#125: Shame, Shame, Shame by Shirley & Company

Peak Month: April 1975
Peak Position #1
10 weeks on Vancouver’s CKLG Chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #12
YouTube.com: “Shame, Shame, Shame”
Lyrics: “Shame, Shame, Shame”

Shirley & Company was a disco group that consisted of Shirley Goodman and Jason Alvarez, and an impression group of studio musicians. Bernadette Randle was a soul/funk pianist and songwriter who played or wrote songs recorded by Etta James, Brook Benton, Solomon Burke, Donnie Ebert, Candi Staton and others. Clarence Oliver was a drummer who was also in the recording studio with Bernadette Randle for the same recording acts, as well as for Chuck Jackson. Jonathan Williams was also in the studio with Bernadette Randle and Clarence Oliver, playing bass guitar. Walter Morris was also in the recording studio with Randle, Oliver and Williams, contributing guitar. Randle, Oliver and Williams were all members of Brother to Brother, an R&B band founded in 1974.

Seldon Powell was born in 1928 in Lawrenceville, Virginia. He was in Lucky Millinder’s band from 1949 to 1951. Between 1955 and 1973 Powell released five solo jazz albums. He was a sideman on albums for multi-instrumentalist Mose Allison, trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker, tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri, double-bass player Aaron Bell, drummer Louis Bellson, guitarist and composer of “Honky Tonk” Billy Butler, jazz trumpeter Neal Hefti, Grammy Award winner Quincy Jones, jazz pianist Les McCann, bandleader Jimmy McGriff, jazz trumpeter Jimmy Owens, drummer Buddy Rich, hard bop organist “Johnny Hammond” Smith, jazz pianist Billy Taylor, be-bop saxophonist Sonny Stitt, Cal Trader, and Jimmy Witherspoon, among others.

The house band for both Stang Records and All Platinum Records – Bernadette Randle, Clarence Oliver, Jonathan Williams, and Walter Morris – founded an R&B-funk band called The Rimshots. They had a number of hit singles, most notably a Top 30 hit in the UK in 1975 titled “7-6-5-4-3-2-1 (Blow Your Whistle)”.

Born in Cuba in 1951 as Jesús Álvarez, he later took the stage name Jason Álvarez. He moved with his mother in February 1959, fleeing to the United States during the Cuban Revolution. He was part of Brother to Brother for awhile, and then left the band. Then he was invited to join Shirley and Company.

Shirley Goodman was born in 1936 in New Orleans. She met Leonard Lee at a New Orleans high school, and the pair recorded a demo. It was a song Lee wrote titled “I’m Gone”. When Aladin Record owner, Eddie Mesner, heard the demo he offered Shirley Goodman $1,000 to sign with his label. ($1,000 in 1951 dollars is equal to over $12,250 in 2025). The offer overcame Goodman’s religious grandmother’s objections. By January 1953, “I’m Gone” climbed to #2 on R&B charts in Dallas, Harlem and Los Angeles. It also peaked at #2 on Billboard’s R&B National Best Sellers chart in January 1953.

In the winter of 1955-56, Shirley and Lee had another #2 R&B smash hit with “Feel So Good”. Their biggest hit was “Let The Good Times Roll”, a song that spent 16 weeks in the Top Ten on the Cashbox R&B charts and peaking at number-one on both the Billboard Juke Box and Jockey charts. While in December 1956, “I Feel Good”, peaked at #3 on the Billboard R&B charts. After 1957, Shirley & Lee started to fall off the radar as subsequent single releases failed to catch on. They split up as an act in 1963.

Shirley moved to California in the mid-60s. She sang backing vocals on a number of recordings including for Sonny and Cher. She sang backing vocals on The Rolling Stones’ 1972 album Exile On Main Street. On October 15, 1971, Shirley & Lee were reunited for one show only at the Madison Square Garden in New York City. They shared the stage that night with Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Bobby Rydell and Rick Nelson. During his performance, Nelson played some new tunes and was booed. The experience led Rick Nelson to write a song called “Garden Party” which became a Top Ten hit for him in 1972.

