The Shangri-Las

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The Shangri-Las

Background information
Origin New York
Genre(s) Pop
Years active 1963 to 1968
Label(s) Red Bird Records
Associated
acts		 Mary Weiss

The Shangri-Las were an American pop music girl group of the 1960s.

Between 1964 and 1966 they charted with a string of often heartbreaking teen melodramas, and remain best known for "Leader of the Pack" and "Remember (Walking in the Sand)".

Contents

[edit] Career

The group was formed at Andrew Jackson High School in Queens, New York in 1963. They consisted of two sets of sisters: Mary Weiss (lead singer) (born 1948) and Elizabeth Weiss (usually known professionally as Betty Weiss) (born 1946), and identical twins Marguerite "Marge" and Mary Ann Ganser (born 1947). More often than not the girls appeared as a trio, despite there being four singers on most recordings. Throughout the period of their popularity, Betty Weiss joined the group for some but not all public appearances.

They began playing school shows, talent shows and teen hops, coming to the attention of Artie Ripp, who arranged the group's first record deal. Their first recording in December 1963 was "Simon Says", later issued on the Smash label, on which Betty Weiss sang lead.

In April 1964, when the girls were still minors, their parents signed for them with Red Bird Records; Mary was 15, Betty was 17, and the Ganser twins were 16. Having been hired by record producer George "Shadow" Morton, they had their first success with the summer hit, "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" (U.S. #5, UK #14). Their recordings for Morton featured lavish production with heavy orchestration and sound effects, and their next and biggest hit, the renowned 'death disc', "Leader of the Pack" (U.S. #1, UK #11), climaxes with the sounds of roaring motorcycles and breaking glass. UK re-issues of the single peaked at #3 in 1972 and at #7 in 1976. The song epitomised the "death disc"; other examples of the era including Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her", Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve", and Twinkle's "Terry".

The Shangri-Las continued to chart with a run of fairly successful U.S. hit records, specialising in adolescent themes such as alienation, loneliness, abandonment and death. Singles include "Give Him a Great Big Kiss", "Out in the Streets", "Give Us Your Blessings", the top ten hit "I Can Never Go Home Anymore", "Long Live Our Love", "He Cried" and the spoken-word cult favourite "Past, Present and Future", featuring music from Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata". The group are generally recognised as distinctive purveyors of emotionally convincing melodrama. Among their titles that occasionally appear in music critics' all-time-favourites lists is the tragic ten-hanky drama "I Can Never Go Home Anymore", which recounts the story of a girl who leaves home for the love of a boy; her pride keeps her from returning to her mother who "grew so lonely in the end, the angels picked her for their friend".

Noteworthy B-sides include "The Train from Kansas City", "Dressed in Black", "Paradise" and "I'll Never Learn".

The group toured and appeared on several major TV shows, but in 1966 two of the Shangri-Las' three releases on Red Bird failed to crack the top 50. That same year the band left Red Bird and Morton after the label folded. At the beginning of 1967, Marge Ganser decided to leave the group. Despite signing to Mercury Records that year, the group had no further hits. In 1968, they disbanded.

Their tough street-wise image contrasted with many other "girl groups" of the time, and they were cited as an influence by later bands and artistes, particularly 70s punk rock-era acts such as the New York Dolls and Blondie, who twice covered "Out in the Streets".

Lead singer Mary Weiss later married and worked as an interior designer and furniture store manager [1][2]. Betty Weiss also married. Mary Ann Ganser died in 1971; accounts vary as to the cause, with some references to a drug overdose [3] or seizure [4], although Mary Weiss and others [5] state that she succumbed to encephalitis brought on by a mosquito bite. Marge Ganser succumbed to breast cancer on July 28, 1996 at the age of forty-eight.

The original group reunited for a one-off performance at CBGBs in 1977, and performed for the last time at a reunion show hosted by Cousin Brucie (Bruce Morrow) in East Rutherford, New Jersey on June 3, 1989. Since the 1980s the group has had to deal with a trio calling themselves the Shangri Las, who have nothing to do with the original group. The tribute act was put together by Dick Fox, who claimed to have bought the rights to the group's name. A 1989 news report on the dispute, including interviews with Mary and Betty Weiss and Marge Ganser, is at this site.

In March 2007 Norton Records released a new solo album by Mary Weiss, Dangerous Game.

[edit] Trivia

  • The memorable opening line from "Give Him A Great Big Kiss" - "When I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love, L-U-V" - was used again by the New York Dolls on their 1973 recording "Looking For A Kiss". The Shangri-Las song also contains the much-quoted lines "Well I hear he's bad." "Hmm, he's good-bad, but he's not evil."
  • The opening line from "Leader of the Pack" - "Is she really going out with him ?" - was recycled both as the opening line of 1976's "New Rose" by the Damned - the first British punk rock single; and as the title of the 1979 hit song by Joe Jackson.
  • The Shangri-Las' 1966 spoken-word song "Past, Present and Future" — its music bearing a striking resemblance to Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata — was covered in 2004 by ex ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog on her album, My Colouring Book.
  • Billy Joel, an unknown working as a session musician at the time, played on the original demo recording of "Remember (Walking In The Sand)" [6], and has also been reported as playing piano on the original recording of "Leader of the Pack."[citation needed]


[edit] Discography

[edit] Studio albums

  • 1964: Leader of the Pack (U.S. #109)
  • 1965: Shangri-Las-65!

[edit] Compilation albums

  • 1966: Golden Hits of the Shangri-Las
  • 1975: The Shangri-Las Sing
  • 1994: Myrmidons of Melodrama
  • 1996: The Best of the Shangri-Las

[edit] Singles

  • 1963: "Simon Says"/"Simon Speaks"
  • 1964: "Wishing Well"/"Hate To Say I Told You So"
  • 1964: "Remember (Walking in the Sand)"/"It's Easier To Cry" (U.S. #5, UK #14)
  • 1964: "Leader of the Pack"/"What Is Love?" (U.S. #1, UK #11 (1965), UK #3 (1972))
  • 1965: "Give Him a Great Big Kiss"/"Twist And Shout" (U.S. #18)
  • 1965: "Maybe"/"Shout" (U.S. #91)
  • 1965: "Out in the Streets"/"The Boy" (U.S. #53)
  • 1965: "Give Us Your Blessings"/"Heaven Only Knows" (U.S. #29)
  • 1965: "Right Now and Not Later"/"The Train From Kansas City" (U.S. #99)
  • 1965: "I Can Never Go Home Anymore"/"Bull Dog" (U.S. #6)
  • 1966: "Long Live Our Love"/"Sophisticated Boom Boom" (U.S. #33)
  • 1966: "He Cried"/"Dressed In Black" (U.S. #65)
  • 1966: "Past, Present and Future"/"Paradise" (U.S. #59)
  • 1967: "The Sweet Sounds of Summer"/"I'll Never Learn" (U.S. #123)
  • 1967: "Take the Time"/"Footsteps On The Roof"

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Listening

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