Lesley Gore

 This is Lesley Gore's first television appearance which took place on the Ed Sullivan show on October 13, 1963. She was 17 years old. I thought she was in mid-20s because she looked and so mature.

She sang 'It's My Party' This is live. There is overhead boom microphone overhead. She's short with a listed height of 5'2 (she told in an interview that she's 5 feet tall). Her vocals are beautiful and sound nice and innocent. She's not singing with any sass nor humor. This was her first television appearance, and she wanted to make a great first impression. I watched her documentary, and she said that she thought that she threw up for 3 months before doing the Ed Sullivan show. She said that she was very nervous. She said it was terrifying for she had little experience with audiences and that Ed Sullivan show is big as it gets. I didn't notice any nervousness in her performance. She really covered it up. She seemed comfortable and poised. She did great job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtCIdpnQoWk

I really like her voice live a lot more than the record. Honestly, I think Quincy Jones should have let her true voice show on the records with nothing that makes it sound different. She had a beautiful singing voice in the first place. I don't understand why he didn't take advantage of Lesley's jazz singing abilities. It's her jazz singing that got him thinking that she was a big talent that he felt that he had to produce for. She was struggling to break away from being pigeon-holed as a 60s teen pop singer even though she was capable of doing a lot more. After Lesley died, Quincy referred to her as an incredibly soulful singer/songwriter. In her Documentary, noted that she wrote Quincy said in response to listening to Lesley's jazz singing demo: "She had this incredibly youthful sound but then really in tune like a jazz singer and she had a personality in 20 seconds you can recognize her voice." He also noted that Lesley was very progressive harmonically and melodically. He also said that she had really grown as a writer and wrote fantastic songs. In 1975, she released her album 'Love Me By Name' which was a critical hit, but record buying public didn't want to hear Leslie singing anything other than her teen music. The documentary discusses the problem with her being pigeon-holed into a very specific area of rock and roll even though she can do more. The record company in the music business in general wouldn't take her seriously. They didn't listen to music itself. They didn't listen to what her talent was. They just said 'Lesley Gore', and so it can't be good. It seems that her being a successful 60s teenage pop singer worked against her even though she had a lot of musical talent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lw6A1rxeOA&t=1429s I hope that you do more reactions on Lesley's stuff. One reaction that I hope that you do is a reaction to her 1964 Teenage Awards Music International (TAMI) show. There is a youtube clip on it. This show took place in October 1964, and Lesley was 18 at the time. This show had the biggest performers at the time. Lesley was the only solo female singer that had a set which was the longest. She was the most popular female singer in 1964. She was nicknamed 'The Princess of Song.' My favorite performance of hers is 'Maybe I Know' which shows her Rock n' Roll chops. She performed her songs like a seasoned professional. She was very vibrant and very expressive and acted out the songs. She shows a great range without even trying hard. I notice that she tends to constantly sing in a synchronized way with the music. She's always singing in tune like she's singing the musical notes in the lyrics. She was getting cheered on like she was the female version of Elvis Presley as the result of her performances. Well...she got loud cheers when she started even before. She was introduced as 'Queen of Sound.' Here is a youtube videos of the 1964 TAMI show which is I think that you'll enjoy it with the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokie Robinson performing in the show. It's 1 hour, 25 minutes along. I am going to try to get my mom to watch it with me during my visit with her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_OOCSc-oNs&t=2956s Here is a youtube video of Lesley's set in the 1964 TAMI show. She starts off with 'Maybe I Know' and then follows with the 'You Don't Own Me' that became an anthem for the second-wave feminism movement. She finished her set with 'It's My Party' and 'Judy's Turn To Cry'. She was terrific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phIYJfJZ2vs



I was reading some information about Lesley Gore's singing career. There were some interesting things. She was then paired with the successful soul producers Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell for two singles that took her into the "soul" genre: "I'll Be Standing By" and "Take Good Care (Of My Heart)". These songs did not fit the image Mercury had crafted for her, and the singles were not played. Her contract with Mercury ended after the release of "98.6/Lazy Day" and "Wedding Bell Blues" failed to make headway on the charts. I was very curious about the songs that were recorded in 1968, and so looked them up I understand that these songs were in the 2011 released album Magic Colors: The Lost Album with Bonus Tracks 1967-1969 I was listening to them. Wow! Lesley had Soul and then some! Her vocals were outstanding. If I didn't know that she was singing, I would have thought she was an African American woman singing. I like the little soul singer-rapping that she did in Take Good Care (Of My Heart). Yeah...Lesley can rap. I love the sound of her voice. It's beautiful and mature. It sounds natural and raw like she's singing live. She's a perfect example of how music genre shouldn't be attached to any race, color, ethnicity. She was a very talented and very versatile singer that had been held back and pidgeon-holed. Her wanting to evolve and expand as a singer was quite obvious. any ways.....I have been listening to these songs over and over






