The Shangri-Las are GREAT!!!

There is never even a hair out of place. The lyrics are overblown yet totally spot on for teen angst and unrequited/requited gone bad love. The delivery is perfect - not even a trace of irony, just pure emotion with gorgeously unnoticable technique. And the arrangements and production... aaaahhh! Motorcycles in the studio, I'd like to see Stock, Aiken and Whateverman do some of that.

If he'd never opened his WOO! mouth and stuck to playing, could have been the greatest living virtuoso at his instrument.

(and i don't think a band had more death-discs than the Shangri-la's)

classic..

best shangri la's line ever: "dirty fingernails - oooooh what a prize!"

But has anyone heard "Nitemare" by the Whyte Boots? It's the best Shangri La's ripoff ever... The narrator gets in a fight with a girl who has been making eyes at her man (Backup vocals, excited: "Get her! Get her! Push Her Down!") and accidentally kills her (Backup vocals, mournful: "She didn't wanna fight! She didn't wanna fight")... hysteria, sirens, oh no no no no...

YES!!! I have Nightmare on one of my Girls in the Garage comps, and it is aceness incarnate! Oh, the sirens, the blubbing of the girl as the oooo-oooo-ooohs swell along with the sirens... It's like a camp, out of control John Waters version of the Shangri-Las.

fugazi would dissaprove

I know! That song should make me bust a gut--it's so over the top--but I always find it really disturbing by the end. Sort of like "Once You Understand" by Think, the anti-drug, pro-parent/teen communication song. That dad's sobs are way too real to me. I'm such a sap.

Yes, the Shangri-Las are GREAT, Kate, I agree completely!!!

I'm 99% sure this is The Crystals, not the Shangri-Las at all.

That fact aside, that song has always fascinated me. It's sick and it's wrong, but it's also intensely compelling, because it really makes you see the emotional logic behind staying with an abusive lover. I hadn't heard it for years, then having got OUT OF an abusive relationship, I went back and listened to it again, and it sent shivers down my spine for how OTM it was in so many ways.

thats the only song of their's i know though,what else is good?

Also, not that this should be something to be proud of, but I do believe Shadow Morton invented trip-hop on "He Cried."

Shangri-Las = everything.

I like the Shangri-Las better than any Motown or Phil Spector group, which is saying an awful lot. RPM released an amazing Shangri-Las comp awhile back, "Myrmidons of Melodrama," that includes almost everything they ever did - even radio commercials!

Is it coincidence that the Shangri-Las - who are possibly the girl group best loved by the Indie Contingent - were probably the most (only?) successful white group in a genre that was otherwise overwhelmingly black - eg, the Crystals, Ronettes, Supremes, Chiffons, etc. I'd argue that the Ronettes were more aesthetically worthy in terms of sheer musical ability, or that the Supremes were obviously more commercially successful. Yet it is the Shangri-Las who are name-checked again and again by the indie RAWK giants (from the New York Dolls to Primal Scream) when they want to hark back to the girl group era.

Farbeit for me to cry racism when I'm trying to decry sexism, but it's something that has only just struck me, and it's something I'm puzzled by.

(not sure what I was on about in some parts)

ps - just read tom's essay on Past, Present & Future. that's wonderful. although Remember (Walking In The Sand) does impact me, oh dear i must love false moves :-(

not sure what you mean, though, about the story not turning out the way you expected. it always seemed kind of straightforward to me.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search=shangri-las&search_type=search_videos&search=Search

I posted this link on the Mary Weiss thread (it's a recent interview with her), but nothing wrong with adding it here, too:
http://www.nortonrecords.com/maryweiss/index.html

"...Hey! ...Hey!"

Listened through my crummy 10-song compilation just now -- and was crying, laughing and conducting orchestra/band simultaneously most of the way. Even listening again, trying to make out HOW that sound was made except for the voices, piano and bass (when that piano wasnt the bass) I'm still at a loss as to the mechanics of this genius. The direction of detail!

Must get Myrmidons. Off to YouTube now.

OK grebt talkybits quotations must also happen:

-- What color are his eyes?
-- I dunno, he's always wearing shades!
-- Is he tall?
-- Well... I gotta look up!
-- Yeeah? Well I hear he's Bad.
-- Mmm. He's good bad, but he's not Evil.

You know it just occured to me for the first time what a great name 'The Shangri- Las' is.....

here's a toast *CLINK* to happiness.

fuck..

