April 26, 2025 • 57 mins
On this episode of the Long Island Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame Podcast, historian and author Lisa MacKinney joins host Tom Needham to talk about her new book, Dressed in Black.
The first full-length history of the Shangri-Las, the book tells the story of how a group of Queens schoolgirls became 1960s pop legends with hits like “Leader of the Pack” and “Remember (Walking in the Sand).”
MacKinney’s meticulous research uncovers the real story behind the group’s meteoric rise and the forces that ultimately cut their careers short.
She challenges long-standing myths and restores the Shangri-Las to their rightful place in American music history.
It’s a fascinating conversation about one of pop’s most influential yet misunderstood groups.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hi, this is Tom Needham and welcome to the Long
Island Music and EntertainmentHall of Fame podcast.
Today we are joined by historianand author Lisa McKinney, whose
new book, Dressed in Black,offers the full-length history
of the legendary Shangri-Las,best known for their iconic
(00:21):
tracks like Leader of the Packand Remember Walking in the
Sand.
The Shangri-Las rose from Queensschoolgirls in the 1960s to pop
stardom.
only to see their careers cutshort by forces beyond their
control.
Lisa's meticulously researchedwork challenges the myths,
(00:41):
uncovers the group's reallegacy, and places the
Shangri-Las firmly in the canonof great American music.
Lisa, thank you so much todayfor joining us on the Long
Island and Music EntertainmentHall of Fame podcast.
SPEAKER_02 (00:56):
My absolute pleasure, Tom.
I'm very happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:00):
Yeah, man, we have a lot of fans of the Shangri-Las,
so I'm super excited to talk toyou.
You seem like an expert, havingwritten this book.
What inspired you in the firstplace to write this book?
SPEAKER_02 (01:13):
Well, firstly, realizing that there wasn't one.
And I realized that there wasn'ta book about the Shangri-Las 25
years ago, if you can believeit.
I was working in a book andmusic, a book and record store.
And I worked in the musicsection and I was also in charge
(01:35):
of ordering books for the musicsection in the book department.
And I was having an animateddiscussion with one of my
colleagues one evening about theShangri-Las.
And at that stage, like a lot ofpeople, I thought I knew a bit
about the Shangri-Las.
(01:55):
And I said to him, oh, wow, youknow about them?
You know about Shadow Morton?
He's like, no, I don't.
And I said, I uttered thefateful words, there must be a
book, I'll order it in.
Little did I know what I wassetting off by saying that.
So I I went and looked throughall the catalogues.
No, there wasn't a book.
(02:16):
There had never been a book.
And I thought at that moment,I'm a historian.
I should write one.
So that was 25 years ago.
And then I started a PhD in anentirely different topic at a
university in Australia.
I started a PhD on religiousdevotional practice in the late
(02:37):
medieval household.
And I got a year and a half intoit.
And this idea about theShangri-La's book was just
bubbling away in the back of mymind.
And a couple of people suggestedto me that I, like, why don't
you do it as a PhD?
And I'm like, oh, yeah, as ifthey're going to let me change
(02:58):
topic.
And then I won't bore you withall the details, but they did.
And so I was able to, that wasin 2005, so I was able to devote
myself with that, the supportand security that a scholarship
(03:19):
gives you, I was able to devotemyself full time to that work
for around five years.
And that's when the bulk of theresearch was done and there's
absolutely no way I would havebeen able to do that level of
(03:40):
investigation without thatsupport.
So that's essentially how itstarted.
But in terms of what inspired meto be so excited about the
Shangri-Las in the first place,It's their extraordinary music,
their songs, and it wasparticularly the emotional
(04:06):
content of their songs thatreally got me.
Like, as I say in theintroduction, for years I
couldn't listen to I Can NeverGo Home Anymore without crying.
It was just so powerful and soreal to me.
And there just really wasn'tanything that, hit me
(04:27):
emotionally in the way that thatsong did and in the way that
other songs of theirs did.
So really, it was thatincredible emotional power that
they had that really got to me.
SPEAKER_00 (04:43):
That's amazing.
Two things you said that I kindof want to backtrack just a
little bit.
Here at the Long Island Musicand Entertainment Hall of Fame,
we love it when we hear aboutMm-hmm.
(05:17):
to research the Shangri-La as itwas a worthy academic topic.
Can you just speak to that justa little bit about what their
influence has been in Australiaand why they were a suitable
topic for an academic researchproject initially that turned
(05:38):
into this book?
UNKNOWN (05:39):
Sure.
SPEAKER_02 (05:40):
Well, I made a pretty strong case, which I had
to.
But really, it was, I mean, thefirst thing that you need to do
if you're embarking on anacademic project, you need to
demonstrate that there is asignificant gap in the
literature that you are going tofill.
(06:02):
So that wasn't difficult becausethere had never been a book
about the Shangri-Las.
So...
So that part of it wasreasonably easy, but then it was
like, all right, well, whyshould there be a book about the
Shangri-Las?
And then that came down to, youknow, the extraordinary
(06:28):
complexity of their songs andalso the impact that they'd had.
And they have had...
as you know, an extraordinaryimpact, like a really unusual
array of different styles ofartists have been influenced by
(06:52):
the Shangri-Las, from like BetteMidler to Amy Winehouse to the
New York Dolls, the Ramones,Blondie covered out in the
streets on their first EP.
And even in Australia, I'm notsure whether you've heard of
Roland Howard, but he's a veryfamous guitar player.
(07:16):
He's dead now, unfortunately.
But he was in a band called TheBirthday Party with Nick Cave
and then a group called TheseImmortal Souls.
And then he made two solo albumsthat were critically acclaimed.
And on the first one, He did acover of He Cried and he did it
(07:38):
as she cried.
But he was a huge Shangri-La'sfan and, like, was super excited
when I told him I was embarkingon this project.
And there's a whole group ofbands...
in the 80s in Australia thatwere very 60s music influenced,
(08:04):
like the Hoodoo Gurus and DiedPretty and a little bit earlier
Radio Birdman and the CelibateRifles even.
And they were all fans of theShangri-Las as well.
So they've had a really wideimpact even in Australia.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
I love how you go into the book, how they have
impacted a lot of artists, andyou mentioned quite a few of
them just now.
What was it about theShangri-Las that so many artists
took away from and inspiredthem?
SPEAKER_02 (08:44):
Well, I guess, like, from my perspective, I guess it
was something...
Well, not only were they reallygreat songs...
in terms of the constructions ofthe songs, the performances, the
arrangements.
(09:05):
They're really like sort ofstandalone works of art, many of
them, I would argue.
But also I guess, you know, Iguess the emotional impact as
well.
I think they really spoke topeople because, you know, They
(09:28):
had a real core of emotionaltruth, I think, their songs.
They were very...
They were authentic.
They weren't...
They weren't...
They weren't tacky or, you know,it didn't sound like they were
being, you know, that theemotion was manufactured.
(09:50):
The emotion was real, likeanyone can hear it.
It's...
It's a very powerful, the songswere very powerful.
I think that's part of it.
But also, you know, I thinkthat's a really interesting
question because I think I'vethought about this a lot and I
(10:10):
really, you know, with the NewYork Dolls, for instance, you
know, you have this bunch ofmisfits, like, you know, who are
kind of, you can't reallyimagine them being able to do
anything else other than being amusician, you know, because
they're kind of all over theplace and kind of wild and
(10:30):
crazy.
And if you think about the– ifyou think about the– you know,
in the Shangri-La's, like, bodyof work, small as it is, but in
the Redbird recordings, there'sa– There's a type of guy that
there's a continuity with, theleader of the pack type guy, you
(10:52):
know, who's kind of, you know, abit rough around the edges, you
know, from the wrong side oftown, whatever, you know, and
they didn't give him a great bigkiss.
You know, he's like, he's got,you know, dirty fingernails and
like high boots and, oh boy,what a prize, you know.
And I think those guys are, sawthemselves in that character.
(11:17):
And so the Shangri-Las wassinging to them about who they
were as well.
And I think, you know, that's avery attractive concept, having
these four beautiful young womensort of intoning these pains of
(11:40):
love toward people like them.
And I think, I really think thatthat is part of it, that they
saw themselves in the guys thatthe Shangri-La sang about.
SPEAKER_00 (11:54):
It's amazing, you being from Australia, how well
you describe the setting here.
in which the Shangri-Las came tobe.
They are from Queens, and I waswondering if you could share
with our listeners what youlearned in terms of how them
living in Queens came to be animportant aspect of who they are
(12:18):
and what they became.
SPEAKER_02 (12:22):
Well, I...
Yeah, I'm super glad to hearthat because, like, it might not
necessarily have worked in thatway.
I may have appeared to be, youknow, like an outsider writing
about, you know, an area thatI've never lived in, you know.
So I'm really glad to hear that.
(12:45):
But I loved researching that.
