Today’s classic Girl Group song of the day is “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” by the Shangra-Las. Released on Red Bird Records in December of 1964, it peaked at #18 early the next year on the Billboard Hot 100. “When I say I’m in love, you best believe I’m in love, L-U-V!”
Like most of the Shangra-Las’ tracks, “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” was written and produced by a guy named Shadow Morton. Shadow was an interesting fellow, a Brill Building songwriter, friends with fellow songwriters Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, a staff producer for Leiber and Stoller’s Red Bird Records, and a true iconoclast. Shadow helped create the more melodramatic wing of the ’60s Girl Group sound, complete with lavish production and Wall of Soundish orchestration, as witnessed on several of the Shangra-Las’ hits, including “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” (#5 in 1963), “Leader of the Pack” (#1 in 1964), and “I Can Never Go Home Anymore” (#6 in 1965). After the Girl Group sound faded and Red Bird closed down, he produced “Society’s Child” for Janis Ian, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” for Vanilla Fudge, and “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” for Iron Butterfly. What a list!
The Shangra-Las were the “tough girls” of the Girl Group era. Like most of the other Girl Groups, the Shangra-Las were a bunch of high school friends—in this case, Mary Weiss and sister Betty Weiss and identical twins Marge and Mary Ann Ganser. They were all students at Andrew Jackson High School in Queens, New York, who got their start singing at local talent shows and teen hops. They signed with Red Bird Records when lead singer Mary Weiss was just 15 years old.
The group had their greatest success while the girls were still in high school. They had to cut classes for a Fall 1964 tour with James Brown, the Rolling Stones, and the Drifters. Even though they were a bunch of white girls, Cashbox magazine named them the best new R&B group that year.
There was no other Girl Group quite like the Shangra-Las. While other Girl Groups of the time projected a sweet and somewhat innocent image, the Shangra-Las (at least on record) smoked cigarettes, ran away from home, and hung out with bad boys in motorcycle gangs. That streetwise, tough girl image probably scared a lot of parents, just as it attracted a lot of teen listeners. Their records were little dramas, often complete with sound effects. (Witness the motorcycle noises in “Leader of the Pack.”) It was a different side of the Girl Group phenomena, to be sure.
When Red Bird Records folded in 1966, the Shangra-Las, still with Shadow Morton producing, signed with Mercury Records. By then, unfortunately, Mary Ann had left the group, the Beatles had invaded America, Shadow Morton was getting into heavy metal, and Mercury didn’t know what to do with them. They officially disbanded in 1968.
After the group broke up, lead singer Mary Weiss moved to Greenwich Village, then to San Francisco, then back to Manhattan; she worked as a secretary, an accountant, a purchasing agent, and a furniture salesperson before releasing a comeback album in 2007. Betty Weiss had a daughter in 1964, got married, and currently lives and works on Long Island. Marge Ganser went back to school, got married, worked for the NYNEX telephone company, and died of breast cancer in 1996, aged 48. Her twin sister Mary Ann Ganser got into drugs and alcohol and died in 1970, aged 22, of a drug overdose.
