About This Time 60 Years Ago… It’s The Hits Of October-ish 1964!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

“Is she really going out with him?”
“There she is, let’s ask her…”

So begins the greatest teen drama of all time!*

The tale of Betty, her motorcycle riding boyfriend Jimmy, the candy store in which they met**, and the oh-so-tragic ending after Betty breaks up with Jimmy because her Daddy told her to. Complete with sound effects.

“Leader Of The Pack” is not only a teen drama but a Public Service Announcement too, warning bikers of the dangers of riding recklessly whilst under the influence of a broken heart.

Not everything about “Leader Of The Pack” makes a whole lot of sense. Are we supposed to just accept that the other members of The Shangri-las – the Gasner twins – despite having heard the rumours that Betty was going out with Jimmy, had not heard that he had died in a horrible motorcycle accident? Jimmy’s death was public knowledge. All the other kids at school stopped and stared, as Betty failed to hide the tears, but she didn’t care… how were the twins not aware!?!?

Presumedly Betty – performed by Shangri-Las Queen, Mary Weiss, from Queens – had a reputation as a “bad girl”.

Betty/Mary isn’t too fussed over the colour of a guy’s eyes. She doesn’t even know what colour they are, for he’s always wearing shades.

Mary/Betty gets particularly excited over boys with “dirty fingernails.” ”Oh boy what a prize!!!!” she exclaims when she sees them! (“Give Him A Great Big Kiss” is a 9. MMWWAH!)

Oh, sadly it cuts out before we find out if he’s a good dancer. It’s okay, I’m sure you know it:

“What do you mean is he a good dancer?”
“Well, how does he dance?”
“Close“… really, really, close.”

Quite possibly the most sexually charged moment in all of 60s girl group pop!

Maybe that’s why they cut it out.

Then, there’s “Out In The Streets” in which Mary/Betty dates a reformed “bad boy”, a boy who used to hang out with the gang, a boy who used to do wild things…

Betty/Mary has to break up with him. Not because her Daddy told her to. No, this time Mary/Betty must break up with him for his own good. She must set him free. Free to wander the streets with the gang again. Free to be the boy he needs to be.

(“Out In The Streets” is an 8)

Betty so much liked the “bad boys” that this badness sometimes slipped into her regular Mary life. Whilst on tour in Florida, Mary was arrested for smuggling a pistol across state lines. She’d bought one in Georgia because fans kept trying to break into her room. Particularly fans of the creepy male variety.

And then in Texas Mary had a gun pointed at her. By a policeman.

A sheriff, according to some accounts. Because she had used the “coloured” bathroom. Apparently, this wasn’t just frowned upon. Apparently, this was considered a serious enough offence that the sheriff felt it necessary to point a gun at her and yell at her to get out. A serious enough offence that the sheriff and his gun chased her into the bathroom to get her out. This whole thing was wrong on so many levels.

The Shangri-Las were in Texas because were on tour with James Brown, who had booked them by accident.

Rather less cool was the time that one of the twins changed the sign of Marvin Gaye’s dressing room to “Marvin’s Gaye.” I’m sure that’s not the only time someone’s made that joke.

The Shangri-Las interactions with Marvin were always eventful. The first time they met Marvin, he was making his way out of his dressing room, when he almost got hit by a piece of crockery. There are multiple accounts as to how this happened, either (a) the Shangri-Las were having a fight, throwing plates at each other or (b) Dusty Springfield had taught them that throwing crockery against the wall was a good way of dealing with stress.

You know what’s another good way of dealing with stress? Fireworks!

You don’t hear stories like that about The Angels, even if they did have a boyfriend who could kick your butt. I am of course referring to The “My Boyfriend’s Back” Angels, not the hard-rockin’ Australian band The Angels, about whom you most certainly do hear such stories. It’s not for nothing that Dee Snider from Twisted Sister, referred to “Leader Of The Pack” as “metal”.

Dee was defending his choice of covering “Leader Of The Pack” at the time, but he wasn’t exactly wrong.

So, “Leader Of The Pack” or “You Really Got Me”? Which 1964 song was the real birth of metal?