"The Leader on The Mac"
Parody Written by:
Agrimorfee
http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/theshangrilas7.shtml

(spoken:)
Was she really hooking up with him?
There she is, let's query her.
Betty, is that Jimmy's mousepad you're holding?...
Mm-hm...
Gee, it must be fun chatting with him!
Is he meetin you after work today?...
Nuh-uh...
By the way, how'd you meet him?

I met him through his Myspace blog
I PM'd him, he PM'd me
We traded jpegs (Oh, we see!)
The techie I fell for--The Leader on the Mac!
(SFX: bleep boop beep, buzzzzzz!)

Our boss was always putting him down (down! down!)
He said that Steve Jobs was a worthless clown
(He was mean and he teased that Steve Jobs was a worthless clown!)
Jim gave me his nice mouse pad
And I thought he was rad!
Well, I-M-H-O--the Leader on the Mac!
(SFX again)

One day our boss said, "It's time to renew
We're going with PCs for the work that we do"
(The boss, he's so cruel, a reconfig to PCs is what he'll do)
Jim's screwed here, do you know why?
He'll have to recertify!
I'm sorry they canned you--the Leader on the Mac!
(SFX again)

(spoken:)
He cleaned out his desk, and then my C Drive
--He didn't want our love notes to show
As he walked away, blowing a kiss goodbye,
I begged him, "please don't go!"
What was his password? I'll never know
(No no no no no...)
Log Out! Log Out! Log Out! Log Out!
(SFX: The system CRASHES!)

Since he was jobless, what did he do?
He fried the drives in the server room!
The boss was caught unaware
Our data's erased, but I don't care
You really did show them! You Leader on the Mac!
(general computer SFX again)

(ooooh....)
The program's been hacked. Data's gone!
The program's been hacked. Data's gone!
The program's been hacked. Data's gone!

(SFX modems, Microsoft bleeps, bleeps, IE Explorer opening tones, the Intel tones, etc. fadeout....END PROGRAM)

That is the best thing ever.

R.I.P. Shadow Morton

RIP

RIP. "Remember" is like the best song ever written.

I don't think I knew he was still alive. "Train from Kansas City" or "Out in the Street" is my favourite. And the second Dolls album is great in a different way than the first.

Didn't know he was still around either. Didn't know he produced "Society's Child" or a few others. Must have sensed his passing when I chose my new screenname. RIP

yes, they are

separate thread started:

I'll never forget him (the leader of the pack): RIP Shadow Morton

http://nypost.com/2014/05/17/ahead-of-the-pack-how-the-shangri-las-created-punk/

Nice article--good stories re James Brown and stuff. Didn't realize how young they were back then.

Wish I were able to express how great I think the lyrics of "Out in the Streets" are (...to say nothing of the music & vocal performance).

Aside from the line "Streetlights shining above" (which adds a touch of poetry), the vocabulary and grammar are incredibly basic; it's elementary-level English ("bad / sad," etc.). And yet the story is so clear & powerful... the songwriting is kist a masterpiece of precision, with an unmatchable(?) ratio of economy:expression.

Just the volumes contained in this couplet alone (which almost functions as a distillation of the entire song):

They're waiting out there
I know I gotta set him free

Also, I don't know how to transcribe rhyme schemes, but each of the three verses is like this:

------A
------B
------A
--B(-)C
------C
("...His heart is out in the streets")

The song is so simple and yet sophisticated at the same, just a perfect piece of pop artistry, you know what I mean...

(^sorry, don't know what 'kist' means... give him a great big kist)

Has there ever been a band as perfect as the Shangri-Las? I don't think so.
There is never even a hair out of place. The lyrics are overblown yet totally spot on for teen angst and unrequited/requited gone bad love. The delivery is perfect - not even a trace of irony, just pure emotion with gorgeously unnoticable technique. And the arrangements and production... aaaahhh! Motorcycles in the studio, I'd like to see Stock, Aiken and Whateverman do some of that.

― kate, Monday, November 4, 2002 7:59 AM (twenty-one years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pretty sure this thread was what got me to pull the trigger on picking up (the first version of) Myrmidons of Melodrama in my early ilx days.

Thank You, Thread.

Thank You, Mary.

