Shirley Ellis born 19 January 1929

Shirley Ellis (January 19, 1929 – October 5, 2005) was an American soul music singer and songwriter of West Indian heritage. 

Shirley Marie O'Garra was born to William H. and Petra (Smith) O'Garra. Her father was a native of Montserrat, and her mother was born in the Bahamas. Shirley had three full siblings, Joyce, Bertram and William Jr., and four half siblings, Reginald, Suzanne, Joycelyn and Berbian. 

June 16, 1954, was a proud day for twenty-five year old singer-songwriter Shirley Ellis, when she registered her first songwriting copyrights with Library Of Congress. This she hoped would be the start of a successful songwriting career that would transform her fortunes and help her escape from the abject poverty of life in the Bronx. 

Although Shirley Ellis had embarked upon a career as a songwriter, she hadn’t given up hope of making a career as a singer, and every weekend left her home in the Bronx, and sang with the jazz and calypso band The Metronomes. Sometimes, Shirley Ellis entered talent contests, and in 1954 followed in the footsteps of Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald when she won the Amateur Night at the Harlem Apollo singing Hoagy Carmichael's Skylark.  This gave Shirley Ellis’ career a huge boost. 

By late-1955, Shirley Ellis had already written songs for some of high-profile groups and artists, including The Sh-Booms, The Chords, Heartbreakers and Scott and Oakes. Just a year after registering her first song, Shirley Ellis’ star was already in the ascendancy, and she had just met and married her husband. This was Alphonso Elliston, who was the lead singer of The Chords, who enjoyed a hit with Sh-Boom in April 1954. It was through her husband’s cousin that Shirley was introduced to songwriter Lincoln Chase who became her manager and songwriting partner. They penned Shirley’s first single in 1961, “A Beautiful Love” but it failed to trouble the national charts. In 1962, she released a single on Mercury, under the name of Shirlee May, entitled ‘Lonely Birthday’ b/w ‘Little Sally Walker’. 

But by 1963 Shirley signed a deal with musical publisher Al Gallico, who secured her a recording contract with Kapp Records’ imprint Congress where they shortened her surname Ellison to Ellis. She was paired with producer Hutch Davie and entered the studio on the ‘13th’ of September 1963 to record a novelty song penned by Lincoln Chase, The Real Nitty Gritty. By the time the single was released, The Real Nitty Gritty had been shortened to The Nitty Gritty. When the song was released in October 1963, Shirley Ellis’ sophomore single started climbing the charts and buoyed by an appearance on American Bandstand eventually reached number eight on the US Billboard 100 and four on the US R&B charts. 

                              

Other hits followed "The Name Game" (1964, US no. 3) and "The Clapping Song" (1965, US no. 8 and UK no. 6). "The Clapping Song" was another novelty song, which was arranged and produced by Charles Calello. When it was released, it reached number eight in the US Billboard 100 and six in the US R&B charts, and sold over a million copies. This resulted in Shirley Ellis receiving her first ever gold disc. 

By then, Shirley Ellis was a familiar face on American television and regularly appeared on American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, The Mike Stone Show and Shindig.  Despite her chart success other releases were disappointing. Although commercial success eluding Shirley Ellis she was signed by Columbia Records, on the advice of Calello, who was the company’s A&R Department producer. Columbia Records would become Shirley Ellis’ new home for the next two years. 

It wasn’t until 1967 that Shirley’s “Soul Time” reached sixty-seven in the US Billboard 100 and thirty-one in the US R&B charts. Given the quality of Soul Time, the single deserved to fare better. For the follow-up to Soul Time, Shirley Ellis recorded Sugar Let’s Shing-A-Ling. 

However, commercial success again eluded Shirley Ellis’ latest single which also lent its name to her third album so she left Columbia Records and although she was reported to have pacted with the Bell label, no records were forthcoming. She retired from the music industry in 1968 and never seemed to have looked back, only occasionally belting out a tune at block parties. 

Cover versions of her hits have been recorded by Madeline Bell, The Belle Stars, Laura Branigan, Aaron Carter, Gary Glitter, Ricardo Ray, Pia Zadora, and Gladys Knight and the Pips (a version of "The Nitty Gritty", produced by Norman Whitfield). 

She died on October 5, 2005 in New York City at the age of 76. 

(Edited from various sources mainly Dereks Music Blog)