Kansas City (song)
| Kansas City | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Little Willie Littlefield | |
| publication | December 29, 1952 |
| length | 2:39 |
| Genre (s) | blues |
| text | Jerry Leiber |
| music | Mike Stoller |
| Publisher (s) | Armo Music Sony / Atv Songs LLC |
| Cover versions | |
| 1959 | Wilbert Harrison |
| 1959 | Rocky Olson |
| 1959 | Hank Ballard |
| 1959 | Little Richard |
| 1964 | Trini Lopez |
| 1964 | Brenda Lee |
| 1964 | Fats dominoes |
| 1964 | The Beatles |
| 1967 | James Brown |
Kansas City , also known as KC Loving, is a 1952 blues title written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for Little Willie Littlefield and later became a standard for rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll . The song didn't hit the charts until 1959 in versions of Wilbert Harrison , Rocky Olson , Hank Ballard, and Little Richard .
History of origin
A distant relative of the song is Jim Jackson's Jim Jackson's Kansas City Blues , recorded October 10, 1927 in Chicago. Its textual content was the template for the later Leiber / Stoller composition. Further cover versions followed on December 17, 1927 by Lonnie Johnson , on January 21, 1928 by Willie Jackson, William Harris on October 9, 1928 and Blind Jesse Harris as Kansas City in a recording of the Library Of Congress on July 25, 1937. All Versions missed the hit parades. This brought Kansas City ( Missouri ) into the musical focus, which was reinforced a little later by Kansas City jazz .
The young songwriting duo Leiber / Stoller met the producer Ralph Bass in New York in 1952 , who at the same time ran the newly founded label Federal Records , a subsidiary of King Records . The label included Little Esther , Johnny Otis and, since February 1952, Little Willie Littlefield. For the latter, Leiber / Stoller received the order to bring some compositions with them to recordings.
Stoller developed a melody on the piano based on the concept of a 12-bar blues , but could not initially decide whether he should write the song in melodic or traditional blues. He decided on the melodic version, which paved the way for later rock 'n' roll and pop versions. Leiber spontaneously sang a text on the city of Kansas City that tells of a man who moves to Kansas City because of a woman, even if he has to walk there. It is quoted at the corner of 12th Street and Vine Street in the former jazz district, one of the centers of Charlie Parker's early jazz . Leiber's idea was also to offer Littlefield a traditional blues with this geographical-musical connotation. Stoller, on the other hand, wanted a more unusual melody with a high recognition value even with purely instrumental performance. In the subsequent dispute between the congenial partners about the authenticity of blue titles, the composer prevailed with his extravagant and lively melody.
Recording and publication
Leiber and Stoller met up with Littlefield in the house of Maxwell Davis , the band leader at the time at Federal Records , to present him the new piece. The host arranged an arrangement on August 15, 1952 and played the tenor saxophone himself. In addition, there were renowned studio musicians with Jewell Grant on baritone saxophone, Herman Mitchell on guitar, Ralph Hamilton on bass and Jesse Sailes on drums. Label co-owner Ralph Bass changed the title to KC Loving for the release , which he thought sounded more appealing than Kansas City . Mike Leadbitter believed in 1973 that Little Willie Littlefield was the author of the piece and had sold the song credits to Leiber and Stoller in a moment of weakness.
The first recording date for Littlefield was August 18, 1952 in Los Angeles. Based on the twelve-measure blues structure, Littlefield was accompanied by Maxwell Davis and the other studio musicians. In the same session Littlefield recorded the Leiber / Stoller compositions Pleading At Midnight ( B-side by KC Loving ) and Striking on You Baby / Blood is Redder Than Wine . After publication on December 29, 1952 (Federal # 12110), the title, like the previous Littlefield records, was not perceived by the chart.
Million seller
Bobby Robinson produced with Wilbert Harrison in the Rockabilly arranged style Kansas City / lists, My Darling (Fury # 1023) was added to the New York Bell Sound Recording Studios for 40 US dollars studio costs. The recording session with Harrison took place on February 25, 1959, he was accompanied by the guitarist "Wild" Jimmy Spruill with a barbed-wire-sharp guitar solo and King Curtis (tenor saxophone), Harrison plays the piano. The song was written in less than half an hour towards the end of the recording session. After its release on March 23, 1959, the single reached the pop hit parade on April 13, 1959, where it was number one for two weeks and even seven weeks in the rhythm and blues charts from May 18, 1959. She was able to prevail against four versions of Hank Ballard & the Midnighters , a re-release of Littlefield's Original, Rocky Olson and Ronald & The Rebels , which appeared at the same time . Shortly after the single came out, Chess Records released a similar version starring Rocky Olson and tried to compete with the Fury record by putting pressure on local disc jockeys in the Midwest. But Olson's Kansas City only reached the sixtieth place on the charts. By late 1959, Harrison's version had sold over three million copies. Harrison was mostly remembered for this one hit. Bobby Robinson, the owner of the independent label Fury Records , turned down some offers from distribution deals with larger labels.
Litigation
After Harrison's version was so successfully marketed, Savoy Records sued him for $ 1 million in damages for breach of contract. Herman Lubinsky , owner of Savoy Records , claimed that his former contract artist Harrison was still under contract with him and had illegally recorded for Fury. In 1959, the court ruled that Wilbert Harrison was initially not allowed to publish records at Fury Records until the dispute was over. Therefore there was no real follow-up single at Fury Records , as a replacement the small label Glades offered a single, which was unsuccessful.