“Shame, Shame, Shame” was written by Sylvia Robinson (nee Sylvia Vanderpool). She was born in May 1935 in Harlem. She dropped out of school at the age of 14 and began recording in 1950 under the stage name Little Sylvia. In 1954, Mickey Baker and Sylvia Vanderpool formed the duo Mickey & Sylvia. They had a Top Ten hit in 1957 titled “Love Is Strange”. (In 2004, “Love Is Strange” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame). In 1960, as Sylvia Robinson, she produced the record “You Talk Too Much” by Joe Jones, but she did not receive credit. In 1961, Robinson provided backing vocals for Ike & Tina Turner’s “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine”. “I paid for the session, taught Tina the song. that’s me playing guitar,” Robinson said in a 1981 interview with Black Radio Exclusive.

In 1966, Robinson co-founded a record label and signed a contract with the R&B group The Moments. Robinson had a number-one hit R&B in 1973 titled “Pillow Talk”. In 1979, Sylvia Robinson was a co-writer for the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”. Though the single stalled at #36 on the Billboard Hot 100, it reached number-one Canada, the Netherlands and Spain. It was also a Top Ten hit in at least ten others nations. At the age of 76, Sylvia Robinson died of congestive heart failure in September 2011.

“Shame, Shame, Shame” is a song about someone whose “feet want to move” wants to dance. The lyrics relate “I got my sun-roof down, I got my diamonds in the back.” The words were familiar to radio listeners who knew William DeVaughan’s “Be Thankful For What You Got” from 1974. In that song, DeVaughn sang this refrain: “Diamond in the back, sun-roof top, diggin’ the scene with a gangsta lean.”

As well, “Shame, Shame, Shame” gave a nod to Honey Cone’s 1971 hit “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show”. In her song, Shirley sings:
Remember, one monkey don’t stop no show.
My body needs action ain’t gonna blow
Yes I’m going out I’m going to find a dancin’ man…

Shirley Goodman in the company of Jason Álvarez performing on The Midnight Special.
The pair were the public face of Shirley And Company.

While Álvarez sang in reply, “put on your shaky wig woman, if you don’t, I ain’t coming back.”

“Shame, Shame, Shame” peaked at #1 in Vancouver (BC), Montreal, and Pittsburgh, #2 in Fort Lauderdale, #3 in Louisville (KY), Toronto, Ottawa, Peterborough (ON), and Miami, #4 in Allentown (PA), Chicago, Los Angeles, and Albany (NY), #5 in Houston, Winnipeg, and Boston, #6 in New York City, Salinas (CA), and Harrisburg (PA), #7 in Philadelphia and Fort Worth (TX), #8 in Washington DC, #9 in Easton (PA), #10 in Pawtucket (RI), Indianapolis (IN), and New Haven (CT), and #11 in Redding (PA), New Orleans, and Little Rock (AR).

Internationally, “Shame, Shame, Shame” peaked at #1 in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and West Germany, #2 in Switzerland, #3 in Canada, #6 in Norway, and #9 in the UK. It stalled at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1975, “Disco Shirley” was a Top 40 hit in Belgium, the Netherlands and West Germany.

From 1974 to 1980, Brother to Brother released four funk and soul albums, keeping Randle, Oliver, and Williams sought after. Seldon Powell died in 1997 at the age of 58.

After Shirley and Company dissolved, Jason Álvarez ended up “depressed” and “financially stretched through unwisely signing draconian record contracts.” In the midst of this, his wife left him. Alvarez decided to take his own life. He told a reporter in 2015, “I bought a pound of opium, I said, ‘I’m going to smoke myself into oblivion – until I can’t open my eyes again,’ attempted suicide.” Jason was unsuccessful, and six months later converted to Christianity. In 1982, Alvarez and his new wife founded The Love of Jesus Family Church in Orange, New Jersey. Between 1981 and 2015, Jason Álvarez released ten gospel music albums.

Shirley Goodman retired from the music business by the late 70s. She suffered a stroke in 1994 and moved back to California. She died in 2005 at the age of 69.

January 25, 2025

Ray McGinnis

References:
Alan Clayson, “Other Lives: Shirley Goodman,” Guardian, September 28, 2005.
Dan Charnas, “The Rise and Fall of Hip-Hop’s First Godmother: Sugar Hill Records’ Sylvia Robinson,” Billboard, October 17, 2019.
Tony Cummings, “Jason Alvarez: An amazing journey from “Shame” to a ‘Time For Miracles’,” Cross Rhythms, July 19, 2015.
William DeVaughn, “Be Thankful For What You’ve Got“, Roxbury Records, 1974.
Honey Cone, “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show“, Sonny & Cher Show, 1971.
“CKLG Thirty,” CKLG 730-AM, Vancouver (BC), April 25, 1975.