Porter?” And I said, “Yeah, there is one, which we’d written quite some time ago, which was only available on a demo.” I told him it was called “That Old Tune Called Romance.” And then after we had that, I sent him a demo of it, and he got very excited. And he had a friend named Brendan McCreary, who he enlisted to sing it. And they got John Beasley, a great jazz pianist to arrange and play piano on it. And they made a wonderful demo. Well, a wonderful recording, I should say. And there was a video of that in and of itself. And then John Beasley and Brendan McCreary were as excited about that tune and that recording as I was, ’cause I love what they did. And they came over to my house and said, “Listen, we want to do an album.” And first I thought, “Hey, great idea. Maybe we could do like five Lieber Stoller songs and five Cole Porter songs.” And they said, “No, no, we just want to do your songs.” And so that was done and I’m really thrilled with that.

Baltin: How does it feel to have new music out?

Stoller: I’m really very excited about it. There’s a bunch of songs, a lot of them are actually Lieber Stoller songs. But then there’s one song that I wrote with Marilyn and Alan Bergman and one song that I wrote both music and lyrics. And there’s a song that Jerry and I wrote with two other guys, Ralph Palladino and John Sembello. And, I gotta tell you the truth, I really loved this album. And there are a couple of songs that I had initially told Brendan, “Brendan, you’re too young to sing ‘The Girls I Never Kissed,’ which was recorded previously by Frank Sinatra, and yet it’s a very, very effective recording and arrangement.

Baltin: When you go back and hear these songs, I imagine they bring up so many memories.

Stoller: Well, sure. Memories of, especially writing them and whatever might have influenced just the idea of writing and so on and so forth. “Style Is Coming Back In Style” was written, and it was recorded once before. It was written as part of a much larger, longer piece called Just Called Style. Opened this back in the ’70s and for a show that we were discussing with somebody that never got done, but of course there were a lot of songs for shows that never got done. It happens. And so that’s wild.

Baltin: Are there any plans with you and John and Brendan to do any sort of live shows of this record?

Stoller: I hope so. Of course, I’m not a performer on this. I wrote and/or co-wrote the songs, but John and Brendan, I’m sure would be delighted to do some live performance of this, and hopefully that will happen.

Baltin: It’s got to be really rewarding to be focusing on something that’s new.

Stoller: Well, it is, and I’m doing that right now, working on a show. But this album which came out of an interview with a relative of Cole Porter’s is, in a way it’s like a gift. We got to deal with songs that existed and some that had been recorded before and some that had not ever been recorded. And we got the opportunity to do them and with a wonderful singer who is not that well known, but he is certainly special. And was John Beasley, who I have been a fan of for some time, on his Thelonious Monk material, which he’s created “MONK’estra.” So I mean, it is a gift and I love this gift.

Baltin: And when does the show premiere?

Stoller: I think our first out of town performance, and from experience it’s very important to have an out of town performance ’cause you get to correct things as you go in seeing audience responses and your own responses to what you’ve done. Our first out of town performance will be in May of this coming year and in the theater in Calgary. And we just did a couple of readings in New York and we have fabulous performers. The readings were really terrific. And so we have the opportunity to fine-tune and change and adjust ideas for arrangements beyond what we had. But it’s a very exciting process.