#60s girl group

[sbrown82]

The Ronettes kicking each other’s ass while on tour with the Beatles (1966).

#the ronettes #ronnie spector #veronica bennett #estelle bennett #nedra talley #girl group #60s girl group #black women #black girls #biracial #1990s #60s #music #pop music #r&b #singers #the beatles #tour #ebony magazine #funny #rare #photos #retro #vintage #sbrown82

[ludmilachaibemachado]

The Ronettes performing "Is This What I Get For Loving You?" on Hullabaloo, April 1965🌺

Via @isabelfutre on Instagram🌺

#60s icons #girlsofthesixties #60s girl group #the ronnettes #motown #1965 #shrimptons boyds asher faithfull and more

[thecherriepies]

#the shangri las #60s girl group #60s girl #60s music #vintage #retro #retro music #wall of sound

[drivemix]

Patti Smith

#70s #60s 70s 80s 90s #patti smith #patti smith group #fashion #60s #70s style #punk girl #punk rock #punk #woman #today in tumblr

[dark-but-just-a-game]

"there were moments where... well, there were moments when..."

#the shangri-las #60s girl group #dirge #truly one of the best ever #definitely a fave #moodboard #Spotify

[thefabulousronettes]

The Ronettes backstage with Dusty Springfield in 1964.

#the ronettes #ronnie spector #nedra talley ross #1960s #wall of sound #'60s girl groups #1960s music #Estelle Bennett #Dusty Springfield

[poptartcrush]

R.I.P. Mary Weiss/ Lead Singer/

The Shangri-Las

#the shangri las #mary weiss #60s #leader of the pack #lead singer #girl groups #brill building #rock and roll hall of fame

[singonavine71]

#the supremes #black culture #black music #black archives #60s nostalgia #girl group #beautiful voice #beautiful #talented #60s music

[hide-your-bugs-away]

WHEN I FIND MAGAZINES WITH THEM ON THE FRONT COVER... IT'S A GOOD DAY... 🥹🐾✨️

#AAAAA... STILL IN SHOCK THAT I FOUND THIS!!!!!!! #it's so rare to find magazines with the group as a whole on the front cover.... especially when alan was still in the group 😭🙏 #quite a few solo eric covers which are still really great but aaa....... seeing the original lineup all together on a magazine cover.... 🥹 #ESPECIALLY THIS PHOTO!!!!!!! #VERY VERY SOFT. IN FULL COLOR. #CHAS KEEPING HILTON AND JOHN SAFE AND FAR AWAY FROM THE CHAOTIC DUO /lh #speaking of them.... t h e m ..... #i have a cropped version of eric and alan that's been shared around animal-blogs in the past bUT i've never seen the full photo before!!!!! #eric and alan are very very special to me...... #oohhhh the contrast. wow. awesome. #ALAN PRICE BOWLING SHIRT BTW #the little article itself talks about chas' hair getting pulled out and a girl handcuffing herself to eric. 😔 poor guys. 😔 #april-1964 to april-1965 animals are very special to me........ #the animals #eric burdon #hilton valentine #chas chandler #john steel #alan price #british invasion #60s rock #classic rock #not a second mag #aleric #teehee yeah them

[goldenspirits]

I feel like Little Shop of Horrors borrows a lot from Black Culture but I can't find any good essays on it

(In my mind it's mainly the black girl trio and the fact that Audrey II sings in a style typically associated with black people)

Though I'm non-black so I feel like this isn't really my place to talk.

#I would love to see a production with an entirely black cast though. (Except for a few characters like the contract ones and the dentist) #because i feel like the story would hit so much harder if Seymour and Aurdey were black. Like. there's really a class thing going on #so. theres that. #https://patabook.com/news/2024/02/27/dreamgirls-and-little-shop-of-horrors-helped-to-cement-the-legacy-of-black-girl-group-of-the-60s/ #https://brandeishoot.com/2015/12/04/little-shop-of-horrors-fails-to-reflect-traditional-black-roles/ #essays i found.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