Oh shit, I hadn’t heard… 😞

RIP legend <3

Favourite, "Out in the Streets"; "Train from Kansas City" after that. This is the compilation I have, which was a cheaper alternative at the time to an original best-of (came out in 1980, part of a series with the Dixie Cups).

https://i.postimg.cc/Y2mS7m60/mary.jpg

(Repeating myself from 11 years ago...)

RIP Mary Weiss

The delivery is perfect - not even a trace of irony

...yet the songs and production are soaked in camp; it was a neat trick. I liked many more of their songs than I expected to when I heard their greatest hits.

(I see the Teen Anguish series dwindled after three volumes, someone should revive it for a Korn compilation.)

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

I was today years old when I learned that line didn't belong to the New York Dolls

RIP

So every time I heard a Shangri-Las song I assumed they were from the early 60s pre-Beatles era. But there was always something I felt really deliberately campy about them, more than just imposing my present day perspective on something that once read as earnest to its audience.
Only just yesterday did it strike me that their hit making years were actually in the mid-60s, overlapping with Dylan and the Beatles, competing with Rubber Soul, Revolver, Like a Rolling Stone on the charts.

I was wondering if the Shanghai-Las read as camp at the time or as an already deliberate anachronism? Like Sha-Na-Na a couple years later?

"once read as earnest to its audience" is i think an extremely perilous thing to project onto our predecessors -- they were just as much in two minds as us abt pop stuff (all kinds of stuff in fact) and naturally processed this via irony, bcz that's what you do

I was barely a kid, so no idea if there was some cognizance of their relationship to developing ideas about camp in 1964/65--their peak coincided with Susan Sontag's essay--but I doubt it; my guess is that they were perceived more or less how the Supremes, Ronettes, and all the other girl-groups were. It's hard for me to think of them as belonging to the same universe as Sha-Na-Na, just in terms of the Shangri-Las being a trillion times better.

oh, fuck.

one of my teachers in high school had played in a band in his youth who opened for the Shangri-La's

re: how they may have been perceived, he claimed he saw Mary Weiss down an entire bottle of whiskey in seconds in the locker room. said he was scared to approach her after that.

(i assume they shared a locker room, don't think he was a creep)

They performed with groups like the Beatles, Stones, Herman’s Hermits, James Brown… Iggy and the Iguanas backed them once… they hung out with the Beach Boys and Zombies… that was their milieu. I wasn’t around, but I don’t see why they would’ve been perceived with any sense of irony or camp.

What did Roxon say about them in the Rock Encyclopedia (if anything)? I remember her entry on the Ronettes commenting on the OTT-ness of their image, saying their records made boys feel like men and the visual appeal was akin to 'girly mags come to life.'

^^XP to Clem

Big no to the camp thing.

_When I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love, L-U-V!_


I was today years old when I learned that line didn't belong to the New York Dolls

RIP

And now I am hearing in my mind’s ear the Johnny Thunders cover of the original song on So Alone.

“Hey Johnny, what color are her eyes?”

Roxon does have a short entry on them. I can quote it, but it's probably a little dated.

Here's Dee Snider (apologies, it's an NY Post link, but a good article):

“Talking about someone dying, that’s metal. The bad guys in leather jackets, that’s metal. The bad kids, that’s metal (...). And that driving chord structure — there was such a heaviness to that song. It’s a metal song. (...)

Mary, with the long blond hair, was very striking. They were wearing leather jackets, and they looked tough, too. They didn’t look like good girls,” says Snider. “They looked like the girls all the bad guys wanted.”

("that song" = "Leader of the Pack," btw)

Good article, thanks!

Also didn't realize how young they were at their peak.

The song that was so metal it derailed Twisted Sister's career!

Did it really?

"Leader of the Pack"'s great, and ingenious, but it lost something for me after hearing the excerpted chorus a few hundred times on radio and TV commercials for early-'70s golden-age compilations. (Ditto with "Chantilly Lace," but there it was the intro.)

Following the massive success of 1984's Stay Hungry which established Twisted Sister as one of the world's top recording acts, the band was faced with the question of whether they should continue in the same MTV and radio-friendly direction that brought them so much success, or return to their heavy metal roots. Come Out and Play saw them attempt to do both, but the approach ultimately proved devastatingly unsuccessful and the album marked the beginning of the band's commercial decline. The band's decision to record a cover of the 1964 Shangri-Las' hit "Leader of the Pack" and release it as the album's first single proved very unpopular with the band's fanbase.

xp Yeah - not to be all "true fan sniffing at the popular favorites," but "Leader" isn't necessarily one of my favorite Shangri-Las songs... it's one step away from a novelty song really (not that that is a bad thing)

A very worthy cover, I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFVbO_OqDXE

I like the Neko Case version

Superchunk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3iaRPIa3M8

Audacious or poor taste: Mad Men ended the Richard Speck episode--one of the best ever, I'd say--with "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)." (Also, appropriately enough, the episode where Joan tells her creep of a husband Greg to leave.)