I found it so interesting.
And, you know, I was able tovisit a few times, but
obviously, you know, I neverlived there.
But I think obviously it was,you know, it was obviously like
(13:12):
a nice, a good place to grow up.
There's so many, so many storiesof people people who moved from
crowded parts of Brooklyn andsometimes Manhattan and moved to
(13:33):
Queens, which was marketed as anarea where there was lots of
wide open space and you couldhave a yard and you could have a
house rather than a crowdedapartment.
That was true of George ShadowMorton and his family.
(13:57):
That was true of the Gansers whomoved from Brooklyn to their
house in Canberra Heights wherethey lived until at least the
70s.
So that obviously...
(14:19):
you know, gave them a kind of,like, space and happiness and,
like, a good sort of solidAmerican childhood, I suppose,
you know, in a way.
But one thing that Mary Weissalways emphasised, like, in her
reviews, in her interviews, Imean, is that, the vibrant
(14:42):
musical context and that therewas so much doo-wop, you know,
and so much, well, you know,vocal group singing.
It wasn't called doo-wop untillater, but that there was so
much of that and that's what shegrew up hearing.
And I've thought that, I foundthat really interesting because
(15:03):
I think a lot of, people whothink about the Shangri-Las
think about them in a rockcontext, which, you know, they
certainly kind of moved, theycertainly fit into a rock
context.
But I think it's reallyimportant to understand that the
Shangri-Las came out of thatvocal group tradition.
They came out of a traditionwhere the focus was the singing.
(15:27):
There was no expectation thatthey needed to play instruments.
That kind of came later as well.
And, you know, not necessarilyto write their own material
either because there's, youknow, an army of professional
songwriters who made theirliving writing songs for groups
to sing.
So, yeah, I loved finding outabout Queens.
(15:51):
It's great.
And I do have a couple offriends who live in Queens and
every time I've visited, it'salways been awesome.
There's always been great food.
And yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
it's great.
(16:27):
And it's just an astronomicalnumber of people who have had
success worldwide that are fromthis area.
And we started to reallyinvestigate why that is.
And obviously, you know, it'spartly due to the fact that you
can still be out here in thesuburbs, but you're still close
to New York City.
(16:50):
But then there's something elsethat's a little bit more
intangible, which is that Oh,wow.
(17:18):
George Shadow Morton, he's alsoan inductee, and he's an
important person in this storyof the Shangri-Las.
Tell me a little bit about howhe came together with the women
in the group and really createdhistory.
SPEAKER_02 (17:37):
Well, Shadow Morton is a really fascinating
character because as...
As I go into quite a lot ofdetail about in the book, he has
always presented himself assomeone who got into the music
industry as a result of a jokeand who was never particularly
(18:03):
serious about it.
And it was an accident and, youknow, he just, like, landed with
this group and it just happened,you know, which is...
like really not quite accurate.
So he moved with his family.
Interestingly, his parentsdivorced.
(18:33):
sometime before the 1950 censusand in the 1950 census he was
recorded as living with hismother and her new husband and
he was recorded as their stepsonand with a younger sister who
(18:56):
was one year old and at somepoint in the early 50s I think
it must have been, they moved toLong Island and he started going
to Bethpage High School.
And at Bethpage High School, hemet Tony Michaels, who was an
(19:23):
important figure there.
in the Shangri-La's story earlyon, but also continued.
He wrote or co-wrote songs likeright until the end, which is
interesting as well.
(19:45):
So Morton started like a vocalgroup, a doo-wop group called
the Marquees, with fivesimilarly aged people.
Tony Michaels was in the sameyear as him at Bethpage.
(20:09):
And I'm not sure who formed theMarquise, whether the Marquise
existed already and he joinedlater or what the story was, but
they recorded two singlestogether.
for RCA in 1958 when he wouldhave been 15 or 16.
(20:30):
And he wrote or co-wrote all ofthose.
Actually, no, the B-side of thefirst single was Yakety Yak.
He didn't write that.
But the rest.
So that was really interesting.
That was the beginning, and thatwas the beginning– of his
(20:52):
recording career, and then hemade several other singles up
until about the early 60s.
When he made this single with agroup of people, the identities
are still not clear of theseyoung women, but he wrote and
(21:16):
produced, importantly, a singleby a group called the
Beatlettes, which was, like manyother things at that point in
early 1964, attempting tocapitalise on the popularity of
the Beatles, which was beginningto sweep America.
(21:38):
So he has this solid body of...
um, recording experience.
It's kind of, you know, lo-fi,you know, indie, you know,
recording experience, but, butrecording experience, you know,
all the same.
And, uh, the way he tells it isthat he, um, he found out that,
(21:59):
uh, Ellie Greenwich, who he hadalso, uh, known when he was at
school, she didn't go to thesame school, but she went to,
uh, Levitown Memorial High,which wasn't very far away.
And they had done, uh, somemusic together at various points
at high school dances andthings.
(22:19):
He found out that she wasworking in the Brill Building
and had co-written importantsongs that were hits with Bill
Spector.
And he...
rang her up and said oh heyremember me um and you know can
(22:41):
I come and see you and so uh hedid and um and uh as a result of
um sparring with um with uh JeffBarry I think it was um he uh he
left with a um with a request tocome back with a song.
(23:04):
So then he had an audienceready, you know, waiting for a
song.
And so then he assembled somemusicians, his friends from the
Marquise, who had access to astudio that was in the basement
of one of their houses wherethey used to record demos and
(23:26):
stuff.
So he had all this ready to go,you know, like he had a studio
he could use, he had musicianshe knew, and so he pulled this
all together.
He'd already met the Shangri-Laswho had been taken by Tony
Michaels, who became theirmanager early on.
(23:49):
Their manager, Tony Michaels,had...
arranged for them to have anaudition at Bob Babaloo Lewis's
place and they went there andsang for him and apparently
Morton was there that night.
So he had heard them andobviously thought they were
(24:12):
pretty good and they'd recordeda couple of singles at that
point on the Smash label and theSpokane label that...
Nothing, you know, nothing veryhugely popular, but they were
doing engagements around andthey had recorded a couple of
(24:37):
singles.
And so he asked them if theywould sing on this track that he
was going to record.
And...
According to legend, he was onhis way to the session and
realized that he didn't have asong.
Let
SPEAKER_00 (24:55):
me just interrupt for one second.
Is this going to be the BillyJoel story?
SPEAKER_02 (25:03):
Well, partly.
SPEAKER_00 (25:06):
Because, as you probably know, Billy Joel is a
major inductee of ours, and wehave the world-famous Billy Joel
exhibit.
And it's so amazing that it'sjust unbelievable to a lot of
people who have not heard thisstory.
And I want to let you tell thestory.
But it's so unbelievable thatthere is a connection between
(25:30):
Billy Joel and the Shangri-Las.
Tell the story, because I justcan't believe this.
And it's in your book.
SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
Oh! I mean, if you...
I...
I think it's not so surprising,really, if you think about how
young they all were, you know.
So anyway, so George Mortonpulls over on the side of the
road and writes, rememberwalking in the sand, which, you
know, you can believe that ornot believe it.
(26:02):
I don't know.
John Greco, who's also writtenabout the Shangri-Las and put
together that really fabulousstory, Record Store Day LP
reissue called The Best of theRedbird and Mercury Recordings,
I think.
(26:23):
He says in the liner notes tothat that of all of the stories
that he's heard of Morton's overthe years, he's never, ever
deviated from that one.
So he thinks it's that Mortonthat Morton was being truthful.
So anyway, so regardless of howthe song came into being, he
(26:49):
turns up at the session and he'dmet, he'd seen Billy Joel, who
was like the rest of them, likea kid, you know, 16, 17,
something like that.
playing piano in a bandsomewhere and kind of, and he
needed piano for this.
So he'd asked him to come andplay on this session.
(27:13):
And so Billy Joel played the,you know, thumping piano on
Remember Walking in the Sand.
Wow.
And which is, yeah, which is a,you know, a fantastic story.
um but um yeah so apparently theapparently the original version
(27:38):
was was like seven minutes longwith like a narration from
morton at the beginning and umso he takes this back to the
brill building and they listento it and they're kind of like
oh wow this is kind of weird butit's really interesting and um
So to cut a long story short,that was how he got a foot in at
(28:00):
the Brill Building and he wassigned on as a staff songwriter.
And they re-recorded some ofRemember Walking in the Sand.
I think they used some of theoriginal recording but
re-recorded the vocals probablyat least.
(28:23):
And it went to number five onthe Billboard Hot 100.
So the rest, as they say, ishistory.
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
And did Billy also play on Leader of the Pack?
SPEAKER_02 (28:35):
I haven't found any evidence of that.
He said that he thinks that hedid, but I'm certain about
Remember Walking in the Sand,but I'm not certain about Leader
of the
SPEAKER_00 (28:50):
Pack.
