Louis Gottlieb

Louis Gottlieb (October 10, 1923 – July 11, 1996) credited as Lou Gottlieb, was bassist and comic spokesman for music trio The Limeliters. He held a Ph.D in musicology 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.

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. "Many of the things I have been enthusiastic about," said Gottlieb, "mean absolutely nothing to most people."

Gottlieb grew up in La Crescenta, California, completed his B.A. at UCLA, performed as jazz pianist, then sang with the Gateway Singers, whom he left to take a Ph.D. in music at U.C. Berkeley in 1958.

Gottlieb had completed his doctoral thesis on 15th century cyclic masses when he heard Alex Hassilev and Glenn Yarbrough sing together at Hollywood's Cosmo Alley nightclub. He joined the group, which they named The Limeliters after the Limelite Club in Aspen, Colorado.

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"). San Francisco music critic John Wasserman said the Limeliters "attained a stature equalled perhaps only by the Kingston Trio and the Weavers." The group's biggest hit was "A Dollar Down" in 1961, but it was well known for its 15 albums and its concerts during the 1960s. The group disbanded after a near-fatal plane crash near the Provo airport in December 1962.

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