That's the Crystals

My favorite Shangri-Las jams:

Remember (Walkin' in the Sand)
Great Big Kiss
Out in the Streets
Heaven Only Knows
Never Again
Paradise
I Can Never Go Home Anymore (esp. the version with "Listen, I'm not finished...")
Dressed in Black (Betty sings lead on this one)
Past, Present & Future
I'll Never Learn
Footsteps on the Roof

I also have a soft spot for their early singles ("Simon Says," "Wishing Well," "Hate to Say I Told You So" – all sung by Betty)

(xpost) Of course! Proceed a pace.

morrisp's list has got it, I would only add "Right Now and Not Later" and "Train from Kansas City"

Yeah and if you’re making a true playlist, obviously Include “Leader of the Pack” as well

The Pussycats' contemporaneous version of "Dressed in Black" is so good too, glad I don't have to pick a favorite

^^One of the interesting revelations of the Rhino Girl Group box were those 'dress rehearsal ' versions of that and "Sophisticated Boom-Boom" by other acts produced by Shadow Morton (which he apparently preferred to the Shangs?!).

Yeah the blurb claims Morton had the hots for the lead singer of the other group (“The Goodies”*), and wanted to give them “Leader of the Pack,” but Leiber & Stoller (Red Bird) said no…

*not to be confused with The Goodees, from Memphis, who are totally awesome

Thinking about my mistake above, doesn't it feel like "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss" ought to have been the Shangri-Las?

Their version would be like "He Hit Me (And Then He Died in a Car Crash)"

xp No(?)

The Crystals of "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Then He Kissed Me" are ultra romantic, fairy tale-level almost (cf. Goodfellas); I can much more imagine the Shangri-Las involved in that kind of awful relationship. (He's good-bad, and he's evil.)

I'm treating the Shangri-Las and the Crystals like they're a person...you know what I mean.

Supposedly it was Little Eva's abusive boyfriend who inspired "He Hit Me..."

Alison Anders spun that story from abuse to teen pregnancy for the 'banned song' plotline in Grace of My Heart.

That song would sully any group's discography – but beyond that, if the "bad boy" of Shangri-Las songs were actually bad (and not just misunderstood), it would ruin the whole point.

Anyway, it was released before the group formed; they never sang a Goffin-King song; and (thank god) never worked with Spector.

Yeah the blurb claims Morton had the hots for the lead singer of the other group (“The Goodies”*), and wanted to give them “Leader of the Pack,” but Leiber & Stoller (Red Bird) said no…

*not to be confused with The Goodees, from Memphis, who are totally awesome

Oh no...RIP Mary. I love this performance (not lip-synched)...all the little gestures and facial expressions (the scrunching during "dirty fingernails", etc.) are too adorable. And the "MWAH!" makes me laugh uncontrollably every time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0O6tabbjjk

^^ yes that is the best

Ed Wynn hosted Shindig!? That's surreal.

TIL that (not-great) album track “You Cheated, You Lied” was written by Levon Helm.

Prob no revelations to any of yall, but this 2007 interview's succinct, action-packed backstory had some news for me:https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/mary-weiss-girl-group-icon-1234950550/

But with a new album, Dangerous Game (out March 6), Weiss has picked up music again. Backed by Memphis garage rockers the Reigning Sound, Weiss tackles a dozen new songs offering a raw, near-punk take on the girl-group sound. The best of the bunch is the rueful “Cry About the Radio,” which begins with the declaration “Kids don’t know shit.”

I never heard that album but I saw two of her gigs in support of it, which included enough Shangri-Las hits to keep them interesting. After one of those gigs, which was at a street fair in Brooklyn, I met her on the sidewalk and we had a nice brief conversation. She was exactly as I had imagined she would be.

Well, what colour were her eyes?

lol

Running all the Shangri-Las lyrics through my head to come up with a good answer to hat question but drawing a blank

And that’s called sad

And now I'm seeing her eyes being blue.