But Billy has said that he has.
played on it.
He
SPEAKER_02 (28:55):
also said that the sessions happened that both
songs were recorded at the sametime, which is not possible.
I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00 (29:07):
Well, this is an incredible story.
We're well into the interview.
I need to hear more about themembers of the group.
Okay.
Tell me about the individualmembers and what you think in
terms of why they, in light oftheir career, why they are
(29:30):
deserving of more praise thanwhat some people have given them
traditionally, which is just tosay that, as you said earlier,
they didn't play theirinstruments or write the songs,
but you make the case in thebook that these were very
talented individuals who have abody of work that deserves
(29:50):
appreciation.
Why?
SPEAKER_02 (29:55):
Well, the first thing that needs to be addressed
about that is, and it comes backto what we were talking about
before, about the Shangri-Lascoming out of the doo-wop
tradition and not the rocktradition.
So that's one thing.
There was no expectation ofplaying instruments in the vocal
(30:15):
group tradition.
And there was a long tradition,and in fact it was very much the
norm, that people sang songswritten by professional
songwriters.
This whole idea of an authenticartist being someone who wrote
and performed their own music,preferably on instruments, is an
(30:39):
idea that really gained currencyin the mid to late 60s.
as part of the sort ofcounterculture movement.
And that became the yardstick ofauthenticity.
And along with that is sort ofthe idea that it had always been
(31:01):
like that, which is absolutelycategorically not the case.
So what happened with vocalgroups like the Shangri-Las is
that they became regarded as, asinferior in authenticity terms
(31:27):
later because of ideas aboutauthenticity that were projected
back onto them but were notcurrent at the time when they
were making records.
So in the early 70s, there waswas like a number of like rock
journalists who kind of decidedthat this whole girl group
(31:51):
framework was like a genre and,you know, what being a girl
group meant was that you didn'tplay instruments, you didn't
write songs, you had a geniusproducer and like the singers
were, you know, almost, almost,second rate to the whole
(32:11):
exercise, that they could havebeen, you know, replaced by
anyone, which is kind of thegirl group narrative, which is
just so, not only is it sopatronising and reductive, but
it's also actually in many caseswith some of the other, you
(32:32):
know, groups that are calledgirl groups, you know, some of
them did write material aboutArlene Smith from the Chantels,
for instance, wrote quite a fewof their songs.
But this has all been brushedover in this sort of grand
narrative that posits theseyoung women as without any sort
(32:58):
of agency in their music.
So, you know, so there's that.
But...
In terms of the Shangri-Lasthemselves, I mean, they've
always been shrouded in mystery.
And so it's very difficult toget a handle on their individual
(33:20):
personalities.
And unfortunately, MarianneGanser died in very, very tragic
circumstances in 1970.
Her sister, Marguerite, died ofbreast cancer in 1996.
So they were long out of thepicture when I started my
(33:44):
investigations.
Mary and Betty Weiss.
Mary is the one who's done themost interviews and is on the
public record the most.
And even though she did not wantto cooperate or be interviewed
(34:07):
for my book, which I remain verydisappointed about, but I also
understand where she's comingfrom.
She probably thought that I wasjust some other person who
wanted something from her, andshe'd had enough of that in her
life.
(34:29):
But In terms of, so if youdispense with all of these kind
of anachronistic ideas aboutwhat is authentic and what isn't
and actually look at theirperformances, the performances
are really what elevate them toanother level.
(34:51):
They weren't just like, youknow, stand-in session singers.
They were...
they were extraordinaryperformers who worked very hard
at their craft.
And, you know, I might justthrow in here at the moment that
nobody thinks that Elvis is anyless of an authentic performer
because he didn't write his ownmaterial, you know.
(35:12):
So this is really an idea thatgained currency later.
But if...
So the...
There...
Their performances are soemotionally powerful and so
skilled, you know, as well.
(35:34):
I mean, I don't want to sort ofgive the impression that, like,
it's sort of just it's all aboutsort of emotional, like, emotion
with no craft involved as well.
That's categorically not thecase either because they worked.
(35:57):
You know, they started singingwhen they were really, you know,
probably 12 or 13.
They worked hard.
They practised.
They went from, you know, doinglittle shows around, you know,
little local shows around, youknow, Canberra Heights and
(36:18):
Queens to like suddenly likebeing on television.
And, like, going on tour.
And they just had to sink orswim.
And they swam, you know.
I mean, if you think about thefact that Mary Weiss was 15
years old when Leader of thePack went to number one.
SPEAKER_00 (36:37):
That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02 (36:37):
And they had already – it's extraordinary.
And they had already been, youknow, remember walking in the
sand, had already hit.
They got packed off on the roadimmediately.
And suddenly, you know, they'vegone from doing these little
local shows to like doing showsin a different town every night
and having to, you know, andhaving to perform on TV.
(37:00):
It's like, it's extraordinarythat they just like picked it up
so quickly.
And, you know, the stories ofthem, you know, turning up to
play in different cities andthere'd be a different pickup
band wherever they turned up andsometimes they'd have to teach
them the songs.
I mean, you know, like that'sconsummate musicianship to be
(37:25):
able to do that, you know.
So it's this whole idea that,you know, they're somehow lesser
is just like, yeah, I really–the real– you know, if I had to
like boil the– purpose of thebook down to one sentence, it
(37:49):
would be to blow that out of thewater.
It's like, no.
These young women were reallyextraordinary performers.
And their small but incrediblyinfluential body of work really
bears that out.
SPEAKER_00 (38:05):
Yeah, and it's amazing that anyone today who
sees any of those clips of themon TV, they're still
captivating.
They still, you know, it is,it's like, and that's not true
of everybody, but you see theclip and it just gets your
attention.
It's like, wow, who's that?
If you haven't seen it beforeand it's still as good today as
(38:27):
it was back then.
So they really had something.
Did you discover any like subtleways in which the women in the
group did change?
input their preferences in termsof vocals or style or anything
that fed into what peopleperceive as to be the
Shangri-Las?
SPEAKER_02 (38:50):
Well, I think the spoken word parts of the songs,
I really think that was thembecause They– there's little
spoken word components in, like,in their first singles, in,
like, the– so their first– thefirst single they recorded was
(39:12):
in late– it was released in late1963 called Simon Says.
And then early in 1964, this isbefore they signed with Redbird
and before Morton was involved,was– a song called Wishing Well
and Hate to Say I Told You So onthe other side of that.
(39:35):
And there's spoken wordcomponents of those which so
like that wasn't anything to dowith Morton or the songwriters
because they were doing thatbefore then.
So I found that reallyinteresting because that became
something that they were reallywell known for and particularly
(40:00):
with Past, Present and Future,which is the most extraordinary
song and which I discuss atlength in the book.
It's entirely spoken.
There's not a single word that'ssung in that song, which is, you
know, very unusual.
But also that also reallycontributes to the emotional
(40:26):
power of it because it's like adirect address.
It's like...
it's like Mary or the characterin the song is speaking directly
to you.
She's almost whispering, youknow, at times.
And that makes it incrediblypersonal.
SPEAKER_00 (40:44):
When they're speaking, you said their
character, they really did havelike a persona.
Like how would you– you do it inthe book, but how would you
describe– their persona, likewho, who were they as
characters?
If you think of the group asbeing a group of characters.
SPEAKER_02 (41:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I, I guess, you know, theywere sort of teenage girls with,
um, you know, the same problemsthat other teenage girls had or
not just girls, you know,teenagers like as well, you
know, so they, um, you know,they had, they had problems, you
know, problems with theirparents, you know, really big
problems with their parents.
(41:24):
Um, So the parents were alwaystrying to stand in the way of
true love
SPEAKER_01 (41:31):
and
SPEAKER_02 (41:34):
stop their daughters from seeing these guys with
dirty fingernails and ridingmotorbikes.
And often that resulted in thedeath of someone, either the
characters or the love interest.
So...
(41:54):
So, yeah, they really did have avery...
And I think they had a reallystrong connection with their
audience.
Does this break?
If I can just find it quickly.
I don't know whether I can.
(42:19):
But...
SPEAKER_00 (42:23):
By the way, there's such great photos in the book.
It's just a fun book to flipthrough.
SPEAKER_01 (42:32):
Sorry, what was that?
SPEAKER_00 (42:33):
There's just so many great photos in the book.
It's just a fun book to flipthrough and just revisit all
those images and album coversand things like that.
SPEAKER_02 (42:44):
Yeah.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
Yeah.
Yeah, so there's this greatinterview from 1966 in The
Village Voice where, you know,Mary Ann Ganser was sort of
really getting stuck into peoplewho couldn't take their
(43:07):
emotional intensity seriously.
And so she said, they say ourstuff is corny.
Well, a lot of people eat corn.
Besides, if that were true, thenwe wouldn't sell, which we do.
Our lines are realistic andfrank.
