Celebrity Jukebox #121: Pluto, Marlena & Mary

Another three names from my record collection heading for that great concert in the sky, starting with the wonderfully monikered Pluto Shervington, real name Leighton. Best known for his unappetising recipe for Ram Goat Liver and its follow-up, a Top Ten hit in 1976 called Ram in which a Rastafarian doing his weekly shop tries to buy cheap pork (forbidden by his religion) in order to have enough money left over to spend on weed. They don't write 'em like that anymore...

From the same era, we also say goodbye to soul / blues / jazz singer Marlena Shaw, a lady who expertly balanced a feminist stance (see her album Who Is This Bitch, Anyway?) with provocative covers like the one above. That aside, it's the music she'll be remembered for, including the theme tune to the controversial movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar, the wonderful Yu-Ma / Go Away Little Boy and a classy version of Ashford & Simpson's California Soul...

And finally, it's with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to the lead singer of the Shangri-Las, Mary Weiss. Although she mostly gave up music in the late 60s to become an interior designer, she made a triumphant return 40 years later with an acclaimed solo record...

Mary Weiss - Stop And Think It Over

However, her greatest contribution to popular culture came with the Shangri-Las, a band who took teenage melodrama to another level, providing a key influence to the next generation of stars and songwriters, including the Ramones, Blondie, the Jesus & Mary Chain and Jim Steinman.

When I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love, L-U-V

That's Mary with the opening line to a classic Shangri-Las song from 1965...

The Shangri-Las - Give Him A Great Big Kiss

It's also the opening line to this, from 1973...

The New York Dolls - Looking For A Kiss

And this, from 1990...

Soho - Nuthin' On My Mind

And this, from 1991...

The Nation Of Ulysses - Today I Met The Girl I'm Going To Marry

Here are a couple of nice lyrical tributes...

Voices from nowhere and voices from the larger town

Filled our head full of dreams and turned our world upside down

And there was Frankie Lymon, Bobby Fuller, Mitch Ryder

(They were rocking)

Jackie Wilson, Shangri-las, Young Rascals

(They were rocking)

John Mellencamp - ROCK In The USA

And there's only one thing I like more than a stereotypically subservient female automaton

And that's a stereotypically subservient female automaton that's unbelievably crap at its job

Cause when you're asked to play Girl Band

(I love Girl Band)

You play The Shangri-Las

(I also like The Shangri-Las)

The Cool Geenhouse - Alexa!

And here's Mary herself will a little teenage dating advice.

Back to the Shangri-Las though, and while Leader Of The Pack is their most famous song, for me they never bettered the overblown adolescent angst of this Shadow Morton masterpiece based on Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. A pop song so utterly unique that it will... never... happen... again.