JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Let’s take a break from politics and enjoy some good Oldies.

Today I bring you four songs by “bands with great names,” as selected by the staff at JimmyCsays (a pretty fair name in itself).

Here we go…

The Shirelles

The group that later became the Shirelles was formed in 1957 by four teenage girls from Passaic, New Jersey, under the name the Poquellos or Pequellos. The founding members were Shirley Owens, Doris Coley, Addie “Micki” Harris and Beverly Lee.  They entered a talent show at Passaic High School at the suggestion of a teacher. After hearing them sing “I Met Him on a Sunday,” which they had written for the show, their classmate Mary Jane Greenberg convinced them to meet with her mother, who owned a record company. They briefly used the name Honeytunes, but by the end of the year they had changed their name to the Shirelles, a combination of the first syllable of Shirley and -el, reminiscent of then-popular group the Chantels.

Here’s one of their biggest hits, “Soldier Boy,” which was released in 1962 and soared to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. On the comments section of this YouTube page, a man named Shane wrote, “When I was leaving for Nam in ’69, my wife would always sing this song to me.”

The Monotones

I couldn’t find out how they got their name, but it’s a good one, and “mono” — meaning “alone,” “single” or “one” — is fitting because the group had only one hit. It was a classic, however, “The Book of Love,” which was released in September 1957 and peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1958.

The group members got their musical start singing with the New Hope Baptist Choir in Newark, New Jersey. One member of the group, Charles Patrick, was listening to the radio one day and heard a Pepsodent toothpaste commercial, which contained the ditty “you’ll wonder where the yellow went.” From there, Patrick got the idea for the first line of a new song: “I wonder, wonder, wonder who! who wrote the book of love.” With two other group members, Patrick embellished the line and expanded it.

What gave the song its main energy, of course, were those dramatic, emphatic syllables the writers placed in the middle of the first sentence: badoo-ooh-ooh! This version, from American Bandstand, was poorly lip-synced, but as you can see from the teenagers’ reaction, it didn’t matter.

The Human Beinz

This band name, one of my all-time favorites, came about by accident.

The group started in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1964 as The Premiers. In 1966, they changed their name to The Human Beingz because they felt their old name didn’t fit with the feel of the late 1960s. They were signed to Capitol Records in 1967, and at that time Capitol misspelled their name, leaving out the “g.” The Beingz were told the name would be corrected on the next release, if the debut single was not successful. “Nobody But Me” came out in August 1967, became a Top 40 hit, and Capitol left the name alone.

“Nobody But Me” peaked at No. 8 in February 1968. This is a herky-jerky, poorly filmed video, but it gives you a sense of the group’s vigor and personality.

The Mamas and Papas

The Mamas and the Papas were formed by husband and wife John Phillips and Michelle Phillips, and Denny Doherty. The last member to join was Cass Elliot, who had been in a band with Doherty. Wikipedia says John Phillips was concerned “that Elliot’s voice was too low for his arrangements, that her physical appearance would be an obstacle to the band’s success and that her temperament was incompatible with his.”

The group considered calling itself the Magic Cyrcle, but, according to a website I found, Cass provided the initial inspiration for the name that stuck. They were supposedly watching TV one night, when an interview with the Hells Angels came on, and one of the bike club members said something like, “We call our women mamas.” Cass remarked, “Well, we got mamas in our group, and we got papas!” John then suggested the name The Papas and The Mamas, but Cass and Michelle wouldn’t hear of it, so they flipped it and became The Mamas and The Papas.

Here’s one of their great hits, “California Dreamin’,” written by John and Michelle. It was released in December 1965 and peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100…When you see the number of views this video has attracted, it makes you wonder how it didn’t reach No. 1.

Rolling Stone ranked it No. 89 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.