Take our latest single.
The girl who's talking in it hashad one tragic affair and is
(43:27):
obviously hung up on it.
Well, we never say she's hung upbecause she let herself go.
We don't put her down for it.
So she's talking there aboutpast, present and future.
And she's basically saying, youknow, like we, you know, we
understand our audience.
We are connected with ouraudience and we talk to our
audience.
(43:48):
And, you know, we don't put themdown.
We are at one with our audience,which is like really amazing.
it's really powerful, you know,and that's partly, you know,
that's partly why the songs areso powerful as well.
SPEAKER_00 (44:05):
Yeah.
Well, one of the things that'sunfortunate is that Oh, yeah.
(44:37):
Things just went wrong.
What happened?
A lot happened, but whathappened exactly?
SPEAKER_02 (44:44):
Well, I think the really key event was the
collapse of the Redbird label.
So that whole little ecosystemthere at the Brill Building with
Morton and Lieber and Stollerwho, you know, clearly
(45:06):
understood and supported andguided Morton with what he was
doing.
That basically fell apartbecause of the other person
other than Lieber and Stoller,who was a partner in the Redbird
label, George Goldner, who'slike a fairly, you know,
(45:26):
legendary person.
music industry figure, he had aterrible gambling problem and he
had a long history of gettinginto financial strife and
borrowing money off loan sharks,aka, you know, mobbed up people.
(45:47):
And he would...
He sold off a series of reallypioneering labels as collateral
to get out of his, to pay offhis gambling debts.
And that's essentially whathappened with Redbird.
(46:10):
And Lieber and Stoller walkedaway and the whole thing
collapsed.
So that meant that theShangri-Las ended up at Mercury.
where they went from being...
It's the equivalent now of, say,Nirvana being on sub-pop records
(46:37):
and then ending up on Geffenrecords.
I mean, it worked out for themfor a little while, but it's the
idea of going from a small...
sort of almost like a familylabel where you're, you know,
you're really part of a familyto this big impersonal sort of
corporation where no one caresabout you.
(46:58):
And that is essentially sort ofwhat happened to the
Shangri-Las.
It's kind of evident in the twosingles that they recorded for
Mercury, of which, you know,there is one incredible song
called I'll Never Learn writtenby a teenage uh Esra Mohawk um
(47:23):
uh and if I mean that that songreally is an indication of what
direction their career couldhave taken if they had been
given more material like that umI couldn't see that they
(47:43):
wouldn't have, you know, gone onto make records for much longer.
Instead, that was relegated tothe B side of their first
Mercury single, which was a, youknow, the A side of which was a
very, you know, unspectacularsong called Sweet Sounds of
Summer.
(48:03):
And then...
The second one was not very goodeither and was complicated
politically.
And that was it.
It didn't sell.
And then the label just lostinterest in them.
(48:25):
And it's terrible.
But even worse than that, theyhad signed this contract with...
with mercury that um preventedthem from uh recording with any
other uh label um for another 10years
SPEAKER_01 (48:43):
so
SPEAKER_02 (48:44):
mercury wasn't interested in them but they
couldn't like work with anyoneelse either so it it it's but
you know that's that's typicalof the music industry
unfortunately um you know ilaugh but it's not funny you
know it's it's it's it'sshocking and um Yeah, so it's no
(49:06):
coincidence that they hadanother crack at it in 1977 and
reformed briefly and did somerecordings, which for Seymour
Stein's Sire label, because theyknew Seymour Stein from, he'd
worked at Redbird as well.
Yeah.
(49:27):
But those recordings have neversurfaced, but I wonder if they
will one of these days.
SPEAKER_00 (49:34):
What was their personal reaction during that
period where they were kind ofblocked out of the industry for
10 years?
How did they personally handleit?
SPEAKER_02 (49:47):
It's hard to know.
The Ganses, I'm not, well, MaryAnn had died in 1970.
I think Margie just, like, triedto, I think they tried to just,
like, assimilate back intonormal life.
(50:09):
I'm fairly sure that Margietried to finish school at some
point because they had beenripped out of school to go on
the road and they'd neverfinished school.
I don't know whether Mary andBetty ever finished school.
(50:33):
I don't think Mary did, but I'mnot sure about Betty.
But, yeah, I think they justtried to kind of, like, move on.
SPEAKER_00 (50:42):
Wow, such a tragic story.
Well, your book, though, doescelebrate their greatness and
makes the case that they aredeserving of real...
you know, that they really dodeserve credit for being leaders
in the industry with what theywere doing.
(51:04):
And you did such a fantasticjob.
Thank you so much, by the way,for joining us today on the Long
Island Music and EntertainmentHall of Fame podcast.
Can you tell people, if theywant to learn more about your
book, is there a place onlinewhere they can find out about
the book and your work and soforth?
SPEAKER_02 (51:28):
Oh, well, I mean, it's available, you know, it's
available through all, like it'savailable internationally, so
there's If it's not in yourlocal bookstore, you should be
able to order it.
There's plenty of places you canorder it online.
For people who are on Instagram,I have an Instagram account
(51:53):
that's dedicated to the book.
It's Lisa underscore McKinneyunderscore author.
So there's all of– If you wantto keep up to date with what's
happening with the book andeverything, you can go there.
There's also like a set of linksof different places where you
(52:17):
can buy the book if you want to.
There's also my publisher'swebsite.
My publisher is Verse ChorusPress.
And so there's information thereabout it as well.
SPEAKER_00 (52:30):
Well, Lisa, when you look back at the whole
experience, you spent a lot ofyears working on this.
What was the most satisfyingaspect of finally putting out
this book for you personally?
SPEAKER_02 (52:44):
Well, I always said that...
So it's actually 20 years sinceI started writing about them.
I started writing the PhD in2005, and it's now...
So it's been a really, reallylong road.
(53:07):
And I always said, you know, thehappiest day of my life would be
when, you know, I was holdingthe book in my hand because it
meant that it had finallyhappened and nothing could go
wrong, you know.
So, yeah, I think that wasactually the, like, That moment
(53:30):
when, you know, I was holding itin my hand and it was like, oh,
it has actually happened, youknow.
That was a really, a reallygreat thing.
But I have to say that it's beenreally wonderful getting
messages from people who'veenjoyed it, you know, or who are
(53:52):
enjoying it and who were justlike, who are really, Because, I
mean, like, you know, I kind ofknow my audience.
You know, I've been trying to,you know, I've been a fan for a
long time and I know whatpeople, like, want to know about
(54:13):
the group, you know, and to someextent I've been able to, you
know, clear a lot of that up.
You know, they've always beenshrouded in mystery, as I said
before, and, you know, part ofthat is their doing and part of
that, is not.
But it's very satisfying to beable to really bring their
(54:40):
achievements to, well, not bringthem to light, but it's kind of
like, you know, it's kind oflike a painting that's been kind
of you know, hidden in a closetfor ages and it's all dusty and,
you know, you take it to arestorer and they sort of clean
it up and the colours, you know,start to, like, be more visible
(55:03):
and then, you know, you see thepicture much clearer, you know,
and that's kind of how I seethis.
You know, I really feel thatthis extraordinary group
deserves to be, to have somekind of, like, in a way that is
(55:28):
sort of that solidifies theirreputation.
And a book is a really good wayto do that because it's like,
okay, you know, there's a bookabout them.
Okay, well, they must be, you
SPEAKER_01 (55:40):
know, serious.
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (55:41):
And, in fact, you know, it's kind of interesting.
There's a friend of mine waslike when it just came out, a
friend of mine bought a copy andwas sitting in a room sitting
somewhere, like in a cafe,reading it.
And the guy behind the bar said,oh, yeah, what are you reading?
And he said, oh, my friend'sjust written this book about the
Shangri-Las.
And he said, oh, I didn't thinkthere'd be much to say about
(56:04):
them.
And I'm just like, oh, you know,he told,
SPEAKER_01 (56:07):
you
SPEAKER_02 (56:07):
know, my friend, like, told me that.
And he said, like, you know,this is the way people still
think about them, you know?
Yeah.
Even if you like some of theirsongs, it's kind of like, oh,
well, you know, they're not thatimportant.
Well, no, I'm afraid they are.
SPEAKER_00 (56:23):
Well, thank you so much for writing the book.
I think we're like-minded soulsand that's what we're doing at
the Hall of Fame.
We're trying to preserve historyand remind people of artists who
have made contributions.
And books are important, likeyou said, and your book is one
of them.
So thank you so much for joiningus today, for writing the book.
(56:44):
And if you are ever on LongIsland, you'll have to come by
and we'll talk to you again,maybe with an audience.
SPEAKER_02 (56:53):
Oh, well, I actually was going to say that if the
next time I'm in the U.S., Iwill definitely be coming and
checking out the Long IslandHall of Fame.
I'm very, very interested tocome and have a look, so for
sure.
