Shirley and Company

Artist: Shirley and Company

LP: Shame Shame Shame

Song: "I Gotta Get Next to You"

[ listen ]

While in Washington, DC for a work conference last week, I of course found some time to visit the national capital city's terrific record stores. I'd been to most of them once before, when I was at this same conference in November of 2008, but this time I brought along a camera and a little more money. My first stop was Crooked Beat Records, in the basement of a neat old building in the Adams Morgan neighborhood (as you'll see, all the city's best record stores are located in basements). One of the neat things I found at Crooked Beat was this dancetastic album by Shirley and Company—in this particular case it seems Shirley's in the company of Richard M. Nixon, who, years ago, actually used to live in a large white house just a mile or two from where I found this record. Born in New Orleans in 1936, Shirley Goodman had several R&B hits in the 1950s with Leonard Lee in the group Shirley & Lee. The duo split in 1963 and after doing some backing vocal session work (on Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street," for example), she left the music business. Fortunately for everyone, she came back again in 1974 when her friend Sylvia Robinson talked her into providing lead vocals for "Shame Shame Shame," which became an early disco hit. Sadly, the hits didn't last long, and Shirley retired from the business again in the late 1970s, moving herself back to New Orleans. You can read more about the life and career of Shirley Goodman here, and find a link to her televised performance of "Shame Shame Shame" here:

Shirley and Company on YouTube:

[ "Shame Shame Shame" ]

 [ the outside of Crooked Beat Records — Washington, DC ]

 [ the inside of Crooked Beat Records — Washington, DC ]

 [ Shirley Goodman: June 19, 1936 — July 5, 2005 ]

 (pictured here with '50s singing partner Leonard Lee)