I was disappointed in that solo record, seemed a little too polished for a Norton release, although it also felt like the material would've come off well live. However I'll also say that when I bought it, it was one of several albums I bought that day, so I might not have given it sufficient attention.

She promoted it on Conan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9nnb4DIc4o

That Shindig performance is great, but I'm always amused by the randomness of staging on shows of that era - like "let's make sure the anonymous drummer's kit is out in front of the singing group".

The beat is such a focus in that song (almost a “hook”), that I can kind of see why they did it. Love the outfits…

Wow, YouTube just threw this Entertainment Tonight report from '89 about a fake Shangs hitting the Oldies circuit and the surviving originals reuniting to sue them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQB8mYd-ozo

Ah, click the "watch on" button, it's totally worth it to see the dickhead impresario behind the new group lie through his teeth.

Marge goes OFF in that clip, ha ha... love her attitude

Yeah, that producer dude is such a cartoonish sleezebag

I wonder if the material they recorded w/Andy Paley in 1977 (for Sire) has ever leaked/surfaced...

XP Yeah, the Gansers both seem ready to audition for supporting roles on The Sopranos.

xp seemingly not.

https://www.spectropop.com/Shangri-Las/

also per some random hoffman thread: "NOPE.And everyone involved that's been approached claims the tapes are 'LOST'.Right.NOBODY had an acetate or reference cassette............."

Of course when they played at CBGBs in 1977, Mary Weiss was younger than a lot (most?) of the musicians more associated with CBGBs in 1977.

https://andypaleywebsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/l-1.jpg

some really remarkable photos here: https://www.gettyimages.in/photos/shangri-las

NY Times obit quoting from Emerson book :

Ellie Greenwich, who wrote “Leader of the Pack” with Jeff Barry and Mr. Morton as well as two other Shangri-Las singles with Mr. Barry, told Mr. Emerson: “The Shangri-Las were tough girls and I was somewhat afraid of them. They had an attitude before they made it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/22/arts/music/mary-weiss-dead.html

X-post - yep , those photos trace part of her life from age 16 on well

That’s like one of my favorite books ever.

“I’m kind of a shy person, but I felt that the recording studio was the place that you could really release what you’re feeling without everybody looking at you,” Ms. Weiss was quoted as saying in “Always Magic in the Air,” Ken Emerson’s 2005 book about notable songwriting teams of early rock ’n’ roll.

Also note the use of “notable songwriting teams.”

Oh, Gavin E wrote that.

Wow, the ABC Evening News tonight ended with a little story about Mary & the group, featuring vintage footage and even some audio from a NPR interview.

Here’s another obit ( that makes use of other ones well)

https://timnapalmstegall.substack.com/p/in-memoriam-mary-weiss-of-the-shangri?r=ltcc6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwAR2oGYGuvUOIFZWuJ7ozjDNERNdyq5vciUfC026nZGIRKrBmiwFgBsQklUo_aem_AYtsdZCgBwgrGgwfncOh_-BCqKb_WzBFQCWHsJO9k0RsyhNKMZTtTD_jG1zktADGyFc

Tim Stegall!

this is cool

The Shangs & Robert Goulet on I've Got A Secret

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9WA5I2t26w

lol Betsy Palmer is killing it

wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQB8mYd-ozo

I posted that upthread, but this also allows me to correct this:

Yeah, the Gansers Marge & Betty both seem ready to audition for supporting roles on The Sopranos.

...because I got it backwards on which sister member of the band had already died.

Just learned this about why Betty originally left the group:

Betty Weiss had a daughter in 1964, necessitating her absence from the group during this period. She was the only member of the group to have a child (who was raised with the help of Betty's brother George Weiss, who died in 1998).

Spiritual daughters the Go-Go's do "Remember..." live in '81:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiNmzel65go

I didn't know that about Betty (kind of throws a different light on the "Betty, is your boyfriend out there?" teasing in that Studio Chatter video)

Come to think of it, it’s funny that Mary is addressed as “Betty” in the “Leader of the Pack” intro. I guess she’s playing a character called Betty.

Yeah I've thought the same thing. As a side note, Wikipedia says the following in the "Lead vocalist, per song" section, which is interesting if true:

"Leader of the Pack" — Mary and Betty in tandem (i.e., singing the same notes and words), with Mary mixed slightly louder

(regardless, it's obv Mary who pantomimes the question/answer part in the TV lipsync clips, etc.)