SPEAKER_00 (57:08):
That's great.
Okay.
Well, I hope to meet you in thefuture, and best of luck with
the book, and I highly recommendit to everybody.
Thanks again.
Oh,
SPEAKER_02 (57:18):
thank you so much for having me.
It's been a pleasure to talk toyou.
And thank you everyone forlistening.
Hi, this is Tom Needham and welcome to the Long
Island Music and EntertainmentHall of Fame podcast.
Today we are joined by historianand author Lisa McKinney, whose
new book, Dressed in Black,offers the full-length history
of the legendary Shangri-Las,best known for their iconic
(00:21):
tracks like Leader of the Packand Remember Walking in the
Sand.
The Shangri-Las rose from Queensschoolgirls in the 1960s to pop
stardom.
only to see their careers cutshort by forces beyond their
control.
Lisa's meticulously researchedwork challenges the myths,
(00:41):
uncovers the group's reallegacy, and places the
Shangri-Las firmly in the canonof great American music.
Lisa, thank you so much todayfor joining us on the Long
Island and Music EntertainmentHall of Fame podcast.
SPEAKER_02 (00:56):
My absolute pleasure, Tom.
I'm very happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:00):
Yeah, man, we have a lot of fans of the Shangri-Las,
so I'm super excited to talk toyou.
You seem like an expert, havingwritten this book.
What inspired you in the firstplace to write this book?
SPEAKER_02 (01:13):
Well, firstly, realizing that there wasn't one.
And I realized that there wasn'ta book about the Shangri-Las 25
years ago, if you can believeit.
I was working in a book andmusic, a book and record store.
And I worked in the musicsection and I was also in charge
(01:35):
of ordering books for the musicsection in the book department.
And I was having an animateddiscussion with one of my
colleagues one evening about theShangri-Las.
And at that stage, like a lot ofpeople, I thought I knew a bit
about the Shangri-Las.
(01:55):
And I said to him, oh, wow, youknow about them?
You know about Shadow Morton?
He's like, no, I don't.
And I said, I uttered thefateful words, there must be a
book, I'll order it in.
Little did I know what I wassetting off by saying that.
So I I went and looked throughall the catalogues.
No, there wasn't a book.
(02:16):
There had never been a book.
And I thought at that moment,I'm a historian.
I should write one.
So that was 25 years ago.
And then I started a PhD in anentirely different topic at a
university in Australia.
I started a PhD on religiousdevotional practice in the late
(02:37):
medieval household.
And I got a year and a half intoit.
And this idea about theShangri-La's book was just
bubbling away in the back of mymind.
And a couple of people suggestedto me that I, like, why don't
you do it as a PhD?
And I'm like, oh, yeah, as ifthey're going to let me change
(02:58):
topic.
And then I won't bore you withall the details, but they did.
And so I was able to, that wasin 2005, so I was able to devote
myself with that, the supportand security that a scholarship
(03:19):
gives you, I was able to devotemyself full time to that work
for around five years.
And that's when the bulk of theresearch was done and there's
absolutely no way I would havebeen able to do that level of
(03:40):
investigation without thatsupport.
So that's essentially how itstarted.
But in terms of what inspired meto be so excited about the
Shangri-Las in the first place,It's their extraordinary music,
their songs, and it wasparticularly the emotional
(04:06):
content of their songs thatreally got me.
Like, as I say in theintroduction, for years I
couldn't listen to I Can NeverGo Home Anymore without crying.
It was just so powerful and soreal to me.
And there just really wasn'tanything that, hit me
(04:27):
emotionally in the way that thatsong did and in the way that
other songs of theirs did.
So really, it was thatincredible emotional power that
they had that really got to me.
SPEAKER_00 (04:43):
That's amazing.
Two things you said that I kindof want to backtrack just a
little bit.
Here at the Long Island Musicand Entertainment Hall of Fame,
we love it when we hear aboutMm-hmm.
(05:17):
to research the Shangri-La as itwas a worthy academic topic.
Can you just speak to that justa little bit about what their
influence has been in Australiaand why they were a suitable
topic for an academic researchproject initially that turned
(05:38):
into this book?
UNKNOWN (05:39):
Sure.
SPEAKER_02 (05:40):
Well, I made a pretty strong case, which I had
to.
But really, it was, I mean, thefirst thing that you need to do
if you're embarking on anacademic project, you need to
demonstrate that there is asignificant gap in the
literature that you are going tofill.
(06:02):
So that wasn't difficult becausethere had never been a book
about the Shangri-Las.
So...
So that part of it wasreasonably easy, but then it was
like, all right, well, whyshould there be a book about the
Shangri-Las?
And then that came down to, youknow, the extraordinary
(06:28):
complexity of their songs andalso the impact that they'd had.
And they have had...
as you know, an extraordinaryimpact, like a really unusual
array of different styles ofartists have been influenced by
(06:52):
the Shangri-Las, from like BetteMidler to Amy Winehouse to the
New York Dolls, the Ramones,Blondie covered out in the
streets on their first EP.
And even in Australia, I'm notsure whether you've heard of
Roland Howard, but he's a veryfamous guitar player.
(07:16):
He's dead now, unfortunately.
But he was in a band called TheBirthday Party with Nick Cave
and then a group called TheseImmortal Souls.
And then he made two solo albumsthat were critically acclaimed.
And on the first one, He did acover of He Cried and he did it
(07:38):
as she cried.
But he was a huge Shangri-La'sfan and, like, was super excited
when I told him I was embarkingon this project.
And there's a whole group ofbands...
in the 80s in Australia thatwere very 60s music influenced,
(08:04):
like the Hoodoo Gurus and DiedPretty and a little bit earlier
Radio Birdman and the CelibateRifles even.
And they were all fans of theShangri-Las as well.
So they've had a really wideimpact even in Australia.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
I love how you go into the book, how they have
impacted a lot of artists, andyou mentioned quite a few of
them just now.
What was it about theShangri-Las that so many artists
took away from and inspiredthem?
SPEAKER_02 (08:44):
Well, I guess, like, from my perspective, I guess it
was something...
Well, not only were they reallygreat songs...
in terms of the constructions ofthe songs, the performances, the
arrangements.
(09:05):
They're really like sort ofstandalone works of art, many of
them, I would argue.
But also I guess, you know, Iguess the emotional impact as
well.
I think they really spoke topeople because, you know, They
(09:28):
had a real core of emotionaltruth, I think, their songs.
They were very...
They were authentic.
They weren't...
They weren't...
They weren't tacky or, you know,it didn't sound like they were
being, you know, that theemotion was manufactured.
(09:50):
The emotion was real, likeanyone can hear it.
It's...
It's a very powerful, the songswere very powerful.
I think that's part of it.
But also, you know, I thinkthat's a really interesting
question because I think I'vethought about this a lot and I
(10:10):
really, you know, with the NewYork Dolls, for instance, you
know, you have this bunch ofmisfits, like, you know, who are
kind of, you can't reallyimagine them being able to do
anything else other than being amusician, you know, because
they're kind of all over theplace and kind of wild and
(10:30):
crazy.
And if you think about the– ifyou think about the– you know,
in the Shangri-La's, like, bodyof work, small as it is, but in
the Redbird recordings, there'sa– There's a type of guy that
there's a continuity with, theleader of the pack type guy, you
(10:52):
know, who's kind of, you know, abit rough around the edges, you
know, from the wrong side oftown, whatever, you know, and
they didn't give him a great bigkiss.
You know, he's like, he's got,you know, dirty fingernails and
like high boots and, oh boy,what a prize, you know.
And I think those guys are, sawthemselves in that character.
(11:17):
And so the Shangri-Las wassinging to them about who they
were as well.
And I think, you know, that's avery attractive concept, having
these four beautiful young womensort of intoning these pains of
(11:40):
love toward people like them.
And I think, I really think thatthat is part of it, that they
saw themselves in the guys thatthe Shangri-La sang about.
SPEAKER_00 (11:54):
It's amazing, you being from Australia, how well
you describe the setting here.
in which the Shangri-Las came tobe.
They are from Queens, and I waswondering if you could share
with our listeners what youlearned in terms of how them
living in Queens came to be animportant aspect of who they are
(12:18):
and what they became.
SPEAKER_02 (12:22):
Well, I...
Yeah, I'm super glad to hearthat because, like, it might not
necessarily have worked in thatway.
I may have appeared to be, youknow, like an outsider writing
about, you know, an area thatI've never lived in, you know.
So I'm really glad to hear that.
(12:45):
But I loved researching that.
I found it so interesting.
And, you know, I was able tovisit a few times, but
obviously, you know, I neverlived there.
But I think obviously it was,you know, it was obviously like
(13:12):
a nice, a good place to grow up.
There's so many, so many storiesof people people who moved from
crowded parts of Brooklyn andsometimes Manhattan and moved to
(13:33):
Queens, which was marketed as anarea where there was lots of
wide open space and you couldhave a yard and you could have a
house rather than a crowdedapartment.
