The Shangri-Las score a #1 hit with “Leader Of The Packâ€
During the early-60s girl-group explosion the Shangri-Las score their first and only 1 hit on this day in 1964 with the famously melodramatic epic Leader Of The Pack.From its sweet beginnings in a candy storeHe turned around and smiled at meYou get the picturethe romance described in Leader Of The Pack between the songs protagonist and her leather jacket-wearing motorcycle-riding boyfriend Jimmy quickly progresses in the face of strong disapproval from her parentsThey told me he was badBut I knew he was sad.It was a song in other words perfectly calibrated to appeal to the romantic fantasies of Americas teenage girlsfantasies that blended wholesome innocence with hints of danger rebellion and darkly handsome boyfriends.But if Leader Of The Pack gave the impression that the Shangri-Las themselves were girls of the worldly-wise gum-snapping white lipstick-wearing variety the truth was rather different.
In fact the Shangri-Las were a quartet of clean-cut high school classmates from Queenstwo sets of sisters in fact.And according to Leader Of The Pack co-writer and co-producer Ellie Greenwich the Weiss and Ganser sisters were so inexperienced and so nervous about the subject matter of what eventually become their career-defining hit that the recording session was fraught with difficulty requiring spoon-feeding mothering big-sistering and reprimanding just to get the Shangri-Las through it. For Ellie Greenwich and her then-husbandsongwriting partner Jeff Barry Leader Of The Pack was their second 1 hit following on the Dixie Cups Chapel Of Love a song that spun a very different kind of teenage fantasy.Like their former colleagues Gerry Goffin and Carole King Barry and Greenwich were responsible for many of the classic works associated with the peak of the girl-group era including the Ronettes Be My Baby and the Crystals And Then He Kissed Me and Da Doo Ron Ron (all from 1963).
They also wrote later 1 hits for Manfred MannDoo Wah Diddy Diddy (1964)and Tommy James and the ShondellsHanky Panky (1966)
