Girl Groups: The Story of a Sound

I am the credited director and co-producer of this documentary. I was surprised to see that Amazon actually has the video, I thought it was long gone. No DVD's, too bad. I drifted onto Amazon because a good buddy of mine loved this era and I wanted to get a copy for him. Glad to see that Girl Groups, The Story of a Sound still lives, such as it is.

This film took almost a year of my life, a very stressful year at that since it is always difficult to juggle the creative storytelling aspect of making a film with the realities of budget and music/clip clearance. We went to ABC for footage from the show, Hullabaloo that they did not even know they had. We dug up stuff in Detroit. I flew there for a blizzard that winter and found footage from a local afternoon program, Teen Town that was Detroit's local American Bandstand. That stuff was sitting in a damp basement at a TV station in Windsor, Canada on two-inch video, long extinct even then in 1982. This is the station where Soupy Sales got his start for you trivia fans out there.

I conducted all the interviews and must say I fell into major crush with Darlene Love. What a sweetie and I could listen to her sing all day long. As Darlene would say, "She had a voice on HER!" Mary Wilson was a most classy lady, and Arlene Smith was also such a beautiful person - she had voice on HER! Ronnie Spector was lots of fun.

Lieber and Stoller were such cool guys, sitting on top of the world, playing pool in an apartment on Park Avenue. They were such good friends and seemed to really have enjoyed themselves while making music history. Ellie Greenwich was a great story teller, especially about those bad girls from Queens, the Shangri-las.

When I look back to that one year making Girl Groups, despite the difficulties, I never once got tired of the music, and in the editing room in the Brill Building where all that stuff happened in the first place, we must have seen the show 100 times, maybe more. Grahame Weinbren and his team did an amazing job making it what it became, as all great editor/filmmakers do. Grahame had a thing for cheese sandwiches, something I never would ever think of eating before or since then, but every day we'd be chomping on these giant cheese sandwiches from Smilers. Swiss cheese on rye, mayo. How's your cholesterol, Grahame?

One reviewer mentioned that the Supremes sequence in the film was too long. I was always thought so, too, but we had to buy a minimum of ten songs from Motown. At that time, Motown had never licensed any
of their music to any entity outside of Motown. We were the first and it took forever to make the deal with them. Our attorneys closed the deal with Motown, we sent them what we agreed upon, and the masters didn't come. We kept on having to postpone the final mix until those masters showed up, which of course finally did, but not before we ate all the swiss cheese in Manhattan. There was major stress at every turn on this project, but nobody cares about that because the end result was good.

Stephanie Bennett's Delilah Films deserves all the credit for having the guts to begin a project way under budget, but to get what we needed when we needed to have it. Stephanie was always the warrior/producer, fearless, tough, a get-it-done-gal. A great co-producer to have. Cheers, Steph, wherever you are!!!

Steve Alpert

I had to do a lot of searching to come across this and what a gem!!!!

over here in Europe it is very difficult to source something like this but I must say it was worth the wait ,for a wrinkly like myself to SEE and HEAR the Ronettes again brought back lots of happy memories of just going to the local casino to hear these guyz belting out the hits as we could not afford records then!!!! but from a singles point of view it was quite good value nowadays and although NTSC no problems with my Sony DVD/VHS combi deck but it would not copy to DVD direct so had to use differnt method purely for my own collection.
Also some nice and not so nice comments from Ronnie Spector about Phil ah sure that's marriage for you can't live without them and can't live with them!!!!!
Overall though a splendid selection and commentary about that time but just a pity there were not more complete tracks.

I have had 2 copies of this video. It is that good! I first bought this video only because it contained The Ronettes of whom I am a great fan. But this video contains so much more. Not only great and rare performances, but also insightful interviews and documentary. That is what sets this video apart from others. It is extremely well edited and perfectly balanced. Just the right amount of documentary that is paired with the performances. Often I've seen other videos with too much of one or the other. But this video strives for an even balance of the two.
Often you listen to a video solely for the music. But this video tells you why you listen. Why the sound is the way it is. How it all came about. By knowing all this gives you a better understanding of the music and/or the group. It's like having a recipe to your favorite food. By knowing the ingredients you can appreciate your food more. By knowing what went into the sound or the song or the group you can appreciate the music even more.
This video is excellent for being just 65 minues long. It could have been even better if it were longer. However, someone chose to include just brief snippets of certain songs instead of using the full songs. But there are plenty of full songs to please. This video is excellent just the way it is. It just could have been better if it were longer.
The best way to descibe this video is to say it's like a music appreciation course. Excellently edited and balanced between music and documentary. I wish all videos were this way. You just know you like the music. With the documentary of this video, you now know why. The documentary being from those that were there. From the group members themselves. From the producers. I now know why I liked the music. I now know what went into the making of the song. I now know what went into the making of the group. I now can appreciate it even better now that I know.
How they got that much information and entertainment (music) into a 65 minute video is nothing but incredible. No fluff will be found here. Just a rock solid video that will stand on it's own merits and should shine as an example for other videos that follow. The line between documentary and entertainment (music) is expertly balanced here. To define it as one or the other would be unfair. It properly belongs in both categories.
Finally, to watch this video will give you the knowledge to appreciate it. To understand why and how it was so successful. From those who created it and lived it and were there. Just like a music appreciation course taught by those who created it. Not only will you get rare video of rare groups but you should also gain an appreciation of it as well.

This is the ultimate 60s girl group documentary. Excellent commentary by Ellie Greenwich, Ronnie Spector, Darlene Love.
And those TV performances-mostly done LIVE (none of that
cheap lip-synced garbage)were to die for-especially by
the Shangri-Las. But the total absence of the Chiffons
("I Have A Boyfriend")-promised on the VHS artwork-was a
big disappointment. The VHS Hi-Fi sound was very good
to excellent. For this reason alone, it's a shame that no major
re-issuing studio (Image, Anchor Bay, Kino, Criterion
Collection-let alone Sony, who just bought the entire MGM
film library)has released this on DVD.

great great video on girl groups. Wish it was available on DVD...