The Sun and The Void

Venezuelan inspired high fantasy

follows a young outcast swordswoman taken in by her grandmother, the dark sorceress for a noble family, who relies on the magic to keep her alive after being attacked by monstrous creatures

and a young noblewoman who’s the shame of her family because of her mixed heritage and desire to use magic

both are manipulated by those with more power than them into a plot to free an ancient evil god

mineral based magic, politics, nonhuman MCs

#The Sun and The Void #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #hm. haha. surface level this is kinda interesting and cool but i am going to follow with so many complaints #though I feel like it didn’t go into the magic or worldbuilding as much as I wanted and it felt irrelevant to the characters #like how does the magic even work? idk man #though I feel like it didn’t go into it as much as I wanted and it felt irrelevant to the characters #very slow to start and the pacing is weird. it would also go ages without having the other POV. very disjointed? #it felt like the first 60% was just context for the group of characters getting together as a group and then it was a bit predisposed with #They’re A Group! even tho. they're barely a group for long #the authors note mentions that the story concept started with a line about the god and ritual and…..yeah I can kind of tell #I feel like everything was built up around it in a way that ultimately that part didn’t fit right #I never bought that any of them were actually like fully committed to the evil dark magic? and also there’s this plot twist #that they have to fully kill the sacrifices & I was like…did we not already know that? girl r you stupid what do you think sacrifice means #also #oh my god at like half way one of the MCs is like. oh finally this guy who I’ve been exchanging letters with for months turned up to get me #away from here! by the way I’ve been exchanging letters with this guy and we’re friends! and like. she’d been doing nothing much for the #last 10% of the book why was that not like….shown as something she was doing? and like build up the friendship for the reader instead of #just dropping it on us - and also that we know the character from the other POV. and hes a racist prick. and we're supposed to believe she' #charmed by him because of this letter writing WE DIDN’T SEE….. why. #and then also that is like. he’s a shitbag and it’s obviously not romantic at all. he’s manipulative and terrible to her #EXCEPT at the end it implies his bad behaviour is because demon and oh uwu he gets all beat up and maybe hes sowwy now #and starts to imply she likes and is attracted to him? and I get the impression the next book is gonna be like evil power couple dynamic? #which. feels like the first concept the author had; and then tried to build up to that but not effectively lmao #for the lesbians: #I DO APPRECIATE having an assumed love interest then realising that that was idealised and actually you have feelings #for this other person you’ve become friends with! nice slow switch up. though quite brief #I do however dislike that when she admitted her feelings to the first LI and she rejected her it was still framed as the other’s fault #for not reciprocating the feelings….worst trope….also like. it kind of conflated her not feeling that way to her having a bit of class disc #which. yikes? oh my god stop villainising people for not reciprocating romantic feelings (ALSO they turn out to be related anyway 🤪) #i just feel like the romance switchover could have been done with more nuance and complexity

[weneverlearn]

Mary Weiss, me; outside Magnetic Field, Brooklyn, 2008 (photographer unknown)

Mary Weiss, R.I.P.

It was 2005, and I'd lived in NYC for less than a year. I somehow finagled my way into a listening party for the incredible new Rhino Records box set, One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost & Found. It was at some small event space in midtown, I don't remember what it was called. Cool joint though...

I felt a bit overwhelmed in this packed room of esteemed scenesters, aging industry big wigs, and the incredible original performers from the box set they were able to round up and sing a few songs.

Luckily the ever-fun couple of Miriam Linna and Billy Miller (Norton Records) were there, scanning the room with eyes as wide as anyone's, and the two introduced me to a few heps, like Richard Gottehrer -- the amazing producer/songwriter who sprung form the Brill Building and ultimately produced some of my faves, like Richard Hell, the Go-Gos, and Marshall Crenshaw, among many.

Then I saw Sune Rose Wagner, singer/guitarist of the Raveonettes, one of my newer faves of the moment, and he was crying. I'd interviewed him over the phone a couple years earlier for a Cleveland mag, so I re-introduced myself and asked what was wrong. We hugged. He said that earlier in the week they'd played and had all of their instruments stolen afterwards, and he was so distraught he was thinking about quitting music. I told him no way, maybe they'll find the stuff, etc... He kind of perked up, and then once the women started singing with a live band, his teary eyes started shining from the glow of the stage taking over the pretty dark room. These women -- and I can't remember which acts they came from, but they were all on the box set -- were resplendent in glittering dresses, hair done big, and smiles wider than 5th Avenue.

I saw Billy and Miriam again, and they were chatting with Mary Weiss lead vox/face of the Shangri-Las -- arguably one of the top three acts of the whole mid-60s "girl group" scene. I was introduced quickly, but I let them get at their convo as I assumed the Norton nabobs knew Mary from way back.

However, Billy comes up to me later and tells me he had never met her before, that she was his first female musical star crush, and he absolutely sounded like a 16-year old trying to cram his melting heart back into his chest. I was pretty floored myself -- I always loved the Shangri-Las from first hearing them slip out of oldies stations growing up to when I first started diving into girl group sounds as a record-amasing teen. They, the Ronettes, and Darlene Love were the cream of the dreamy crop in my book.

The whole night was not unlike making your way through a Shangri-Las compilation: every emotion possible heaving up and down, surrounded by sounds lilting, swelling, crumbling, but always with that Big Beat bubbling, ready to shove you out of the sadness...

