The cowriter (with Mike Stoller) of countless hits for Elvis, Peggy Lee, Ben E. King, Shirley Bassey, Big Mama Thornton, Bill Haley, the Drifters, the Coasters etc. died 34 years to the week after Presley’s own death.

While Leiber and Stoller hadn’t many new hits after their ’50s-’60s heyday, their older songs remained alive in the oldies canon, as well as in the general culture.

Alice Walker wrote an oft-reprinted 1983 essay lauding Thornton’s version of “Hound Dog” as superior to Presley’s (an opinion with which Leiber agreed).

Twenty years ago, the Broadway revue Smokey Joe’s Cafe mixed slick-sanitized renditions of 40 Leiber/Stoller oldies within a fab-’50s nostalgia theme.

In the early 2000s, Leiber was an outspoken co-plaintiff in the record industry’s lawsuits to shut down online file sharing.

And, of course, there was the Leiber/Stoller tribute episode of American Idol this past May with guest star Lady Gaga.