He held a PhD in musicology[1] and was considered one of the so-called "new comedy" performers, a new generation of unabashed intellectuals that also included Mort Sahl, Nichols and May, and Lenny Bruce.
[2] In July 1959, The Limeliters appeared as a trio for the first time at the hungry i in San Francisco, with Gottlieb as "the comic-arranger-musicologist, Glenn the golden-voiced tenor and guitarist, and Alex the instrumental virtuoso" (to quote from one of their song collections, "Cheek In Our Tongue").
Gottlieb's trademark on stage was a burlesquing of the university pedant, the sort of teacher who knocks himself out over the jokes in Chaucer while his class has nothing on its collective mind earlier than last night's date.
Cary Ginell in All Music Guide, noted that "Gottlieb's role as master of ceremonies greatly enhanced the group's stage presence, peppering the act with scholarly witticisms, wry asides, and zany non-sequiturs.
Gottlieb's Morning Star Ranch attracted a shifting population of young people, later to be known as hippies, who were dissatisfied with the world they had inherited and were determined to create a better one.
[10] An article by Ralph Gleason quotes Gottlieb as saying that the hippies were "the first wave of an approaching ocean of technologically unemployable people created by snowballing cybernation in American industry.
"[12] But after a series of appeals, the 9th district court ruled that he could not because "if God was named owner on a quit claim deed, there would be no recourse for the collection of property taxes.
"[13] During this process, Gottlieb coined the acronym LATWIDNO (Land Access To Which Is Denied No One) which it has been suggested could be seen as "exposing a muddle of contradictions underlying American society and law...[specifically]...the absence of recourse guided by ethics within [the] current legal system.