“Leader Of The Pack” was controversial enough that it was banned by the BBC. Of all the songs that have been banned by the BBC, “Leader Of The Pack” might have been banned for the silliest reason: the BBC thought it would egg on the growing rift and street war between the Mods and the Rockers. But whose side would The Shangri-Las have taken?

Now, all of this happened because Shadow Morton had a crush on Ellie Greenwich, the composer – with husband Jeff Barry – of – take a deep breath now – “Da Doo Ron Ron”, “Be My Baby”, “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”, “Then He Kissed Me” and “Chapel Of Love.”

Shadow used to hang around Ellie so much that Jeff got suspicious. Shadow liked to tell everyone he was a song writer, but Jeff wasn’t so sure about that. Nobody had ever heard one of Shadow’s songs. Jeff started to suspect that Shadow was just pretending to be a song writer to get close to Ellie. So Jeff gave Shadow an ultimatum; bring one of his songs in, or else leave Ellie alone.

The thing was, Jeff was right. Shadow wasn’t really a song writer.

He wrote “Remember (Walking In The Sand).” He plastered the sound of seagulls all over it to make it more dramatic. Possibly to remind people of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, which had been released the previous year.

Shadow may have overdone it. The version of “Remember (Walking In The Sand)” that we know is only slightly more than 2 minutes long. But somewhere out there, there is said to be an epic, original, 7-minute version. Seven minutes of even more seagull noises!

(“Remember (Walking In The Sand)” is an 8.)

That meant that when The Shangri-Las visited the UK for a few days – they couldn’t stay longer, they needed to get back to school – about halfway between “Remember (Walking In The Sand)” and “Leader Of The Pack,” all the media seemed to want to talk about were the sound effects. Both Melody Maker and Record Mirror described The Shangri-Las as “the seagull girls.”

Now, the sound effects are obviously an important component of “Remember (Walking In The Sand)” and particularly of “Leader Of The Pack.” But they wouldn’t get you – [thumps chest] – right there, if you didn’t care. If you weren’t already deeply invested in the fate of those two star-crossed love-birds, Jimmy and Betty. After all, the emotional climax of “Leader Of The Pack” is not the sound of the crash, but the sound of panic in Mary/Betty’s voice as she cries “Look Out! Look Out! Look Out!”

How can you possibly top something like “Leader Of The Pack”?

The Shangri-Las did it by getting sadder, and sadder, and sadder.

“DON’T!” Mary interrupts, in the saddest voice you have ever heard.

Then she tells the saddest story, about how she once fell in love with a boy, but her mother wouldn’t let her see him, so Mary ran away from home… but you know what’s funny, she forgot the boy right away. Mary just wanted to return home, back to her mother’s love, to tell her mother that she loved her.

But she couldn’t. Because her mother had just died.

Of a broken heart.

If you are not bawling at the end of “I Can Never Go Home Anymore,” then you clearly have a heart of stone (“I Can Never Go Home Anymore” is a 10.)

Then there was “Past, Present, Future” in which Mary performs a spoken monologue, which may or may not be about getting raped, over the top of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, and… who makes records like these? What kind of girl group makes records like these?(“Past, Present, Future” is a 9)

The Shangri-Las did, that’s who! And that’s why they are more metal than Twisted Sister.

“Leader Of The Pack” is a 10!

*TAKE THAT, “ROMEO & JULIET”!!!!

**Not the most likely location for a meet-cute with a biker-gang-leader methinks.

*** Mary’s sister was actually called Betty, which must have been confusing. Technically Betty was also a member of The Shangri-Las, but you rarely see her. Betty always seemed to be down with the flu, whenever the girls had Shangri-La stuff to do.

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Meanwhile, In, “Oh My God, They Have A Girl Drummer” Land:

Now, you will have noticed I’m sure: that the drummer from The Honeycombs looked rather different to the drummers in other bands. The drummer from The Honeycombs was a girl. She’s the one wearing a bright pink blouse. She’s the one with gravity-defying hair of Dusty-Springfield dimensions.

