Between the time that Elvis danced in his "Blue Suede Shoes" and the Beetles wanted to "Hold Your Hand," producers were at the for front of the music industry. Many of the producer, song writers of the time were more valuable than the artists themselves. They were the stars and the artists were very easily interchangeable. .
The two producers leading the era were Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Lieber and Stoller started as producers when they were nineteen years old in Los Angeles, CA. They were two young liberal white kids with love for black music. They wrote "Hound Dog," with Big Momma Thorton, which became their first number one hit. But, it was not Big Momma who was the successful artist, it was super star Elvis Presley. After the success of "Hound Dog," Lieber and Stoller continued their relationship with Elvis by collaborating with him on several other projects.
Elvis was not the artist who was lucky enough to work with the two prodigy producers. They worked with Car Gardner and The Coasters. Leiber and Stoller wrote songs for The Coaster that combined theatrical concepts with a black sound. "Young Blood" became a smash hit for The Coasters and became a hit with white audiences. The Drifters were Leiber and Stoller's next successful collaboration. Leiber and Stoller, with the musical talent of The Drifters, created a new style of rhythm and blues combined with rock and roll and thrust it into the music mainstream. The Drifters hit's included, "There Goes My Baby" and "You Can Dance." With the success of the unthreatening Coasters and Drifters, came a new type of artist, teen idols. The first teen idol success to come from Leiber and Stoller was Ben E. King, who was the singer for The Drifters.
Though men singing groups were having great success, there was a musical void that needed to be filled. That void was girl groups. The for front of the girl group invasion were the Charelles, who were created by Goffan and King, a husband and wife song writing, producing team.
