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Sha Na Na
Sha Na Na was an American rock and roll and doo-wop revival group formed in 1969. The group performed a song-and-dance repertoire based on 1950s hit songs that both revived and parodied the music and the New York City street culture of the 1950s. After gaining initial fame for their performance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, made possible with help from their friend Jimi Hendrix, the group hosted Sha Na Na, a syndicated variety series that ran from 1977 to 1981.
Billing themselves as "from the Streets of New York", members were frequently outfitted in gold lamé or leather jackets and sported pompadour or ducktail hairdos. The group's name was taken from a series of nonsense syllables ("sha na na na, sha na na na na") in the song "Get a Job", originally recorded by the Silhouettes.
The final lineup featured original members Donny York and Jocko Marcellino, and longtime member Screamin' Scott Simon, who joined in 1970. Everyone else from the original band and TV show had since departed.
Sha Na Na released their last regular album in 2006, although they subsequently released compilation albums. As of December 5, 2022[update], they announced that they would no longer tour.
Conceived by George Leonard, then a humanities graduate student, who also became the group's original choreographer, Sha Na Na began performing in 1969 at the height of the hippie counterculture. Only five months after Leonard had explained his concept to the group, on the basis of excitement their performances had generated in a New York City club frequented by famous rock musicians and others from the music business, and with the help of Jimi Hendrix, a friend they had met at the club, they obtained a slot at the Woodstock festival. Their performance immediately preceded that of Hendrix, who closed the festival.
As with most of their other early performances, Sha Na Na's performance at Woodstock was a "show stopper" that left the audience simultaneously "delighted and bewildered." Their set-closing song, the 1957–58 number-one hit "At the Hop", got the group a standing ovation, and they were brought back for an encore. Subsequently, the inclusion of their performance of "At the Hop" in Michael Wadleigh's award-winning documentary film of the festival made Sha Na Na nationally famous and helped spark a 1950s nostalgia craze that inspired similar groups (Flash Cadillac, Showaddywaddy, Big Daddy), as well as the Broadway musical Grease (and its feature film adaptation), the feature film American Graffiti and the TV show Happy Days.
Before 1969, the group had been singing as part of the long-standing Columbia University a cappella group called the Columbia Kingsmen. But when, based on Leonard's advice, they transformed their show and became a commercial act, they changed their name to Sha Na Na to distinguish themselves from the Pacific Northwest group also called The Kingsmen that had become famous for recording the 1963 hit "Louie Louie".
At the time when the group was being transformed from the Columbia Kingsmen into Sha Na Na, George Leonard's brother, Rob Leonard, was one of the group's bass singers and its official leader. Rob Leonard's performance at Woodstock of "Teen Angel", a teen-tragedy classic from 1959-60, was later included in the 2009 Director's Cut of the Woodstock movie.
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Sha Na Na
Sha Na Na was an American rock and roll and doo-wop revival group formed in 1969. The group performed a song-and-dance repertoire based on 1950s hit songs that both revived and parodied the music and the New York City street culture of the 1950s. After gaining initial fame for their performance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, made possible with help from their friend Jimi Hendrix, the group hosted Sha Na Na, a syndicated variety series that ran from 1977 to 1981.
Billing themselves as "from the Streets of New York", members were frequently outfitted in gold lamé or leather jackets and sported pompadour or ducktail hairdos. The group's name was taken from a series of nonsense syllables ("sha na na na, sha na na na na") in the song "Get a Job", originally recorded by the Silhouettes.
The final lineup featured original members Donny York and Jocko Marcellino, and longtime member Screamin' Scott Simon, who joined in 1970. Everyone else from the original band and TV show had since departed.
Sha Na Na released their last regular album in 2006, although they subsequently released compilation albums. As of December 5, 2022[update], they announced that they would no longer tour.
Conceived by George Leonard, then a humanities graduate student, who also became the group's original choreographer, Sha Na Na began performing in 1969 at the height of the hippie counterculture. Only five months after Leonard had explained his concept to the group, on the basis of excitement their performances had generated in a New York City club frequented by famous rock musicians and others from the music business, and with the help of Jimi Hendrix, a friend they had met at the club, they obtained a slot at the Woodstock festival. Their performance immediately preceded that of Hendrix, who closed the festival.
As with most of their other early performances, Sha Na Na's performance at Woodstock was a "show stopper" that left the audience simultaneously "delighted and bewildered." Their set-closing song, the 1957–58 number-one hit "At the Hop", got the group a standing ovation, and they were brought back for an encore. Subsequently, the inclusion of their performance of "At the Hop" in Michael Wadleigh's award-winning documentary film of the festival made Sha Na Na nationally famous and helped spark a 1950s nostalgia craze that inspired similar groups (Flash Cadillac, Showaddywaddy, Big Daddy), as well as the Broadway musical Grease (and its feature film adaptation), the feature film American Graffiti and the TV show Happy Days.
Before 1969, the group had been singing as part of the long-standing Columbia University a cappella group called the Columbia Kingsmen. But when, based on Leonard's advice, they transformed their show and became a commercial act, they changed their name to Sha Na Na to distinguish themselves from the Pacific Northwest group also called The Kingsmen that had become famous for recording the 1963 hit "Louie Louie".
At the time when the group was being transformed from the Columbia Kingsmen into Sha Na Na, George Leonard's brother, Rob Leonard, was one of the group's bass singers and its official leader. Rob Leonard's performance at Woodstock of "Teen Angel", a teen-tragedy classic from 1959-60, was later included in the 2009 Director's Cut of the Woodstock movie.