That drummer’s name was Honey – Honey Lantree – and you will not be surprised to learn that Honey had previously worked as a hairdresser. Yes, the “combs” part of the name was a pun?

But a lot of it was negative. Letters flooded into Melody Maker and Record Mirror complaining about Honey’s very existence. One correspondent suggested that “the formula for group success now seems to be – get a girl drummer.”

This of course begs the question: were there other hot bands with girl drummers storming the charts at the time? Maybe not. But there was a girl bass player!

Their hit – “Tell Me When” – sounded like the kind of relentlessly chipper tune Bobby Vee would have recorded, but played at twice the speed (“Tell Me When” is a 6.)

Meanwhile in Cornwall, “some boys clambered on the stage and pulled (Honey) off. “You expect this sort of thing, really” Honey said in response.

Really? Do you?

Do Cornish boys have the right to pull drummers off the stage? I’m not sure if it was in protest for Honey being a girl drummer, or because they were fans, or if it was something much worse. Honey described it as “terrifying” and certainly it must’ve been.

Visually she might be beaten by Coke-bottle-glasses wearing mole impersonator, Martin Murray.

And aurally? The Honeycombs sound is completely dominated by a blare of sharp-pointed, chiming guitar. A guitar sound that feels almost alien. No surprise really: “Have I The Right?” was produced by Joe Meek, the same guy who brought this piece of space-age-pop into the world a couple of years earlier (“Telstar” is a 10.)

“Have I The Right?” is what happened when goofy, hyperactive post-Beatles “yeah yeah yeah” pop came face to face the latest in mad-scientist technology, reaching levels of forced enthusiasm never previously thought possible without artificial assistance. And indeed, the band had received artificial assistance: rumour has it they sped up the tape.

And isn’t it fortunate that they did? For “Have I The Right?” is not a particularly great song. It’s chipper, it’s in your face, it’s rather annoying… and it sounds like no other record of its time. It’s a curious combination. I honestly can’t decide whether I like “Have I The Right?” or not. It’s a bizarre sounding record – which is something that I usually support – but a lot of those bizarre sounds only serve to make an already kind-of-annoying-song sound even more grating.

On the other hand, without all that studio-trickery, we could be looking at another Gerry & The Pacemaker’s “How Do You Do It?,” and nobody needs that! (“How Do You Do It?” is a 4.)

Honey is hell on the old skins, though.

“Have I The Right?” is a 6.

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Meanwhile, in Stones Land:

Even before they started doing things like writing their own songs, The Rolling Stones were the second biggest band in Britain. The Bad Boy Alternative to The Beatles. There was simply something about them. Something that thrilled the kids. Something that scared the parents.

Much of the grown-up world were first exposed to The Rolling Stones, not through their music, but when they went on Juke Box Jury, a BBC television show where celebrities listened to records and then chatted together about whether they liked them. Convention – and good breeding – dictated that The Rolling Stones should have lied, pretended that they liked the records, or at the very least, been diplomatic about it. They weren’t supposed to say things like “that was ‘orrible, just ‘orrible.”*

Not just Melody Maker, Record Mirror and NME, where The Stones seemed to be on the cover every other week, but proper newspapers as well.

Angry viewers wrote in calling The Stones “disgusting”, saying that they looked like apes. “Rolling Stones: Teach Them Elocution!” demanded the readers of the Manchester Evening News. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner complained that it was “an example of ignorance by unsavoury, unkempt, slovenly, chain-smoking persons.” Numerous readers complained that one of them was chewing gum. All of which just made them seem even cooler.

Nothing underlines just how famous The Rolling Stones were in 1964 than a Melody Maker interview with Mary Weiss.

That’s how big The Stones were. In a list featuring just themselves and Buckingham Palace, they got top billing! The Rolling Stones were a bigger tourist attraction than Buckingham Palace!! Take that, Madame Tussauds!!!

Jokes on Mary though. As the front page of the same edition of Melody Maker proclaimed, Mick and the boys were in New York! Mary should have stayed home.

