Lesley Gore

On a slow news day with snow in the forecast comes very sad news from the music world as Lesley Gore passed away at the age of 68.

Gore passed away from lung cancer, which had not apparently been released to the public before, in Manhattan this morning.
Lesley Gore was part of what I often referred to as the "holy trinity" of female pop singers of the mid-1960s with Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield and had many hits through the span with "It's my party" being the most well known.
Other hits were the follow-up to It's my party in "Judy's turn to cry", the female anthem "You don't own me" and the peppy "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows", which recently returned to the air in the film "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" among many.
My personal favorite of Lesley's was "Maybe I Know" which I just played on CD in the car on the way home from taking Cherie to work today.



Lesley Gore first hit it big in 1963 with "It's my party" and was clearly the top solo female pop singer in the country (Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, and most others of the time period were British).
Lesley's final hit was one that I knew often as a child as "California Nights" was performed during her two-episode appearance on Batman as "Pussycat" a sidekick to Julie Newmar's Catwoman.
During the beginning of her run of success, Gore attended Sarah Lawrence College and during her stint there, toured and recorded on her downtime.
However, as Gore continued her education, music changed and her fun and poppy sound began to fall out of style in favor of message music from the rock and folk scene.

Gore would never really return to the charts, but she did quite well as a songwriter and hitting the nostalgia circuit, which I'm sure allowed her to live quite comfortably.
Lesley also hosted a PBS series In the Life, which focused on gay and lesbian issues.
It was on that program that she announced that she was a lesbian in 2005.
That doesn't bother me at all and to my knowledge, she never lied about that question.

I have to admit, I'm pretty sad today.
Lesley Gore was always a huge favorite of mine.
She was one of those artists that made fun music, not that all of her work was frivolous as You Don't Own Me is regarded as an early feminist anthem, but music that was just fun to listen to.
I've often thought many of the pop artists of the 1960s have gotten short shrift for the rock hall of fame because of the age and the time being remembered more for message music than music that is just enjoyable to listen to.

She'll be greatly missed by me and hopefully some others too...