In 1961, Savoy Records got it right because Harrison had a legal record deal. Fury Records was allowed to record the song, but not release it on their own label. As a result, Herman Lubinsky was awarded $ 13,500 in damages in 1961, and Fury was immediately allowed to release Littlefield records again. But Harrison had long since missed the connection to his success.
Statistics, covers and awards
Kansas City , whose copyrighted title is still KC Loving , received a BMI award. BMI lists a total of 184 different compositions under the title Kansas City alone .
Further competition arose from rock 'n' roll singer Little Richard, who had recorded the title in several takes with the studio band under the direction of Bumps Blackwell in his first session for Specialty Records on September 14, 1955 . Only Little Richard's breakthrough hit Tutti Frutti appeared on record from this session . It was only when Richard had interrupted his musical career in 1957 that Specialty released previously withheld material in the form of the album The Fabulous Little Richard in 1959 . The published version of Richards Kansas City contained a verse that was expanded to Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey in May 1956 . In June 1959, Little Richard's version reached number 26 in the British charts and served the Beatles when it was recorded on October 18, 1964 as a template for their cover, which appeared on the album Beatles for Sale . However, their version did not take into account the copyrights for the part Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey composed by Richard . After the publication of the Beatles discography All Together Now in September 1976, the copyright management music publisher Venice Music noticed, they agreed to pay an estimated $ 30,000 in damages to Little Richard. Due to his co-authorship, Little Richard subsequently benefited financially from the sales success of the British stars. Since then, in the track lists Beatles releases of the title as a medley from Kansas City and Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey referred.
Trini Lopez reached 23rd place on the American pop charts on Reprise Records in November 1963. In March 1967, James Brown's version followed on King Records with a 55th place on the pop charts and a 23rd place on the R&B charts.
In Germany, Trini Lopez, Brenda Lee and the Beatles were able to place themselves in the charts with Kansas City . The version of the Beatles was not released as a single in Great Britain and the USA, but in Germany with the licensee Odeon . Another composition, but under the same title Kansas City , is known in Germany by the Les Humphries Singers . In January 1974 it reached high chart positions in Germany (rank 2), Austria (rank 15) and Switzerland (rank 1).
The Coverinfo.de database lists 57 cover versions of the title, the BMI lists 21 artists. Mike Stoller's son Peter lists 352 known versions of the piece on the official homepage of the songwriters. Kansas City is one of the most widely covered pop songs in music history.
Wilbert Harrison's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001.
On August 25, 2005, the song was voted the official song of Kansas City, Missouri by the city council.
The Rolling Stones , who had the song in their early days, played it in their 2015 concert in Kansas City (Missouri).
| year | Interpreter | annotation | US pop | US R&B | GB | D. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | Little Willie Littlefield | as KC Loving | - | - | - | - |
| 1959 | Wilbert Harrison | 1 | 1 | - | - | |
| 1959 | Rocky Olson | 60 | - | - | - | |
| 1959 | Hank Ballard | with the Midnighters | 72 | 16 | - | - |
| 1959 | Little Richard | - | 95 | 26th | - | |
| 1963 | Trini Lopez | 23 | - | 35 | 39 | |
| 1964 | Brenda Lee | - | - | - | 39 | |
| 1965 | The Beatles | also medley: a) Kansas City, b) Hey Hey Hey Hey | - | - | - | 18th |
| 1967 | James Brown | 55 | 23 | - | - |
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gérard Herzhaft / Paul Harris / Jerry Haussler / Anton J. Mikofsky, Encyclopedia of the Blues , 1997, p. 272
- ↑ here the singer Jim Jackson describes a woman who has moved to Kansas City and he moves after her
- ↑ a b Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, David Ritz: Hound Dog. The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography . Simon & Schuster, New York 2009, ISBN 978-1-4165-5938-2 , Absolute Harmony, pp. 57-60 (American English).
- ↑ a b Mike A Leadbitter: Little Willie Littlefield . New York 1973 (American English, liner notes on Little Willie Littlefield: KC Loving LP KC101).
- ↑ a b c John Broven: Record Makers and Breakers. Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers . University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago 2010, ISBN 978-0-252-03290-5 , 18 - Harlem Hotshots and the Black Experience, pp. 341-357 (American English).
- ↑ BMI entry for Kansas City ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Charles Bronson, The Billboard Book of Number One Hits , 1985, p. 52
- ↑ John Garodkin: Little Richard Special . 2nd Edition. Mjoelner Edition, Praestoe 1984, ISBN 87-87721-14-7 , pp. 23-66, 220 .
- ↑ Trini Lopez. Billboard singles. Allmusic, accessed July 31, 2010 .
- ↑ James Brown. Billboard singles. Allmusic, accessed July 31, 2010 .
- ↑ Cover info. Retrieved July 29, 2010 .
- ^ KC Loving. (No longer available online.) BMI, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 29, 2010 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Peter Stoller: The Nearly Complete Leiber & Stoller Discography. In: Official homepage of Leiber & Stoller. Retrieved August 1, 2010 .
- ↑ Setlist of the Rolling Stones concert in Kansas City, June 27, 2015 on setlist.fm, accessed September 19, 2016
