Pop Art at Woodstock: Sha Na Na

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on Sha Na Na’s creation shortly before Woodstock in the climate of Columbia University’s student uprising and New York’s pop art scene, the circumstances of its inclusion at the festival, and its performance just before that of Jimi Hendrix, with assistance from two original members of the group.

KEYWORDS:

• Andy Warhol
• camp
• Columbia University
• doo wop
• Jimi Hendrix
• retromania

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Robert and George Leonard of Sha Na Na for their generous assistance in preparing this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Simon Reynolds in Retromania notes that “their borderline ridiculous stage moves” (285) drew from “mish-mashed elements of Busby Berkeley’s mass symmetries, the soul moves [George] Leonard had seen at the Apollo Theater in Harlem (just a few blocks north of Columbia University) and bits of ballet” (284).

2. Their heterogeneous fan base, however, did include Sid Vicious (Reynolds, Retromania 304) and Frank Zappa who considered Sha Na Na “the freakiest group he had ever seen,” as Robert Leonard recalled. Zappa produced a doo-wop satire of his own in 1968: Cruising with Ruben and the Jets.

3. For a different type of affectionate parody of this song, listen to another Woodstock performer, John Sebastian in his brief, seemingly spontaneous take on the song after his version of “In the Still of the Night,” on his 1971 Cheapo-Cheapo Productions Presents Real Live John Sebastian.

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Notes on contributors

Oliver Lovesey

Oliver Lovesey is professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and the author of a number of works on George Eliot and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o as well as articles in Popular Music, Rock Music Studies, Popular Music and Society, A/B: Auto/biography Studies, and Music & Letters. He guest edited a special issue, “Popular Music and the Postcolonial,” for PMS in 2017.