That was true of George ShadowMorton and his family.
(13:57):
That was true of the Gansers whomoved from Brooklyn to their
house in Canberra Heights wherethey lived until at least the
70s.
So that obviously...
(14:19):
you know, gave them a kind of,like, space and happiness and,
like, a good sort of solidAmerican childhood, I suppose,
you know, in a way.
But one thing that Mary Weissalways emphasised, like, in her
reviews, in her interviews, Imean, is that, the vibrant
(14:42):
musical context and that therewas so much doo-wop, you know,
and so much, well, you know,vocal group singing.
It wasn't called doo-wop untillater, but that there was so
much of that and that's what shegrew up hearing.
And I've thought that, I foundthat really interesting because
(15:03):
I think a lot of, people whothink about the Shangri-Las
think about them in a rockcontext, which, you know, they
certainly kind of moved, theycertainly fit into a rock
context.
But I think it's reallyimportant to understand that the
Shangri-Las came out of thatvocal group tradition.
They came out of a traditionwhere the focus was the singing.
(15:27):
There was no expectation thatthey needed to play instruments.
That kind of came later as well.
And, you know, not necessarilyto write their own material
either because there's, youknow, an army of professional
songwriters who made theirliving writing songs for groups
to sing.
So, yeah, I loved finding outabout Queens.
(15:51):
It's great.
And I do have a couple offriends who live in Queens and
every time I've visited, it'salways been awesome.
There's always been great food.
And yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
it's great.
(16:27):
And it's just an astronomicalnumber of people who have had
success worldwide that are fromthis area.
And we started to reallyinvestigate why that is.
And obviously, you know, it'spartly due to the fact that you
can still be out here in thesuburbs, but you're still close
to New York City.
(16:50):
But then there's something elsethat's a little bit more
intangible, which is that Oh,wow.
(17:18):
George Shadow Morton, he's alsoan inductee, and he's an
important person in this storyof the Shangri-Las.
Tell me a little bit about howhe came together with the women
in the group and really createdhistory.
SPEAKER_02 (17:37):
Well, Shadow Morton is a really fascinating
character because as...
As I go into quite a lot ofdetail about in the book, he has
always presented himself assomeone who got into the music
industry as a result of a jokeand who was never particularly
(18:03):
serious about it.
And it was an accident and, youknow, he just, like, landed with
this group and it just happened,you know, which is...
like really not quite accurate.
So he moved with his family.
Interestingly, his parentsdivorced.
(18:33):
sometime before the 1950 censusand in the 1950 census he was
recorded as living with hismother and her new husband and
he was recorded as their stepsonand with a younger sister who
(18:56):
was one year old and at somepoint in the early 50s I think
it must have been, they moved toLong Island and he started going
to Bethpage High School.
And at Bethpage High School, hemet Tony Michaels, who was an
(19:23):
important figure there.
in the Shangri-La's story earlyon, but also continued.
He wrote or co-wrote songs likeright until the end, which is
interesting as well.
(19:45):
So Morton started like a vocalgroup, a doo-wop group called
the Marquees, with fivesimilarly aged people.
Tony Michaels was in the sameyear as him at Bethpage.
(20:09):
And I'm not sure who formed theMarquise, whether the Marquise
existed already and he joinedlater or what the story was, but
they recorded two singlestogether.
for RCA in 1958 when he wouldhave been 15 or 16.
(20:30):
And he wrote or co-wrote all ofthose.
Actually, no, the B-side of thefirst single was Yakety Yak.
He didn't write that.
But the rest.
So that was really interesting.
That was the beginning, and thatwas the beginning– of his
(20:52):
recording career, and then hemade several other singles up
until about the early 60s.
When he made this single with agroup of people, the identities
are still not clear of theseyoung women, but he wrote and
(21:16):
produced, importantly, a singleby a group called the
Beatlettes, which was, like manyother things at that point in
early 1964, attempting tocapitalise on the popularity of
the Beatles, which was beginningto sweep America.
(21:38):
So he has this solid body of...
um, recording experience.
It's kind of, you know, lo-fi,you know, indie, you know,
recording experience, but, butrecording experience, you know,
all the same.
And, uh, the way he tells it isthat he, um, he found out that,
(21:59):
uh, Ellie Greenwich, who he hadalso, uh, known when he was at
school, she didn't go to thesame school, but she went to,
uh, Levitown Memorial High,which wasn't very far away.
And they had done, uh, somemusic together at various points
at high school dances andthings.
(22:19):
He found out that she wasworking in the Brill Building
and had co-written importantsongs that were hits with Bill
Spector.
And he...
rang her up and said oh heyremember me um and you know can
(22:41):
I come and see you and so uh hedid and um and uh as a result of
um sparring with um with uh JeffBarry I think it was um he uh he
left with a um with a request tocome back with a song.
(23:04):
So then he had an audienceready, you know, waiting for a
song.
And so then he assembled somemusicians, his friends from the
Marquise, who had access to astudio that was in the basement
of one of their houses wherethey used to record demos and
(23:26):
stuff.
So he had all this ready to go,you know, like he had a studio
he could use, he had musicianshe knew, and so he pulled this
all together.
He'd already met the Shangri-Laswho had been taken by Tony
Michaels, who became theirmanager early on.
(23:49):
Their manager, Tony Michaels,had...
arranged for them to have anaudition at Bob Babaloo Lewis's
place and they went there andsang for him and apparently
Morton was there that night.
So he had heard them andobviously thought they were
(24:12):
pretty good and they'd recordeda couple of singles at that
point on the Smash label and theSpokane label that...
Nothing, you know, nothing veryhugely popular, but they were
doing engagements around andthey had recorded a couple of
(24:37):
singles.
And so he asked them if theywould sing on this track that he
was going to record.
And...
According to legend, he was onhis way to the session and
realized that he didn't have asong.
Let
SPEAKER_00 (24:55):
me just interrupt for one second.
Is this going to be the BillyJoel story?
SPEAKER_02 (25:03):
Well, partly.
SPEAKER_00 (25:06):
Because, as you probably know, Billy Joel is a
major inductee of ours, and wehave the world-famous Billy Joel
exhibit.
And it's so amazing that it'sjust unbelievable to a lot of
people who have not heard thisstory.
And I want to let you tell thestory.
But it's so unbelievable thatthere is a connection between
(25:30):
Billy Joel and the Shangri-Las.
Tell the story, because I justcan't believe this.
And it's in your book.
SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
Oh! I mean, if you...
I...
I think it's not so surprising,really, if you think about how
young they all were, you know.
So anyway, so George Mortonpulls over on the side of the
road and writes, rememberwalking in the sand, which, you
know, you can believe that ornot believe it.
(26:02):
I don't know.
John Greco, who's also writtenabout the Shangri-Las and put
together that really fabulousstory, Record Store Day LP
reissue called The Best of theRedbird and Mercury Recordings,
I think.
(26:23):
He says in the liner notes tothat that of all of the stories
that he's heard of Morton's overthe years, he's never, ever
deviated from that one.
So he thinks it's that Mortonthat Morton was being truthful.
So anyway, so regardless of howthe song came into being, he
(26:49):
turns up at the session and he'dmet, he'd seen Billy Joel, who
was like the rest of them, likea kid, you know, 16, 17,
something like that.
playing piano in a bandsomewhere and kind of, and he
needed piano for this.
So he'd asked him to come andplay on this session.
(27:13):
And so Billy Joel played the,you know, thumping piano on
Remember Walking in the Sand.
Wow.
And which is, yeah, which is a,you know, a fantastic story.
um but um yeah so apparently theapparently the original version
(27:38):
was was like seven minutes longwith like a narration from
morton at the beginning and umso he takes this back to the
brill building and they listento it and they're kind of like
oh wow this is kind of weird butit's really interesting and um
So to cut a long story short,that was how he got a foot in at
(28:00):
the Brill Building and he wassigned on as a staff songwriter.
And they re-recorded some ofRemember Walking in the Sand.
I think they used some of theoriginal recording but
re-recorded the vocals probablyat least.
(28:23):
And it went to number five onthe Billboard Hot 100.
So the rest, as they say, ishistory.
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
And did Billy also play on Leader of the Pack?
SPEAKER_02 (28:35):
I haven't found any evidence of that.
He said that he thinks that hedid, but I'm certain about
Remember Walking in the Sand,but I'm not certain about Leader
of the
SPEAKER_00 (28:50):
Pack.
But Billy has said that he has.
played on it.
He
SPEAKER_02 (28:55):
also said that the sessions happened that both
songs were recorded at the sametime, which is not possible.
I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00 (29:07):
Well, this is an incredible story.
We're well into the interview.
I need to hear more about themembers of the group.
Okay.
