Songwriter Mike Stoller was in a mid-Atlantic ship collision in the 1950s. He abandoned ship into a ‘broken life boat’, and was eventually picked up by a cargo boat

Stoller’s writing partner, Jerry Lieber, met him when he landed back in the US, and said that they had a hit with Hound Dog. Stoller said ‘With Big Mama Thornton’? No, said Lieber, it’s some white kid

Stoller tells the story better than I do - podcasts.apple.com/qa/podcas…

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