The Kennedy Center Honors: Who's Next?

I've finally gotten past the holiday rush, gone to CES, started this website, worked on my article about the show, and have finally begun to decompress  Now, I can start dealing with things from the To Do list.  And one of those has been on my To Do list for years, and I keep "doing" it year after year.  One year, it'll kick in.

This year's Kennedy Center Honors for performing arts have now officially passed.

And that officially begs the question - who to honor next?

It's all utterly subjective, of course. But it's fair to say that what makes the Kennedy Center Honors special is when they're able to go far beyond what the Oscars, Emmys or Grammys are about, giving awards, specifically lifetime achievement awards to those who have honored their specific craft.

Instead, when at its best, the Kennedy Center Honors applies a different standard. After all, it's recognition from the nation itself. Not just for being wondrously talented and producing work the public loves, but for doing something more. Not just being A Star. But for being iconic in American culture. The stuff of legends. Transforming the art form itself to become ingrained in the national consciousness.

The Kennedy Center Honors don't always hit those heights, but whenever they do it's why some honorees haven't been well-known to the general public - or known at all. What tiny percent of the public ever heard of Maria Tallchief, Alexander Schneider or Katherine Dunham?

Yet these are all artists who transcended their time and general popularity, and deeply enriched American culture, beyond "just" entertaining it.

Such honorees like Fred Astaire, Count Basie, Arthur Miller, Richard Rodgers, George Ballanchine and Billy Wilder.

At its heart, the Kennedy Center Honors shouldn't be just about talent, popularity and whose name can bring in a big TV audience ...but rather about those special few who made our cultural life better, who influenced their craft in ways it hadn't gone before, even if we didn't know it, even if we didn't know them.

Which brings us again to that question, who to honor next?

Any list would have names swirling around like a cyclone, and taming it is a subjective near-impossibility.

But two names leap out to me.

Indeed, they've been leaping out for the past decade, and it remains bewildering that they've not yet been honored. Perhaps that will change soon.

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Right now, I can hear most people uttering a confused, "Who???" But in fairness, a loud contingent is smiling, "Oh!! Yeahhhhhh..."

Leiber and Stoller were a songwriting team so legendary that they're the soundtrack of generations. It doesn't matter if you haven't heard of them. You've heard of their music. Endlessly, even if your ears go back only a decade or two.
But even if you don't know their music, the influence from it has impacted American cultural life. Leiber and Stoller took rhythm & blues, mixed it with rock 'n roll, and merged the sounds of black and white music into something that erupted onto America.

Rather than describe who they are, though - far better to list just a small jukebox of songs they wrote. You'll understand.

Stand By Me
Spanish Harlem
On Broadway
Love Potion #9
Hound Dog
Jailhouse Rock
Ruby Baby
Kansas City
Poison Ivy
I'm a Woman (W-O-M-A-N)
Is That All There Is?
There Goes My Baby
Yakety Yak
Charlie Brown
Fools Fall in Love
Searchin'
D.W. Washburn
I (Who Have Nothing)

That's just a handful. There are more. Hundreds.

And yet the thing about Leiber & Stoller is that their worth isn't just about culture-changing songwriting alone, but their larger influence on the popular culture.

The two met at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles in 1950 - and had their first single that same year.

Eventually they moved to NY and the famed Brill Building, the heart of American popular music. But the two didn't just write the songs: they arranged them, picked the musicians and produced the records. Soon, they did the unprecedented: formed their own label, Red Bird in 1964, and their influence grew even further. The company was home for many of the most popular girl groups of the era, like the Shangri-La's ("Leader of the Pack") and Dixie Cups ("Chapel of Love"). Leiber and Stoller hired other songwriters, notably Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who themselves added to the Great American Songbook, with classics like "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Be My Baby" and "Doo Wah Diddy". They hired a young Phil Spector, who went on to become one the most famous record producers in recording history.

Leiber (lyrics, and on the left in the photo above) and Stoller (the music) wrote well-over 20 songs for Elvis Presley, and had hits with artists ranging from the Coasters to Peggy Lee and blues legends Big Mama Thornton and Jimmy Witherspoon.

Their work spanned styles, emotions and generations, lasting over 50 years to the present day in new recordings, movies and commercials. In 1987, they were elected to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, and had a Broadway show "Smokey Joe's Café" of their music.  Two years ago, when American Idol was down to the final four contestants, the show's producers made it "Leiber and Stoller" night, and the singers all performed numbers by the team.

Jerry Leiber passed away a little over a year ago.  Mike Stoller is still around.  And still working -- in 2011, he wrote the music to the Broadway musical, The People in the Picture.  Last year, he wrote the words and music to the song "Charlotte," to honor the city of the Democratic National Convention.

It's about time they received the Kennedy Center Honor.