Leiber and Stoller found success as the writers of such crossover hit songs as "Hound Dog" (1952) and "Kansas City" (1952).

Later in the 1950s, particularly through their work with the Coasters, they created a string of ground-breaking hits—including "Young Blood" (1957), "Searchin'" (1957), and "Yakety Yak" (1958)—that used the humorous vernacular of teenagers sung in a style that was openly theatrical rather than personal.

In 1964, they launched Red Bird Records with George Goldner and, focusing on the "girl group" sound, released some of the notable songs of the Brill Building period.

[15] Presley's showstopping mock-burlesque version of "Hound Dog", playfully bumping and grinding on the Milton Berle Show, created such public outcry and controversy that on The Steve Allen Show they slowed down his act, with an amused Presley in a tuxedo and blue suede shoes singing his hit to a basset hound.

In 1955, Leiber and Stoller produced a recording of their song "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots" with a white vocal group, the Cheers.

The European royalties from another Cheers record, "Bazoom (I Need Your Lovin')", funded a 1956 trip to Europe for Stoller and his first wife, Meryl, on which they met Piaf.

Their return to New York was aboard the ill-fated SS Andrea Doria, which was rammed and sunk by the Swedish liner MS Stockholm.

They were not household names and did not appear as celebrity mystery guests (a regular feature of the show) but as ordinary people with an unusual “line” of work.

In the 1960s, Leiber and Stoller founded and briefly owned Red Bird Records, which issued the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack" and the Dixie Cups' "Chapel of Love".

Their last major hit production was "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel, taken from the band's 1972 eponymous debut album, which the duo produced.

In the late 1970s, A&M Records recruited Leiber and Stoller to write and produce an album for Elkie Brooks; Two Days Away (1977) proved a success in the UK and most of Europe.

[3] Their composition "Pearl's a Singer" (written with Ralph Dino & John Sembello) became a hit for Brooks,[3] and remains her signature tune.

In 1978, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris and her pianist-composer husband William Bolcom recorded an album, Other Songs by Leiber and Stoller, featuring a number of the songwriters' more unusual (and satiric) works, including "Let's Bring Back World War I", written specifically for (and dedicated to) Bolcom and Morris; and "Humphrey Bogart", a tongue-in-cheek song about obsession with the actor.

[5] Leiber and Stoller affected the course of modern popular music in 1957, when they wrote and produced the crossover double-sided hit by the Coasters, "Young Blood"/"Searchin'".

[29] They produced and co-wrote "There Goes My Baby", a hit for the Drifters in 1959,[30] which introduced the use of strings for saxophone-like riffs, tympani for the Brazilian baion rhythm they incorporated, and lavish production values into the established black R&B sound, laying the groundwork for the soul music that would follow.