ALBUM: The Shirelles, ‘Happy and In Love’ / ‘Shirelles’
What happens to girl groups when they’re no longer girls? Apart from the Supremes, few to none of the teenage acts who hit it big during the girl group boom of the early ’60s were still racking up hits by the decade’s end. Most of the groups faded into obscurity, perhaps scarred by nasty breakups, poor management, or questionable accounting. Their members married and settled into careers as teachers, social workers, or stay-at-home mothers. A persistent few stuck it out in the industry, transitioning into session singers or backing up more famous artists. Some even attempted solo careers, but unless you were Diana Ross, prospects were pretty slim.
And then a few groups — a very few — managed to stay together (though perhaps with a few lineup changes), bouncing from label to label, hoping to regain their earlier taste of pop stardom. One such example is the Shirelles, the group that perhaps best epitomized the girl group sound. They weren’t the first of the genre to have a hit — that credit is typically given to the Chantels with “Maybe” in 1958 — but they were the first to top the pop charts. Not only was 1961’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” a #1 hit, but its sophisticated arrangement, rock-inspired tautness, and high drama helped define the girl group sound as something markedly different from just doo-wop sung by young ladies.
The Shirelles were lucky; they managed to score a number of hits, including “Mama Says,” “Baby It’s You,” and “Soldier Boy,” another #1 record. Nevertheless, success was short-lived. The group reached the Top 40 for the final time in 1963 and by 1967 had fallen off the pop charts completely. They left their longtime label, Scepter Records, and recorded singles on Bell Records and United Artists, none of which went anywhere. At last, the Shirelles settled in at RCA, where they recorded a pair of LPs: Happy and in Love (1971) and Shirelles (1972).
These two albums have finally made their CD debut this year, compiled together on a single disc by Real Gone Music. Melodic, orchestral Philly soul ruled black radio in the early ’70s, so that’s the mode the Shirelles are working in on these albums, even if the arrangements aren’t quite as lush as that of their contemporaries allocated larger budgets. Only three of the tracks on Happy and In Love are new, original songs, with the rest of the album filled out with cover versions. Nevertheless, all of the material is beautifully chosen. Opening track (and lead single) “No Sugar Tonight” elevates the Guess Who’s mid-tempo classic rock slog into an energetic slice of upbeat funk, replacing the original’s frustration and self-pity with triumphant liberation (“right on!”).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ6YMtFHV-s
No other track on Happy and In Love is quite that surprising, but many do make unexpected choices or dive into lesser-known material. Nearly as good as “No Sugar Tonight” is the mashed together medley of Jr. Walker’s “Gotta Hold on to This Feeling” and Eddie Floyd’s “I Never Found Me a Girl” (retitled “I Never Found Me a Boy”). Two covers of Jerry Butler ballads — “Strange, I Still Love You” and “Go Away and Find Yourself” — enhance the album’s Philly soul bona fides. The ladies return to their roots with a cover of fellow girl group the Royalettes’ 1965 single “It’s Gonna Take a Miracle,” and a tender, uptempo update of their own 1961 hit “Dedicated to the One I Love,” with Shirley Alston now handling the vocals instead of departed co-lead singer Doris Coley.
While Happy and In Love proves that the Shirelles could refresh their sound and stay remarkably contemporary, its self-titled follow-up is a bit more predictable, replacing the eclecticism of the previous album almost entirely with laid back versions of contemporary hits. The group covers ballads like Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” and the Bee Gees’ “How Do You Mend a Broken Heart,” as well as three songs by Carole King, who (perhaps not coincidentally) had been responsible for “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” a decade earlier. A few of the tracks — the original songs, plus the cover of Joe Simon’s “Drowning in the Sea of Love” — manage to break out of the dewy adult contemporary mode. Nevertheless, the production feels less soulful and vital than Happy and In Love, maintaining a kind of Sunday afternoon pleasant sleepiness.
Only two new songs appear on Shirelles — “Sunday Dreaming” and “Hung on Yourself” — but both are catchy and well-selected, and the former is the best original song the Shirelles recorded at RCA. The title “Sunday Dreaming” subtly recalls the Shirelles’ debut single, 1958’s “I Met Him on a Sunday,” while the lyrics reflect the naïve romantic themes of girl group songs tarnished by a decade-plus of disappointments: “church bells were never to chime / a gold band would never be mine.” (Incidentally, the three co-writers of “Sunday Dreaming” would find greater success with another song released the same year: the Main Ingredient’s “Everybody Plays the Fool.”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPL8UG98RDk
Shirelles was the group’s final album with founding member and namesake Shirley Alston, who would leave a couple years later to launch a solo career with no greater success. While the group would release a pair of fine singles on RCA in 1973 (“Let’s Give Each Other Love” and “Do What You’ve a Mind To,” appended here as bonus tracks), Shirelles feels like the end of the line. It’s a perfectly pleasant listen, but the inspiration is starting to ebb. Notably, the vocal arrangements by this point have shifted from Alston as lead singer to Alston as lead, full-stop; the liner notes credit Beverly Lee and Micki Harris merely, but accurately, as “background vocals.”
Most importantly, however, the odds were no longer on the Shirelles’ side. The ladies had reached their early 30s at this point; the few popular female groups of the era, like Honey Cone and the Three Degrees, were nearly a decade younger. Their style didn’t quite fit the era, either: Alston’s dry, plainspoken voice adds a no-nonsense edge to the Philly soul sugar-spun daydreams — appealingly so to this listener, but running counter to the conventions of the genre.
And of course, regardless of how well the group had managed to update their sound, they were still the Shirelles. Even if they had been the biggest group in pop only a decade earlier, they were relics of another age, when young ladies dressed in chiffon and taffeta to perform on black and white television. “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” may have been unusally frank upon its release, but the decade of sexual liberation had turned it passé, and the rise of Black Power made its deliberately mainstream (read: white-friendly) arrangement old-fashioned. If nothing else, Happy and In Love and Shirelles stand as testament that no matter how talented the performers, pop rarely keeps a place for girl groups who become women.
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