Sha na na was a band that did songs from the fifties, and had a good stage act. We know about them because they had one brief song in the movie Woodstock. Way more people saw that than saw them live . Remember for.most people there the stage was tiny because they were so far back, and since they were on right befire Jimi Hendrix, Monday morning, many had already left.
I’d argue it was a different band that did the show. Bowzer wasn’t there at Woodstock. Henry Gross left soon after. Someone died from heroin in 1974 (which gives a different image than the tv show). Others left too. So I suspect, but can’t be bothered tracking it all down, that few or maybe just one, were still there for the show. Apparently one guy stayed with the band “forever”.
Sha na na may have seemed out of place at Woodstock, but it was a time to go into the past. So Jim Kweskin had his jug band. Paul Butterfield and Canned Heat played electric blues. The Byrds went country. John Sebastian went with jugband and blues in The Lovin’ Spoonful. Various acts were influenced by Jimmie Rodgers, and others by jazz artists like John Coltrane. So a fifties band wasn’t so odd, though the songs too short to dance to. But they played Woodstock and the Fillmore and a concert organized by John Lennon. So they fit in.
I’d argue the show made them bubblegum, something for kids, the comedy a big part of the show. The songs probably meant little.
Sha-Na-Na… shot Kennedy
Sha-Na-Na… stabbed that guy at Altamont
Sha-Na-Na… started the Peace Corps
Sha-Na-Na… were the first Astronauts
Sha-Na-Na… joined the Black Panthers
Sha-Na-Na… led student sit-ins
Sha-Na-Na… grew organic food
Sha-Na-Na… just never fit in
I’m really surprised on how long the 1980s nostalgia thing has lasted with Stranger Things, The Americans, and so on. I mean, I’m old enough to remember the period well, but the creators of Stranger Things were actually born in the 1980s themselves and know the period more from Stephen King’s novels and Spielberg’s films than from actual life.
And more than the 1890s and not just in the 1970s – the pre-WWI era got used a lot as a “simpler time” setting throughout the 20th century. For example, Lady and the Tramp is set in 1909, Mary Poppins in 1910, and The Music Man in 1912.
“Sure, Roy’s one of the greatest guitar players of all time, but that isn’t enough for OUR audience damnit! What this needs is a chorus line of animated pigs in bikinis!”
That’s weird. Sha Na Na was not on my family’s radar back then. We watched all those other shows but not that. Was it not broadcast in the PNW? I’ve always known of them, but never saw the show.
I actually saw them live in the 80’s. It was supposed to be a Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino double-bill, but at the last minute Fats had to cancel and Sha Na Na stepped in.
Unfortunately, the whole show was a big disappointment. Lewis was too drunk to finish any songs. He kept trying to flip the piano stool to land on its legs, and he eventually broke it. He was escorted off stage. And then came Sha Na Na. They were probably the time I was ever aware that the band was lip syncing on stage. It was a small theater, and it was pretty obvious. I had liked the show when I was younger, but they weren’t really going an adequate sub for Fats Domino. At some point, I joined the long line of audience members demanding refunds.
Listening to that show, I was quite surprised at how much attack there was to their set. I was just thinking how they are edging in to punk, when they started talking about playing everything twice as fast as normal.
10 year old me loved it… I watched the show religiously (I have no idea why) and I remember asking my parents about the boys dressed like girls and whether I could have hair like the Ramones.
