Read Online Fever by Tim Riley - Free Book Online

sang “Maybe” to all the women who longed to participate in rock, and by doing so, opened a giant door for them. The strength of Smith’s attack inspired all the great girl-group singers and sounds that followed. Even the nerviest of singers, Janis Joplin, couldn’t resist it: when she set loose her cosmic growl on the song in 1969 (on her second release, I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again, Mama! ), the original Chantels record bubbled back up to number 113.
    The Chantels followed “Maybe” with four more hits in the next eighteen months (“Every Night,” “I Love You,” “Summer’s Love,” and “Look in My Eyes”), creating the first female doo-wop dynasty, delineating the transition between doo-wop and girl groups. The Bobettes may have scored with “Mr. Lee” a month before the Chantels, but they never hit the Top 40 again. Even the genteel Chordettes began to bear the Chantel influence. In 1959, they covered Leiber and Stoller’s “Charlie Brown,” the Coasters’ hit, and also Phil Spector’s “To Know Him Is to Love Him.” (Spector assembled the Chordettes compilation Mainly Rock ’N’ Roll in 1990 for Ace.)
    With Arlene Smith, the Chantels had achieved a sound to go along with their concept, and they were held in the same high esteem as any other male doo-wop group of the time. Smith was to women what Frankie Lymon was to preteens, a symbol of possibility that dissolved barriers. (And Smith is analogous to Tina Turner in the way both women transcended their typically male genres.) So the Chantels were not just standout doo-woppers for being female—they were the beginning of girl groups. In April 1958, less than three months after “Maybe,” the Shirelles scored with “I Met Him on a Sunday,” and the girl-group era had begun. By 1960, when Ike and Tina Turner released “A Fool in Love,” Presley’s great gender realignment suddenly suggested new possibilities for women. Even when singing about disappointment and betrayal, as Tina did, the overall effect was exultant.
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    The great myth of girl groups is that these acts were unilaterally conceived according to a dated sexist code of women attending to hairdos and dress while men controlled the song choices, production, arrangements, and management. This simplification rivals the false truism that rock ’n’ roll is simply white people getting rich off black R&B styles. If girl groups were simply stooges propped up by male producers, there’s no way we’d still be listening to “Be My Baby,” “Walking in the Rain,” “Leader of the Pack,” “Uptown,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” and “Please Mr. Postman.” These songs and others like them transcend that myth, and remain regular buttons on oldies radio rotation. And there are so many other deserving girl-group records that radio has all but forgotten: not just lesser-known numbers by hitmakers (like “Girls Grow Up Faster Than Boys” or “Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad About My Baby” by the Cookies, “Foolish Little Girl” or “Don’t Say Goodnight and Mean Goodbye” by the Shirelles, or “Sweet Talkin’ Guy,” by the Chiffons) but lesser-known-gems by never-weres (“Mr. Heartbreak” by Cathy Saint or “You Don’t Have to Be a Baby to Cry” by the Caravelles).
    In fact, girl groups often relied on female songwriters (Carole King, Ellie Greenwich) and managers (the Shirelles’ Florence Greenberg), even when produced by the most controlling of men (Goldner, Spector). By 1962, Bo Diddley’s touring band featured Norma Jean Wafford, “the Duchess,” on guitar and vocals. Bassist Carol Faye played on most of Phil Spector’s Gold Star sessions for the Crystals, the Ronettes, and the Righteous Brothers. Deborah Chessler