This video has it all: Goofy teenage girls, almost babies really, doing a sappy song that was destined to have a date with infamy. Could this song with sobbing, roaring motorcycle engines and a horrible crash be anything but an early classic of rock music? It had to have a place in the history of rock, it just had to. Put Steve Allen and Robert Goulet in the mix, on national TV, and you have a real winner full of silly American nostalgia. The songwriters said that the minute they heard the final take, they knew they had written a monster. It was that good!
That group was the Shangri-las, the lead singer being only 16 years of age, and they were from Queens, New York. Leader of the Pack held the number #1 position on the charts for a single week. The song was, also, big in the UK -- it charted there a number of times including in the 1970's. The group had four members but they often appeared as a trio.
Let's go back to that era. Guys on motorcycles started really getting the young girl's attention eleven years previously, in 1953. It was no coincidence that these bikers, dressed in black, were the heart-throb of the nation. That was almost guaranteed when one famous and sexy actor posed on the big screen as the leader of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Who could ever forget the famous still shot from the movie The Wild One? This is an image that you do not even have to see to picture it in your mind. It is that famous of a shot! Brando and the bike -- enough said. Back then, everybody was a Brando wannabe and tried to look the stud that he had become in pop culture.
For more "Stories Behind the Music" click on the guitar 
Steven L. Smith
Bellingham WA Home Inspections
Check out "This Day In History" -- music and vintage television from the 1950's through the 1980's. I enjoy writing these articles because they take me back to my days in radio broadcasting. Click on Elvis' gold record, below, to revisit those golden hits of yesteryear.
Is that, IS THAT, Nutsy Dean!!?
Jay, You are having memory lapses. That is Marion (Marion-Berry) Brando. Uncle of Nutsy, starred in the version of the Wild One that was put out for squirrels. Kind of a B grade movie but made the family rich.
So what you are saying is that Marionberry Brando is dressed in drag?
No,
Where are you getting that? He is more manly than you and that is hardly a whimpy outfit. He looks more macho than you in your soccer shortie shorts.
Steven - THAT depends on the company in which one wears that outfit...
Jay,
Thanks for that explanation. That had gone right over my head, till you put it that way. I think Charlie just thinks that way.
As always, glad to help out...
Help out? I guess that depends on how you look at it. Casting questions about Nutsy's relatives and the folks they hang out with might not be all that helpful. Poor Nutsy is in a dither. He was very proud of his uncle Marion.
Nutsy Dean was quite the intended compliment! A proper tilt of the head and hat, jeans cuffed just right over those manly (squirrely) boots, front zipper nearly to the top - quite the compliement!
Drag? No way! Now soccer shortie shorts...
Jay.. Brando, not Dean. You got your male heartthrobs of the 50's out of order. You do not even want to visualize Charlie's knees in your mind.
Heartthrob?? Absolutely!! That Robert Goulet was so good looking. He was almost better looking than Elvis. Whatever happened to him anyhow. I laughed through the song and howled when Goulet limped back on the set.
And then there was Nutsy's relatives. I really think it was Nutsy just playing tricks but if it was his relative it shows where his good looks come from!
Another great history lesson!!
Barbara,
It sure takes us back to simpler times. At least I remember them that way. By the way, not Nutsy, that is an uncle of his, some such family connection.
Steve, good post as usual. I guess I can say that I am old biker trash as I have been riding bikes since I was 15. My latest bike has over 275K miles on it. Time to get a new one...
Your building consultant for life in Fairview, TN - Michael