Originally recorded by The Shangri-Las as a b-side for their 1966 single, He Cried, Dressed in Black was offered, in the same month, to the female four-piece, The Pussycats, mainly because the people behind the original recording believed in its potential to be a big hit. It followed the same arrangement as the Shangri-Las version, which had languished at Number 65 on the back of He Cried on the US Hot 100 (and failed to chart at all in the UK), while Artie Butler again oversaw proceedings in the studio, just as he had done with the Shangri-Las. The Pussycats version is a bit more bombastic, though the mood of downbeat heartbreak is maintained throughout.
The record buying public were immune to the song’s charms, perhaps considering it passé by 1966, or maybe they found the grandiose melodramas put out by the likes of The Walker Brothers to be a preferable update to the girl-group formula. The notes to Girls in the Garage, Vol 5 from which Peel played the track on this show mention that yet another version of Dressed in Black was also recorded at the same time, under the same arrangement team by The Nu-Luvs, but I haven’t been able to locate that, which may be for the best as you can get too much of a good thing.
Listened to with my 2023 ears, I’m not too keen on The Pussycats version of Dressed in Black, but I’m including it here as I suspect that my 1993 ears, which were grabbing 60s music wherever I could find it at the time, would probably have been obsessed with this for a few weeks at least.
Video courtesy of mix tape
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