Interesting. Maybe the original intention was for Betty to be the lead, or the louder lead.

Not to stir up a nest of bees, but the Shangs did two pro-Vietnam War songs, didn’t they. “Long Live Our Love” implicitly, and “Take the Time” explicitly. “Long Live Our Love” is the only track I skip on my copy of Golden Hits of the Shangri-Las, the same record Betty is holding in that Entertainment Tonight clip.

They addressed it later IIRC, saying something like, “The Shangri-Las didn’t support the war, but we supported the troops.” It’s probably in the liner notes of one of the Myrmidons comps, I can check later (I skip those tracks too, fwiw…).

If you wanna get real… what’s yr fave Revlon Good Taste Tip?

“It is correct to pause and let him know you expect him to act like a gentleman”

Don’t barge on ahead like a baby elephant, bro

Here's that ABC Evening News clip mentioned upthread:
https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/remembering-shangri-las-singer-mary-weiss-106584152

Great & Expansive 2006 interview w/Mary from KICKS:

https://kicksvilleusa.com/blog

BM: Dusty Springfield?

MW: Yes. Dusty is an absolutely amazing talent. The Shangri-Las were in London doing Top Of The Pops and Ready! Steady! Go! Dusty was having a very large party in her flat. It started out all civilized, nice French doors and antique desks. And she started a food fight and I'm hiding under this lovely French desk with her manager and fish and food are flying by! They were actually throwing pies later in the night. So Mary Ann goes to put her boots on and they were filled with fish! But, Mary Ann got even with Dusty. She waited and waited and the next time we were with Dusty at the Brooklyn Fox, Mary Ann put fish in Dusty's shoes. And that's called…payback! (laughs)

This thread is making me (even) sadder about Mary’s passing

Wow, she says “Wishing Well” was a demo that the label cleaned up and released.

MW: I was with George at some arena show when he met Phil Spector.

BM: Wow! What was that like?

MW: Oil and water! That's all I can say. I was not happy to be there.

We were so busy. It was very different then. Now these singers say how rough they have it. They don't have a clue. Not a clue. Ride in a bus every night. Sleep every other night. See how that feels. People don't realize how hard it was back then. There were no monitors at the time. Sometimes you were screaming just to hear yourself singing.

Ah, here we go, this is the quote I was talking about earlier:

BM: The last Shangri-Las single Take The Time from 1967 is weird, a pro-Vietnam record.

MW: I never wanted to record that song. I was completely against the Vietnam War and I protested accordingly. Still, the Shangri-Las supported our servicemen and women and I've done many shows for them.

ML: How did Monti Rock end up doing your hair?

MW: He did our hair on that album cover nobody likes on Mercury, where we look Mod. Monti, wherever you are, what were you thinking?

ML: But you look so sultry there, like Veronica Lake.

MW: I look stupid. I didn't like it at all.

https://i.discogs.com/1htZxyz2M7_BGIMm9sgXfgNdcuZIcXGdxI1BYqKDipo/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:564/w:598/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE5NTAw/NjUtMTM4ODIzMjQy/NS0yMjE0LmpwZWc.jpeg

MW: I come from an extremely poor family. The Gansers were relatively poor. Nobody had any money. No money for attorneys. So considering where the four of us came from, with no support, no guidance and nothing behind us, we didn't have proper outfits onstage. I mean nothing. It's a miracle in itself to come from those circumstances and have hit records, so I'm very grateful.

That was a great interview, thanks for sharing it...

I always liked that Golden Hits album cover despite the fact it doesn't capture Mary's moodiness. And Betty's hair was usually darker than that I think? I don't care, I love it, it was the first Shangri-Las album I bought - circa 1991 for $4.95 (price tag is still on it!). Their original 45s went for about $3 each back then and I bought many of them too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pUOWKeBIxM

When Mary Weiss died I was shy about relating this anecdote, but I will do so now. When she released her solo album in the oughts I met her on the sidewalk in Brooklyn where she was performing in support of her record. We had this exchange:

Me: I used to play one of your songs with a band

Mary: Which one?

Me: “Sophisticated Boom Boom”

Mary: Ehh, I never really liked that song

lol

ha amazing <3

love! <3

Was that The Cosmopolitans?

No, it was about a decade later than them

Kid Congo's band Knoxville Girls also used to play it, later still