Lesley has experiencing singing jazz and trained in piano before she became a professional singer. It was Lesley's jazz demos Mercury Records got Quincy Jones interested in working with Lesley as her producer and mentor. It was jazz singing that got Lesley her first recording contract. 16 year old Lesley Gore "LOVE YOUR MAGIC SPELL" - jazz dance track unreleased https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEbz24xKeu8 16 year old Lesley Gore "TRAVEL ON" - jazz dance track unreleased https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk6aU0LjzZc PINK PUSSYCAT Lesley Gore MYRON EARHARDT DEMOS 1962 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn2IqAA7jEU



Yeah....Lesley Gore was a lesbian ..... There are continuous comments about her homosexuality on this youtube video and many other youtube videos. There are numerous comments about her being a lesbian and many of them are just comments (a lot of them are snide and presumptuous) about her sexuality without even mentioning her singing. She was 17 years old girl when she did this televised performance. She came out as a lesbian in 2004. She said that she didn't realize that she was a lesbian until in her 20s in college. Too many people have been making assumptions about her and what she was feeling and thinking when she was singing her songs based on the hindsight of her homosexuality without knowing her real story and that disrespects her and her singing performances. What's worse is that a lot of people didn't even bother mentioning her singing, performing. They just focused on her homosexuality. She was a lesbian. She didn't always know that she was a lesbian. Many people don't know that they're homosexual until they're adults. Many had relationships with the opposite sex before they found out that they're homosexual. Many dressed and acted as being their sex. Some didn't conform with society, but many straight people don't conform either. Stereotypes don't define people. Lesley Gore was far more than just a lesbian. She was a very talented singer/songwriter who can do more than just pop, rock n' roll songs. She actually could sing Afro-oriented music very easily like was second nature. She's mentioned African American singers (one of them is Etta James) that influenced her. She can sing jazz and soul great. It was her jazz singing demo that caught Mercury Records' attention and made Quincy Jones want to work with her as her producer and mentor. After she died, Quincy referred to Lesley as an incredibly soulful singer/songwriter. Lesley Gore was a very talented singer and one of the most highly underrated female singers. Her singing career should have been a lot more successful. Unfortunately, she was pigeon-holed as nothing but a 60s teen rock n' roll pop singer even though she was very capable of doing so much more.


She told Ellen DeGeneres during an interview in 2005 that she didn’t know she was a lesbian until she was in her 20s, but, while the music business was “totally homophobic,” she’d never felt pressure to pretend to be straight. She had experienced relationships with both men and women, but her first serious relationship reassured her of her preference. She suggested that those who knew her well already knew of her preference but she officially came out when she hosted a series on gay and lesbian issues on the PBS series, In the Life beginning in 2004.


When you watch the 1964 concert spectacular The T.A.M.I. Show on video, the narrative that you’re supposed to be paying attention to is how James Brown’s legendary appearance overshadows the climactic set by the Rolling Stones. But Brown wasn’t the only usurper. The concert movie opens with a 10-minute set by Lesley Gore, and almost everything else that follows pales in comparison to her sure-footed delivery of six of her hits. With “You Don’t Own Me,” especially, she just about owns an all-star bill.

What’s easily forgotten is that Gore was arguably the biggest star performing on The T.A.M.I. Showin ’64 — bigger than Brown, bigger than the Stones — so it’s no wonder the movie started with a long medley that included her debut single, the 1963 chart-topper “It’s My Party.” But what might have been surprising at the time, and certainly is to most viewers 50 years later, is just what a bravura performance Gore delivers. She was a one-woman exemplar of the girl-group sound, often double-tracked in the studio to make her records sound as full as the Shangri-Las’. But hearing her solo and un-lip-synched, you realize she hardly needed the studio reinforcement. When she had the opportunity to really belt out one of her singles, it was her more lightweight competitors’ turn to cry.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/how-lesley-gore-owned-pop-from-being-theits-111239324111.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

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