From the Wrong Side of Town

The Radio Melodrama continues

Photo: David Dalton

George "Shadow" Morton wrote and produced The Shangri-Las' biggest, most unusual, and consequently most enduring hits. The girls met him while auditioning for another producer and turned out to be the perfect vehicles to enact the radio melodramas playing inside the young producer's head.

The story of The Shangri-Las' first single for Morton and, eventually, Red Bird Records is an often-told musical legend. Morton spent his teenage years on Long Island, where he encountered Ellie Greenwich, who became a hot commodity after penning a couple of massive hit songs, including the Phil Spector-produced "Be My Baby" for The Ronettes in 1963.

Greenwich wrote songs with partner -- later husband -- Jeff Barry at the Brill Building, an 11-story office tower in mid-town Manhattan that was largely populated with indie record labels, writers, and producers. During their first encounter at the songwriting duo’s office there, Barry immediately disliked Morton, challenging the producer, who claimed he wrote hit songs, to put up or shut up. According to Morton, he left the meeting, drove to the beach and wrote "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" in his Buick.

In an alternate version of the story, Morton decided to prove himself to Barry and Greenwich by recording a demo, contacted a friend who owned a recording studio, assembled a group of musicians (a teenage Billy Joel among them) to play, convinced The Shangri-Las to perform, and on his way to the session realized he had everything but a song. He pulled over and wrote "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" on his way to the studio.

Morton cut a 7-minute version of the single and brought if back for Jeff and Ellie to hear. The song was so unusual they took it to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, songwriters and music producers famous for writing hits for Elvis Presley (“Hound Dog”) and The Coasters (“Yakety-Yak”), who were in the early stages of launching their own record label, Red Bird.

According to Leiber and Stoller: "[Morton] was making little radio playlettes. They're like mini radio soap operas and the first one we heard was "Remember (Walking in the Sand)". We thought it was very corny, but very sweet and finally, somewhere, very touching. It wasn't synthetic; it was for real -- like he was." But the song would be nothing without the vocal performance that delivers it.

"I mean I made demands on Mary Weiss that were extraordinary," says Morton. "When you listen to her records today and imagine that this is coming from a 15-16 year old girl. I was asking her to be an actress, not just a singer."

Stray audio from the "Remember" recording session captures Mary's struggle along with (I’m guessing the group’s unofficial leader) Mary Ann Ganser's supportive advice:

Mary: "I crack on the low notes. Did you hear that?
Mary Ann: "Don't press it so much you're really gonna get hoarse. Don't force."
Mary: "But he said to sing it loud and I can't sing it any way like that."
Mary Ann: "You're forcing it. You're really overdo - you never sing it that loud. Never."
Mary: "It's the only way I can get the notes out. It's too high."
”Shadow” Morton interrupts: "Let me hear you sing it soft."
Mary Weiss replies: "It sounds crappy."

On the way to signing the group and re-recording a shorter version of what would become its first single for Red Bird, the old contract with Kama Sutra resurfaced (see previous post). Due to the nature of that early agreement, concessions were made and Artie Ripp got production credit on the single. The girls were signed to Red Bird in April of 1964. "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" came out in August and shot straight up the U.S. charts, reaching #13 in three weeks and peaking at #5. The single remained in the top 10 for 6 weeks.

It was an incredibly creative time in pop music, and "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" was immediately beloved for its unusual production, melodramatic lyrics, and the echoey spookiness of the arrangement that includes the sound of seagulls on a beach, gorgeous backing harmonies, and a striking vocal performance by Mary Weiss, which wholeheartedly delivers the heightened emotion of teen love lost.

Following the single's success the group was booked to do a range of public appearances. In Alan Betrock's Girl Groups: The Story of a Sound, Mary reminisces about this period in their career: "Our first television appearance was on Clark Race's show in Pittsburgh. We didn't know anything about TV. We wore skirts and white shell blouses. We didn't have any makeup on and we shone like a bunch of headlights. You know, the kids in the audience can tell if you're professional or amateur, and boy, did we come on amateur. They held their breath for us. Then afterward this fourteen-year-old kid came up and said, 'Don't worry kid, you'll make it...'"