After the news of Mary Weiss' sad passing yesterday, of course many acknowledged her teen stardom of the mid-60s; the influence of the Shangri-Las' street-tough image and emotions on the New York Dolls (who used Shangri-Las producer, Shadow Morton, for their second album) and much of the early new wave of the mid-70s; the respect of her keeping a singing career going through the years, and the glorious third act she had in the late 2000s with the help of Norton Records and the great album, Dangerous Game, where Weiss, in excellent voice, was backed by the rulers of garage pop of that era, the Reigning Sound.

No, it wasn't some top 10 album, but it just oozed with a kind of vintage-to-ever cool that is so rarely captured in a "comeback." (And it definitely got her press and new young fans.)

In fact I think that album, and especially that incredible Rhino box set, brought back that '60s malt shop-meets-back-alley girl group ouvre to a whole new generation.

This was not front page news. Nevertheless loads of acts like King Khan & BBQ, Peach Kelli Pop, Shannon & the Clams, Hunx and His Punx, the Vivian Girls, Baby Shakes, Black Lips, A Giant Dog, and even the re-emergence of Nikki Corvette and Ronnie Spector to the stage brought the cloud-bound reverb and scruffy riffs of vintage girl groups back to prominence in the underground garage rock scene. And again, due to their sounds and looks, the Shangri-Las and the Ronettes were the template.

It has since dawned on me many times that Mary Weiss -- and the Shangri-Las as a whole -- have a nearly singular place in R'n'R history. Considering the admittedly limited catalog of songs, their outsized influence has spread from radio hits in the '60s to the underground proto-punk not ten years later; to the CBGB scene; early '80s new wave and power pop shadow-pep (like Blondie, Go-Gos, and many more); Aerosmith covered "(Remember) Walking in the Sand," and others of the big coif/high dramatics of hair metal had some Shangri-Las DNA in the hair spray; from transgressive filmmakers like John Waters to drag queen blueprints; to 2000s female neo-soul hitmakers -- arising at the same time as the aforementioned garage pop underbelly -- and even up to the recent talk/sing busted romance stylings of mega-popsters like Taylor Swift.

I saw Weiss at a couple shows over the next year or so. She was always so excited and grateful for all the accolades and thanks people laid on her. She played a remarkable show in Brooklyn that Lee Greenfeld booked, at the Atlantic Antic street fest in September, 2007 -- right outside Greenfeld's madly-missed club, Magnetic Field. We felt the Antic gig would be the first of many, but there were just a few more local gigs, if memory serves.

Somewhere in 2008, at an A-Bones / Yo La Tengo show at Magnetic Field, I chatted with Weiss for a bit afterwards. I can't express enough how inspiring was her love of music and hanging out at a small bar with a bunch of music obsessives knocking back cheap beers. At the 1 a.m. chime, she kissed my cheek, I laid one on her's, I walked home, and I will assume that if there is a Heaven, that moment should get me into the meetings where they discuss how to improve Heaven. It's a cinch it's improved today.

Variety obituary here.

From obituary:

The group’s tough-but-vulnerable New York City teen image was genuine. “Overall, the girl groups had very sweet images, except for the Ronettes and the Shangri-Las, who had a tougher, harder attitude,” Greenwich told the website Spectropop in an undated interview. “By today’s standards, they were as innocent as the day is long. Back then, they seemed to have a street toughness, but with a lot of vulnerability. Mary Weiss [had] the sweetest long straight hair, an angelic face, and then this nasal voice comes out, and this attitude — the best of both worlds.

“In the beginning, we did not get along,” she continued. “They were kind of crude, with their gestures and language and chewing gum and the stockings ripped up their leg. We would say, ‘Not nice, you must be ladies,’ and they would say, ‘We don’t want to be ladies.'”

From Chapter 33 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore

THE SHANGRI-LAS’ INFLUENCE ON PUNK LOCATION Brill Building The Shangri-Las were one of the common musical denominators that Blondie shared, and Clem Burke explained the Shangri-La’s proto-punk appeal: “They had their black leather vests and their tight black leather pants, and they sang ‘Give Him a Great Big Kiss.’ They sang about dirty fingernails, wavy hair, and leather jackets, and things like that.” The Shangri-Las cast a long shadow over glam and punk rock. The New York Dolls’ “Looking for a Kiss” borrowed the spoken word intro from their “Give Him a Great Big Kiss,” and another Dolls song, “Trash,” copped the campy “How do you call your lover boy?” line from “Love Is Strange,” a catchy 1956 hit by Mickey & Sylvia. The group’s final album, Too Much Too Soon, was produced by Shadow Morton, who had crafted the girl group classics “Leader of the Pack” and “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” for the Shangri-Las. As Burke recalled, “Bubblegum rock was part of the roots of the New York music scene. Some of the old-school guys like Richard Gottehrer or Marty Thau—who had some money and success in pop music—they understood the music because they were coming from that Brill Building mentality.” Thau was the New York Dolls’ first manager before McLaren took the job, and he had previously made a living as a record promoter for late 1960s bubblegum groups the 1910 Fruitgum Company (“Simon Says”) and the Ohio Express (“Yummy Yummy Yummy”). Thau recorded the Ramones’ first demos and released Suicide’s debut album on his independent label Red Star, and also formed the production company Instant Records with the old-school industry hit maker Richard Gottehrer. “Richie was part of that whole Brill Building rock thing,” Leon said, “which had a lot of nostalgia for us because we grew up with it on the radio when we were kids.”

