Today’s classic Girl Group song of the day is “I Have a Boyfriend” by the Chiffons. This track was released in November of 1963 and peaked, the following January, at #36 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“I Have a Boyfriend” was written by the same duo that penned “People Say” and “Chapel of Love” for the Dixie Cups, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. On this tune for the Chiffons, doo wop group-turned-production company the Tokens also received songwriting credit.
The Chiffons started out, in 1960, as three girls from James Monroe High School in the Bronx—Patricia Bennett, Barbara Lee, and lead singer Judy Craig. They became a quartet when Sylvia Peterson joined the group in 1962. They signed with Laurie Records and released their first single in 1963. That was “He’s So Fine,” which went all the way to #1 and sold more than a million copies. They followed that up with “One Fine Day” (#5 in 1963), “A Love So Fine” (#40 in 1963), “Nobody Knows What’s Goin’ On (In My Mind But Me)” (#49 in 1965), “Sweet Talkin’ Guy” (#10 in 1966), and, of course, “I Have a Boyfriend.”
You may recall the Chiffons as being embroiled in a copyright lawsuit with former Beatle George Harrison. The publisher of “He’s So Fine,” Bright Tunes (representing the song’s late composer, Ronnie Mack), sued Harrison for plagiarizing the melody of the Chiffons’ hit. A judge ruled that Harrison subconsciously did so and ordered the Beatle to pay Bright Tunes $587,000. That pulled “He’s So Fine” and the Chiffons back into the public eye in the early ’80s, which no doubt resulted in some new record sales.
Interestingly, the Chiffons were the opening act for the Beatles’ first American concert at the Washington Coliseum in Washington D.C. on February 11—two days after the Brits’ groundbreaking first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Chiffons member Judy Craig remembers:
“We opened for them for the show they did at the Washington Coliseum, but we did not get to meet them that night. It was so chaotic that night. Everyone would do their show and then get out. We didn’t get to meet them until London in 1965. We got to meet them and the Rolling Stones and the different groups that were in England at the time.”
Judy Craig got tired of the whole touring thing and left the group in 1970 to take a bank job in Manhattan. When Barbara Lee passed away of a heart attack in 1992, Judy returned to the group. Since then, Sylvia Peterson and Patricia Bennett have both retired from performing, leaving Judy and a bunch of replacements to perform under the Chiffons name on the oldies circuit today.