Mary remembers "what we wore onstage after we started making money. I mean you can see the difference from early on. We didn't have any clothes. Where you saw other groups who had money and support behind them were extremely well-dressed from the beginning, we were out there pretty much in our street clothes. But then, when we started making money, we designed our own clothes and had them made in the Village."

The girls soon developed a distinctive image, dressing in tight pants and leather boots. They favored a tough look that made them stand out from other female performers of the time. "I never thought much about image," says Mary. "I just didn't like chiffon dresses and high heels. That's as honest as I can be. I never liked women's slacks back then. Low rise pants in 1964. They just didn't make ‘em, so I used to go to a place on 8th Street and have men's clothes tailored for me."

The Shangri-Las were quickly added to rock revues, starting at the Brooklyn Fox, where they performed their one hit on a bill that included Martha and the Vandellas and Marvin Gaye. When "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" reached #14 in England, the girls flew over for a short tour.

With a bonafide hit on their hands, the label pressed “Shadow” Morton for a follow up. Again, stories about the origins of this song conflict. Morton claims he had already thought up the title and the story line and was preparing "Leader of the Pack" for another vocal group called The Bunnies. According to him, Leiber and Stoller rejected the idea outright, fearing people would be turned off by the story of doomed love between a teenage girl and the leader of a motorcycle gang. Morton claims he got a cigar and a bottle of champagne and retired to his bathroom, writing the lyrics in crayon on a shirt cardboard.

Red Bird honchos Lieber and Stoller recall making the decision to pair the green producer with Barry and Greenwich, the more-seasoned pros who originally brought him to their attention, to produce The Shangri-Las' second single.

Greenwich remembers the three songwriters discussing the popularity of motorcycles and motorcycle clubs and brainstorming the single's title together. In Betrock's book, she describes the discussion as: "'How about a song about a motorcycle?' And then somebody said, 'Where there's bikers there's always a pack,' and somebody said, 'yeah, and there's always a leader.' So we had a pack and a leader and before we knew it, it took off from there and came up with 'Leader of the Pack.'" (Ellie Greenwich's hits were later collected into a jukebox musical that bares this name.)

Morton’s account in The Telegraph makes it seem as if he was discouraged from recording the single: "I have a song. It is about a motorcycle guy who drives into town and sees these kids on the corner, and he spots the girl and they get together and fall in love." Leiber said: "No way, disc jockeys won't play that, moms and dads aren't going to like it." I said: "Wait a second, it gets better. He dies."' Though Lieber supposedly was unmoved, the rebellious Morton decided to prove his boss wrong and ended up at Ultrasonic Sound, a recording studio on the second floor of a mid-town Manhattan hotel.

Stories conflict about the motorcycle that roars throughout the track. Mary Weiss claims it came from a sound effects record (most likely), while Morton tells the story of wheeling a real bike through the hotel lobby, up the elevator and into the studio. According to him, the stunt supposedly resulted in the police being called and a ticket issued.

In her book Are You There God, It's Me, Mary, Tracy Landecker describes the single as "so emotionally perilous and in-your face it seems born of full-moon lunacy." Over a few piano chords Mary can be heard humming to herself. In every television performance of the song, she is set apart and appears distracted, her long blond hair swept to the right. Mary Ann and Margie look on under matching brunette bouffants. (At this point, Betty Weiss had left the group temporarily because she didn't care much for performing. While she continued to record, she wouldn't return to the stage until 1965. Stories conflict here as well, including innuendo that Betty's absence may have been due to an unexpected pregnancy.)

"Leader of the Pack" begins mid-conversation. Two girls are gossiping about a third. One asks, "Is she really going out with him?" The other replies, "Well, there she is, let's ask her."
"Betty, is that Jimmy's ring you're wearing?"
"Mm-hm"
"Gee, it must be great riding with him. Is he picking you up after school today?"
"Mm-mm"
"By the way, where did you meet him?"
"I met him at the candy store
He turned around and smiled at me
You get the picture?"
"Yes, we see"
"That's when I fell for the leader of the pack."

