May 5, 2007
Nothing triggers a memory quite like a song, especially a song from the 1950’s or early 1960’s.
Back then, we heard lyrics that were unforgettable. How could we forget? The songs were colorful, delightful, and yes, goofy.
Songs like “Tutti Frutti”, “Mambo Italiano”, “Shangrila” and “Lollipop” were the rage in the 50’s.
Sort of miss those tunes these days since much of ‘the music’ I hear on the radio is completely incomprehensible to me. I think I prefer goofy.
Dorothy, Christine, and Phyllis McGuire sang “Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, sugar at suppertime. Be my little sugar and love me all the time.”
In fact, I was so crazy about Phyllis McGuire that I actually went to my mom one day and said, “I want to change my name to Phyllis.”
Since my mother would not call me Phyllis, there was nothing left to do but form a girl group and name it.
Pat, Priscilla, Sue and I decided to call ourselves “The Pastels”. I still wanted to be called Phyllis.
We made our own outfits since we were taking clothing construction in Home Economics class and because we had some 4-H sewing projects ‘under our belt’. One wore pink, one blue, one yellow, and one mint green. I cannot remember who wore what.
Sometimes we carried matching pastel parasols and sang “C’est si bon” because we had recently learned the song in French class. That was reason enough to sing it. Sometimes we sang, “How ya’ gonna keep ‘em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Paree? How ya’ gonna keep ‘em away from Broadway, shoutin’ I know and I wanna go?” That one was close enough to French for us so we sang it everywhere we performed. School programs, county festivals, and street corners.
Actually, we did not really need a reason to sing any song.
Instead of starting a garage band like teenagers do today, we stood on the corner and sang. No piano. No guitar. Just harmonizing.
Jack Madani wrote an essay titled “Pop and Rock Music in the 60’s, A Brief History” on Spectropop.com in which he talked about girl groups a lot like ours.
In the early 60’s, there were four main pockets of pop music, according to Madani—the East Coast DooWop and urban girl groups, the R&B and Soul scene, the California crowd such as The Beach Boys and studio groups in the east like Burt Bacharach, and last but not least, Motown recording artists.
One of those four categories caught our attention. The ‘girl groups’.
Yes, we did indeed stand on the street corner and sing a cappella.
Some of the girl groups made it big, too.
In the early 60’s, The Chiffons harmonized to “Sweet Talkin’ Guy”, and The Shangri-las sang “Leader of the Pack”. The Shirelles hit it big on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “Dedicated to the One I Love”.
The Chiffons. The Shangri-las. The Shirelles.
The Pastels?
Well, maybe not The Pastels but we did succeed with the name. If you were going to form a girl group in those days, you had to name yourselves with a one-word title.
Yes, goofy songs and girl groups were ‘the thing’.
To clear this up for the under 40 crowd, that would be ‘the bomb’.