Tell me about the individualmembers and what you think in
terms of why they, in light oftheir career, why they are
(29:30):
deserving of more praise thanwhat some people have given them
traditionally, which is just tosay that, as you said earlier,
they didn't play theirinstruments or write the songs,
but you make the case in thebook that these were very
talented individuals who have abody of work that deserves
(29:50):
appreciation.
Why?
SPEAKER_02 (29:55):
Well, the first thing that needs to be addressed
about that is, and it comes backto what we were talking about
before, about the Shangri-Lascoming out of the doo-wop
tradition and not the rocktradition.
So that's one thing.
There was no expectation ofplaying instruments in the vocal
(30:15):
group tradition.
And there was a long tradition,and in fact it was very much the
norm, that people sang songswritten by professional
songwriters.
This whole idea of an authenticartist being someone who wrote
and performed their own music,preferably on instruments, is an
(30:39):
idea that really gained currencyin the mid to late 60s.
as part of the sort ofcounterculture movement.
And that became the yardstick ofauthenticity.
And along with that is sort ofthe idea that it had always been
(31:01):
like that, which is absolutelycategorically not the case.
So what happened with vocalgroups like the Shangri-Las is
that they became regarded as, asinferior in authenticity terms
(31:27):
later because of ideas aboutauthenticity that were projected
back onto them but were notcurrent at the time when they
were making records.
So in the early 70s, there waswas like a number of like rock
journalists who kind of decidedthat this whole girl group
(31:51):
framework was like a genre and,you know, what being a girl
group meant was that you didn'tplay instruments, you didn't
write songs, you had a geniusproducer and like the singers
were, you know, almost, almost,second rate to the whole
(32:11):
exercise, that they could havebeen, you know, replaced by
anyone, which is kind of thegirl group narrative, which is
just so, not only is it sopatronising and reductive, but
it's also actually in many caseswith some of the other, you
(32:32):
know, groups that are calledgirl groups, you know, some of
them did write material aboutArlene Smith from the Chantels,
for instance, wrote quite a fewof their songs.
But this has all been brushedover in this sort of grand
narrative that posits theseyoung women as without any sort
(32:58):
of agency in their music.
So, you know, so there's that.
But...
In terms of the Shangri-Lasthemselves, I mean, they've
always been shrouded in mystery.
And so it's very difficult toget a handle on their individual
(33:20):
personalities.
And unfortunately, MarianneGanser died in very, very tragic
circumstances in 1970.
Her sister, Marguerite, died ofbreast cancer in 1996.
So they were long out of thepicture when I started my
(33:44):
investigations.
Mary and Betty Weiss.
Mary is the one who's done themost interviews and is on the
public record the most.
And even though she did not wantto cooperate or be interviewed
(34:07):
for my book, which I remain verydisappointed about, but I also
understand where she's comingfrom.
She probably thought that I wasjust some other person who
wanted something from her, andshe'd had enough of that in her
life.
(34:29):
But In terms of, so if youdispense with all of these kind
of anachronistic ideas aboutwhat is authentic and what isn't
and actually look at theirperformances, the performances
are really what elevate them toanother level.
(34:51):
They weren't just like, youknow, stand-in session singers.
They were...
they were extraordinaryperformers who worked very hard
at their craft.
And, you know, I might justthrow in here at the moment that
nobody thinks that Elvis is anyless of an authentic performer
because he didn't write his ownmaterial, you know.
(35:12):
So this is really an idea thatgained currency later.
But if...
So the...
There...
Their performances are soemotionally powerful and so
skilled, you know, as well.
(35:34):
I mean, I don't want to sort ofgive the impression that, like,
it's sort of just it's all aboutsort of emotional, like, emotion
with no craft involved as well.
That's categorically not thecase either because they worked.
(35:57):
You know, they started singingwhen they were really, you know,
probably 12 or 13.
They worked hard.
They practised.
They went from, you know, doinglittle shows around, you know,
little local shows around, youknow, Canberra Heights and
(36:18):
Queens to like suddenly likebeing on television.
And, like, going on tour.
And they just had to sink orswim.
And they swam, you know.
I mean, if you think about thefact that Mary Weiss was 15
years old when Leader of thePack went to number one.
SPEAKER_00 (36:37):
That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02 (36:37):
And they had already – it's extraordinary.
And they had already been, youknow, remember walking in the
sand, had already hit.
They got packed off on the roadimmediately.
And suddenly, you know, they'vegone from doing these little
local shows to like doing showsin a different town every night
and having to, you know, andhaving to perform on TV.
(37:00):
It's like, it's extraordinarythat they just like picked it up
so quickly.
And, you know, the stories ofthem, you know, turning up to
play in different cities andthere'd be a different pickup
band wherever they turned up andsometimes they'd have to teach
them the songs.
I mean, you know, like that'sconsummate musicianship to be
(37:25):
able to do that, you know.
So it's this whole idea that,you know, they're somehow lesser
is just like, yeah, I really–the real– you know, if I had to
like boil the– purpose of thebook down to one sentence, it
(37:49):
would be to blow that out of thewater.
It's like, no.
These young women were reallyextraordinary performers.
And their small but incrediblyinfluential body of work really
bears that out.
SPEAKER_00 (38:05):
Yeah, and it's amazing that anyone today who
sees any of those clips of themon TV, they're still
captivating.
They still, you know, it is,it's like, and that's not true
of everybody, but you see theclip and it just gets your
attention.
It's like, wow, who's that?
If you haven't seen it beforeand it's still as good today as
(38:27):
it was back then.
So they really had something.
Did you discover any like subtleways in which the women in the
group did change?
input their preferences in termsof vocals or style or anything
that fed into what peopleperceive as to be the
Shangri-Las?
SPEAKER_02 (38:50):
Well, I think the spoken word parts of the songs,
I really think that was thembecause They– there's little
spoken word components in, like,in their first singles, in,
like, the– so their first– thefirst single they recorded was
(39:12):
in late– it was released in late1963 called Simon Says.
And then early in 1964, this isbefore they signed with Redbird
and before Morton was involved,was– a song called Wishing Well
and Hate to Say I Told You So onthe other side of that.
(39:35):
And there's spoken wordcomponents of those which so
like that wasn't anything to dowith Morton or the songwriters
because they were doing thatbefore then.
So I found that reallyinteresting because that became
something that they were reallywell known for and particularly
(40:00):
with Past, Present and Future,which is the most extraordinary
song and which I discuss atlength in the book.
It's entirely spoken.
There's not a single word that'ssung in that song, which is, you
know, very unusual.
But also that also reallycontributes to the emotional
(40:26):
power of it because it's like adirect address.
It's like...
it's like Mary or the characterin the song is speaking directly
to you.
She's almost whispering, youknow, at times.
And that makes it incrediblypersonal.
SPEAKER_00 (40:44):
When they're speaking, you said their
character, they really did havelike a persona.
Like how would you– you do it inthe book, but how would you
describe– their persona, likewho, who were they as
characters?
If you think of the group asbeing a group of characters.
SPEAKER_02 (41:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I, I guess, you know, theywere sort of teenage girls with,
um, you know, the same problemsthat other teenage girls had or
not just girls, you know,teenagers like as well, you
know, so they, um, you know,they had, they had problems, you
know, problems with theirparents, you know, really big
problems with their parents.
(41:24):
Um, So the parents were alwaystrying to stand in the way of
true love
SPEAKER_01 (41:31):
and
SPEAKER_02 (41:34):
stop their daughters from seeing these guys with
dirty fingernails and ridingmotorbikes.
And often that resulted in thedeath of someone, either the
characters or the love interest.
So...
(41:54):
So, yeah, they really did have avery...
And I think they had a reallystrong connection with their
audience.
Does this break?
If I can just find it quickly.
I don't know whether I can.
(42:19):
But...
SPEAKER_00 (42:23):
By the way, there's such great photos in the book.
It's just a fun book to flipthrough.
SPEAKER_01 (42:32):
Sorry, what was that?
SPEAKER_00 (42:33):
There's just so many great photos in the book.
It's just a fun book to flipthrough and just revisit all
those images and album coversand things like that.
SPEAKER_02 (42:44):
Yeah.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
Yeah.
Yeah, so there's this greatinterview from 1966 in The
Village Voice where, you know,Mary Ann Ganser was sort of
really getting stuck into peoplewho couldn't take their
(43:07):
emotional intensity seriously.
And so she said, they say ourstuff is corny.
Well, a lot of people eat corn.
Besides, if that were true, thenwe wouldn't sell, which we do.
Our lines are realistic andfrank.
Take our latest single.
The girl who's talking in it hashad one tragic affair and is
(43:27):
obviously hung up on it.
Well, we never say she's hung upbecause she let herself go.
We don't put her down for it.
So she's talking there aboutpast, present and future.
And she's basically saying, youknow, like we, you know, we
understand our audience.