All this and…

[My next sentence was going to be “and they hadn’t even written a hit song yet.” But then I checked..,]

Mick and Keith had written “Tell Me.” Not a huge hit by any means – it wasn’t even released in the UK – and clearly the work of a band still learning how writing a hit song works, but it exists. (“Tell Me” is a 6.)

Mostly, The Rolling Stones did covers. Covers of Buddy Holly songs, but with a Bo Diddley beat. Covers of blues classics like “Little Red Rooster” and “I Just Wanna Make Love To You.” A cover of the misogynist 50s doo-wop classic “Poison Ivy” for a B-side. As appropriate given that The Rolling Stones origin story involves Mick spying Keith at a train station with a copy of a Chuck Berry record under his arm, they also seemed to cover a lot of Chuck Berry.

Given that The Rolling Stones recorded so many covers in the early days that I suppose I can’t judge too harshly the radio DJ I heard in the 90s, who played the Otis Redding version of “Satisfaction,” and back announced it as being the original. Although on the other hand, what do they teach you in radio school?

But Mick and Keith did not write “Time Is On My Side.” “Time Is On My Side” was one of the covers.

“Time Is On My Side” sounds as though it might be an old blues classic. But it most definitely was not. “Time Is On My Side” was written by a guy called Jerry Ragovoy :

Jerry had been asked by a friend whether he had any material that Kai could record. Something “commercial.” That might seem a weird request for a jazz trombonist.

But Kai was a jazz trombonist who had just had a Top Ten hit with the instrumental movie-theme song “More!” – imagine “Theme From A Summer Place” but with a smattering of twangy-surf guitar – and was trying to capitalize on that success with a handful of surf-longue fusion albums.

So Jerry said, “sure thing!” And knocked out “Time Is On My Side” in about an hour.

The Kai Winding version of “Time Is On My Side” is almost an instrumental. There’s only a handful of lyrics. But those lyrics are belted out by an all-star cast of backing singers, singing the chorus over and over again. We’re talking Dionne Warwick, Dee Dee Warwick, and Cissy Houston! It was, quite frankly, incredible!

Then up-and-coming-and-totally-awesome (and cute too!) Irma Thomas recorded it. But since the original didn’t have any verses – or even a full, proper chorus – all that had to be written, pretty much on the spot – by perpetual music-industry-background-figure Jimmy Norman – whilst Irma came up with the Great Big Gospel Sermon/Spoken Monologue Section aka The Best Part.

Irma’s version is a 9.

And yet, incredibly, it was just a B-side. The A-side was the soul tearjerker and Flamingos-biting “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand,)” (which is an 8) It made it about halfway up the Hot 100 (it’s a 7)

It was Irma’s version that The Rolling Stones heard, having snatched up a copy in Soho. The Stones loved it so much they recorded their version only a couple of days later, by which time Mick had already memorized Irma’s every vocal tic and mannerism, incorporating them into his performance. Which is my nice way of saying that he completely ripped her off.

Irma was pissed. She’s probably still pissed now.

I mean, sure, she wrote the best part, but… – and telling everyone that her version was flying up the charts before the Stones Brit-blocked her** and hence refused to perform it for 20 years.

Whilst no-one would ever confuse something like the Stones’ version of “Under The Boardwalk” for being the original – if only because The Drifters version is so much better in every conceivable way – there’s something about their version of “Time Is On My Side” that sounds as though Mick was born to sing it. That may just be because I’ve heard it so many times, but it also may be because the song simply needs Mick and his misogynist jeering that you’re gonna come back baby, knockin’ on Mick’s door.

Such concerns over whether The Rolling Stones could really call their hits their own would be solved in a few short months, when they decided to start writing songs themselves. They turned out to be quite good at it.

The Rolling Stones’ version of “Time Is On My Side” is an 8.

*Exactly what else The Rolling Stones said on that episode of Juke Box Jury has been lost in the mists of time, because the BBC lost the tape.

**Irma’s remembering this wrong. “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)” – with “Time Is On My Side” on the B-side – had dropped out of the Hot 100 a whole month before the Stones version was even released.

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