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...
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...
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...
It's also the opening line to this, from 1973...
And this, from 1990...
And this, from 1991...
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)
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)
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.
I read the news about Mary when I woke up Saturday morning, and the first thing I did was listen to the exact two songs of hers you put up today. The album she did with Reigning Sound so many decades later felt like some kind of miracle. I’ll never forget seeing her perform on Conan and running out to buy it the very next morning. - Brian
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking that this current batch of contemporary female singers who do the half talking / half singing bit (Wet Leg, English Teacher, Dry Cleaning) owe quite a bit to Mary, a pioneer in that field.
DeleteThat's a classic. And a precedent I will cite next time I'm up before the judge.
ReplyDelete