#mary weiss #shangri-las #girl groups #rhino records #norton records #new york dolls #60s pop #reigning sound #leader of the pack #brooklyn #Youtube #blondie #punk influences #Queens #queens nyc

[ludmilachaibemachado]

The Supremes on February 25th, 1966. The girls are (L to R): Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard🌻

Via @isabelfutre on Instagram🌻

#60s icons #girlsofthesixties #60s girl group #diana ross #mary wilson #florence ballard #the supremes #1966 #motown #shrimptons boyds asher faithfull and more

[mywifeleftme]

360: Dusty Springfield // Dusty Springfield's Golden Hits

Dusty Springfield's Golden Hits Dusty Springfield 1966, Philips

These early Dusty Springfield singles really get the “Wall of Sound” production treatment, despite Mr. Spector’s absence from the credits: mixed loud as hell like the kids liked it, screaming string charts, backing vocals en regalia, and a big beat knocking around underneath. Folks love to cite her as the second artist of the British Invasion to hit the U.S. charts, and for cultural reasons that may be significant, but her early sound was indistinguishable from American acts like Lesley Gore and the Shirelles. I don’t know many of the details about her career, but it seems like whoever was managing her was hell-bent on breaking her in the States. Call it a credit to English ingenuity (and specifically arranger Ivor Raymonde) that they were able to give Springfield a knock-out sound that passes for the contemporary Hollywood (or Detroit) product.

Dusty Springfield’s Golden Hits, her first major compilation, is Brill Building / girl group-style music par excellence, with a murderer’s row of hitwriters from both sides of the pond (Bacharach/David, Goffin/King, Beatrice Verdi/Buddy Kaye, etc.). Practically anyone could’ve had chart success with these songs and this packaging (and a number of these were subsequently hits for others), but Springfield had a cannon of a voice on her that makes the best of these numbers undeniable. Those who place her voice with the Arethas and Dionne Warwicks wish she’d been guided towards soul or sophisticated torch songs from the start, but I personally love it when someone vocally overqualified for bubblegum is made to tear into a good bop. “I Only Want to Be With You” is buffeted along by the force of her voice, the violins shrieking like a 33rpm record dragged up to 45; “Little By Little” could’ve been written for a Motown powerhouse like Darlene Love (but scarcely improved on by her); “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself” moves from the sound of a girl sadly combing her hair before her vanity to Sampson bringing down the temple.

There’s plenty of treacle here, and “Wishin’ and Hopin’” probably set feminism further back than “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss),” but this is a worthy addition to any ‘60s pop library.

360/365

#dusty springfield #'60s music #'60s pop #british invasion #burt bacharach #hal david #gerry goffin #carol king #buddy kaye #beatrice verdi #r&b #girl group #motown #i just don't know what to do with myself #arliss #music review #vinyl record #female singer

[vyva-melinkolya]

best pop song, maybe ever

#the crystals #doo wop #60s pop #phil spector #Motown #60s music #girl group #Spotify

[the-alan-price-combo]

On this day in 1965 - the New Musical Express Poll Winners' Concert!!

Featured here is Animals' performance of "Boom Boom", the first song of their set! 🐾✨️

#I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S ALREADY NME 1965 DAY ALREADY.... it came up so fast!!!!! #time to listen to alan and eric unintentionally duet all day today #seriously whoever cut out chas' mic there..... i have questions....... did you want to hear the price-burdon duet too?? #agghgghh LOOKIT THEM GO!! EVEN WHEN HILTON'S AMP IS MESSED UP HE'S STILL HAVING A GOOD TIME!! #to quote eric: 'have you heard the one about the group with the dodgy equipment?' #the animals #eric burdon #hilton valentine #chas chandler #john steel #alan price #the original five.... aaaaaaaaaa absolute magic #60s rock #british invasion #british rock #classic rock #new musical express #nme 1965 #the girl can't help it