We are connected with ouraudience and we talk to our
audience.
(43:48):
And, you know, we don't put themdown.
We are at one with our audience,which is like really amazing.
it's really powerful, you know,and that's partly, you know,
that's partly why the songs areso powerful as well.
SPEAKER_00 (44:05):
Yeah.
Well, one of the things that'sunfortunate is that Oh, yeah.
(44:37):
Things just went wrong.
What happened?
A lot happened, but whathappened exactly?
SPEAKER_02 (44:44):
Well, I think the really key event was the
collapse of the Redbird label.
So that whole little ecosystemthere at the Brill Building with
Morton and Lieber and Stollerwho, you know, clearly
(45:06):
understood and supported andguided Morton with what he was
doing.
That basically fell apartbecause of the other person
other than Lieber and Stoller,who was a partner in the Redbird
label, George Goldner, who'slike a fairly, you know,
(45:26):
legendary person.
music industry figure, he had aterrible gambling problem and he
had a long history of gettinginto financial strife and
borrowing money off loan sharks,aka, you know, mobbed up people.
(45:47):
And he would...
He sold off a series of reallypioneering labels as collateral
to get out of his, to pay offhis gambling debts.
And that's essentially whathappened with Redbird.
(46:10):
And Lieber and Stoller walkedaway and the whole thing
collapsed.
So that meant that theShangri-Las ended up at Mercury.
where they went from being...
It's the equivalent now of, say,Nirvana being on sub-pop records
(46:37):
and then ending up on Geffenrecords.
I mean, it worked out for themfor a little while, but it's the
idea of going from a small...
sort of almost like a familylabel where you're, you know,
you're really part of a familyto this big impersonal sort of
corporation where no one caresabout you.
(46:58):
And that is essentially sort ofwhat happened to the
Shangri-Las.
It's kind of evident in the twosingles that they recorded for
Mercury, of which, you know,there is one incredible song
called I'll Never Learn writtenby a teenage uh Esra Mohawk um
(47:23):
uh and if I mean that that songreally is an indication of what
direction their career couldhave taken if they had been
given more material like that umI couldn't see that they
(47:43):
wouldn't have, you know, gone onto make records for much longer.
Instead, that was relegated tothe B side of their first
Mercury single, which was a, youknow, the A side of which was a
very, you know, unspectacularsong called Sweet Sounds of
Summer.
(48:03):
And then...
The second one was not very goodeither and was complicated
politically.
And that was it.
It didn't sell.
And then the label just lostinterest in them.
(48:25):
And it's terrible.
But even worse than that, theyhad signed this contract with...
with mercury that um preventedthem from uh recording with any
other uh label um for another 10years
SPEAKER_01 (48:43):
so
SPEAKER_02 (48:44):
mercury wasn't interested in them but they
couldn't like work with anyoneelse either so it it it's but
you know that's that's typicalof the music industry
unfortunately um you know ilaugh but it's not funny you
know it's it's it's it'sshocking and um Yeah, so it's no
(49:06):
coincidence that they hadanother crack at it in 1977 and
reformed briefly and did somerecordings, which for Seymour
Stein's Sire label, because theyknew Seymour Stein from, he'd
worked at Redbird as well.
Yeah.
(49:27):
But those recordings have neversurfaced, but I wonder if they
will one of these days.
SPEAKER_00 (49:34):
What was their personal reaction during that
period where they were kind ofblocked out of the industry for
10 years?
How did they personally handleit?
SPEAKER_02 (49:47):
It's hard to know.
The Ganses, I'm not, well, MaryAnn had died in 1970.
I think Margie just, like, triedto, I think they tried to just,
like, assimilate back intonormal life.
(50:09):
I'm fairly sure that Margietried to finish school at some
point because they had beenripped out of school to go on
the road and they'd neverfinished school.
I don't know whether Mary andBetty ever finished school.
(50:33):
I don't think Mary did, but I'mnot sure about Betty.
But, yeah, I think they justtried to kind of, like, move on.
SPEAKER_00 (50:42):
Wow, such a tragic story.
Well, your book, though, doescelebrate their greatness and
makes the case that they aredeserving of real...
you know, that they really dodeserve credit for being leaders
in the industry with what theywere doing.
(51:04):
And you did such a fantasticjob.
Thank you so much, by the way,for joining us today on the Long
Island Music and EntertainmentHall of Fame podcast.
Can you tell people, if theywant to learn more about your
book, is there a place onlinewhere they can find out about
the book and your work and soforth?
SPEAKER_02 (51:28):
Oh, well, I mean, it's available, you know, it's
available through all, like it'savailable internationally, so
there's If it's not in yourlocal bookstore, you should be
able to order it.
There's plenty of places you canorder it online.
For people who are on Instagram,I have an Instagram account
(51:53):
that's dedicated to the book.
It's Lisa underscore McKinneyunderscore author.
So there's all of– If you wantto keep up to date with what's
happening with the book andeverything, you can go there.
There's also like a set of linksof different places where you
(52:17):
can buy the book if you want to.
There's also my publisher'swebsite.
My publisher is Verse ChorusPress.
And so there's information thereabout it as well.
SPEAKER_00 (52:30):
Well, Lisa, when you look back at the whole
experience, you spent a lot ofyears working on this.
What was the most satisfyingaspect of finally putting out
this book for you personally?
SPEAKER_02 (52:44):
Well, I always said that...
So it's actually 20 years sinceI started writing about them.
I started writing the PhD in2005, and it's now...
So it's been a really, reallylong road.
(53:07):
And I always said, you know, thehappiest day of my life would be
when, you know, I was holdingthe book in my hand because it
meant that it had finallyhappened and nothing could go
wrong, you know.
So, yeah, I think that wasactually the, like, That moment
(53:30):
when, you know, I was holding itin my hand and it was like, oh,
it has actually happened, youknow.
That was a really, a reallygreat thing.
But I have to say that it's beenreally wonderful getting
messages from people who'veenjoyed it, you know, or who are
(53:52):
enjoying it and who were justlike, who are really, Because, I
mean, like, you know, I kind ofknow my audience.
You know, I've been trying to,you know, I've been a fan for a
long time and I know whatpeople, like, want to know about
(54:13):
the group, you know, and to someextent I've been able to, you
know, clear a lot of that up.
You know, they've always beenshrouded in mystery, as I said
before, and, you know, part ofthat is their doing and part of
that, is not.
But it's very satisfying to beable to really bring their
(54:40):
achievements to, well, not bringthem to light, but it's kind of
like, you know, it's kind oflike a painting that's been kind
of you know, hidden in a closetfor ages and it's all dusty and,
you know, you take it to arestorer and they sort of clean
it up and the colours, you know,start to, like, be more visible
(55:03):
and then, you know, you see thepicture much clearer, you know,
and that's kind of how I seethis.
You know, I really feel thatthis extraordinary group
deserves to be, to have somekind of, like, in a way that is
(55:28):
sort of that solidifies theirreputation.
And a book is a really good wayto do that because it's like,
okay, you know, there's a bookabout them.
Okay, well, they must be, you
SPEAKER_01 (55:40):
know, serious.
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (55:41):
And, in fact, you know, it's kind of interesting.
There's a friend of mine waslike when it just came out, a
friend of mine bought a copy andwas sitting in a room sitting
somewhere, like in a cafe,reading it.
And the guy behind the bar said,oh, yeah, what are you reading?
And he said, oh, my friend'sjust written this book about the
Shangri-Las.
And he said, oh, I didn't thinkthere'd be much to say about
(56:04):
them.
And I'm just like, oh, you know,he told,
SPEAKER_01 (56:07):
you
SPEAKER_02 (56:07):
know, my friend, like, told me that.
And he said, like, you know,this is the way people still
think about them, you know?
Yeah.
Even if you like some of theirsongs, it's kind of like, oh,
well, you know, they're not thatimportant.
Well, no, I'm afraid they are.
SPEAKER_00 (56:23):
Well, thank you so much for writing the book.
I think we're like-minded soulsand that's what we're doing at
the Hall of Fame.
We're trying to preserve historyand remind people of artists who
have made contributions.
And books are important, likeyou said, and your book is one
of them.
So thank you so much for joiningus today, for writing the book.
(56:44):
And if you are ever on LongIsland, you'll have to come by
and we'll talk to you again,maybe with an audience.
SPEAKER_02 (56:53):
Oh, well, I actually was going to say that if the
next time I'm in the U.S., Iwill definitely be coming and
checking out the Long IslandHall of Fame.
I'm very, very interested tocome and have a look, so for
sure.
SPEAKER_00 (57:08):
That's great.
Okay.
Well, I hope to meet you in thefuture, and best of luck with
the book, and I highly recommendit to everybody.
Thanks again.
Oh,
SPEAKER_02 (57:18):
thank you so much for having me.
It's been a pleasure to talk toyou.
And thank you everyone forlistening.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.