In the song, Mary's character, Betty, has taken up with a boy, but her parents don't approve. As was usually the case with The Shangri-Las, the girl singer knows the boy better than anyone else. He lets his guard down with her, revealing the well of pain behind his facade and becoming more tender than tough. His exterior hardness is necessary protection from a hard world. "They told me he was bad but I knew he was sad. That's why I fell for the leader of the pack."

As was the case with their first single, "Leader of the Pack" is decidedly cinematic in its deployment of a plot that becomes increasingly twisted as the song progresses. This forbidden love story begins innocently in a candy store, but ends on rain-slicked streets with the sound of skidding wheels and breaking glass.

The song's final spoken word section recounts the doomed teenage love's final chapter:
"He sort of smiled and kissed me good bye
The tears were beginning to show
As he drove away on that rainy night,
I begged him to go slow,
Whether he heard, I'll never know."

"Look out! Look out! Look out!"

After the accident, Betty is alone again, a widow of sorts roaming the hallways at school, unable and unwilling to hide her grief. She becomes an object of speculation, her experience separating her, too, from the pack. The song’s title takes on a dual meaning, first naming Betty’s object of desire then describing the role she assumes. Her premature loss of innocence makes Betty the leader of her own pack of girls facing the harsh realities of adulthood.

In two minutes and fifty-four seconds, "Leader of the Pack" deftly shifts between musical movements that provide short soundtracks for the highly visual scenes its lyrics depict. The song is an extended flashback relaying the tale of Betty and Jimmy's heartbreak. Mary, Margie and Mary Ann play their parts beautifully, transporting us from an encounter in the school hallway through the mini tragedy and back again. The song concludes with an angelic choir. As the girls harmonize the word "gone", they carry Jimmy's spirit into the heavens, and echo after Betty as she continues her haunted journey through school.

Joining a musical tradition of teen death discs including Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel," Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her," and "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan and Dean, "Leader of the Pack" was released at the end of September 1964 and became an instant classic. The group was immediately dispatched to promote the single, performing with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and joining a U.S. tour of R&B acts including The Drifters and James Brown. Despite being banned on some stations for "glorifying motorcycle gangs," the song reached number one in the US the final week of November, displacing The Supremes' "Baby Love," and remaining in the top ten for six weeks. "Leader of the Pack" charted four times between 1965 and 1976 in the UK, where it was banned throughout the sixties for fear it would encourage violence between mods and rockers. On initial release, the single peaked at number eleven on the UK charts, but later reached number three upon re-release in 1972, after the ban was lifted.

Mary muses on the source she tapped to play out Morton's radio plays: "I grew up with a difficult childhood. We grew up pretty poor. I've been supporting myself since I'm 14. There was a lot of pain in me."

"I was used to that kind of drama in my life so I think it would come out in my performances," explains Mary. "I think teenagers for the most part have an intensity that we seem to -- I don't think we grow out of but there's variable shades of grey added. Where when you're a teen -- well for me anyway -- everything was black and white."

Whatever the source, people responded to the group's harmonies, to Mary's voice, and to the melodramas "Shadow" Morton dreamed up to capture and release the girls' talents. The partnership would continue to generate some of pop's most intriguing songs until it ended without much fanfare and a whole mess of litigation in 1967.

This story continues next week.

Sources:
Betrock, Alan. 1982. Girl Groups: The Story of a Sound. London: Omnibus.
Entertainment Tonight. 1989. The Shangri-Las Going to Court.
Fresh Air. 2007. Mary Weiss Comes Back for a ‘Dangerous Game’. Philadelphia: WHYY.
Grecco, John. 2010. Out in the Streets: The Story of the Shangri-Las. Redbird.com
Landecker, Tracy. 2012. Are You There God? It’s Me, Mary: The Shangri-Las and the Punk Rock Love Song. Burbank: Rhino.
Lieber J. & Stoller M. 2009. Hound Dog: The Lieber & Stoller Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster.
MacKinney, L. 2012. Dressed in Black: The Shangri-Las and Their Recorded Legacy, The University of Western Australia. Doctoral Thesis.