“Shannon”: Henry Gross, Sha Na Na, and a Beach Boys Dog

Shannon Dog

Henry Gross, who was born in Brooklyn on April 1 in 1951, was the youngest person to perform on the main stage at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969. At the time, he was eighteen years old, performing as one of the founding members of Sha Na Na. But Gross is best known for his song about a dog.

The members of Sha Na Na formed out of a Columbia University a cappella group that started performing under the Sha Na Na name in 1969.  The group, with Gross, eventually performed prior to Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock.

Some credit Sha Na Na’s short appearance in the Woodstock film with contributing to the nostalgia for the 1950s in subsequent years.  That nostalgia led to the film American Graffiti (1973) and the TV show Happy Days.

In 1970, though, Gross left Sha Na Na to pursue a career as a solo singer-songwriter. He initially found little success.  But he played guitar as a session musician on one of the classic albums of the early 1970s, Jim Croce’s I Got a Name (1973).

Following some modest success with his own recordings, Gross wrote a song about the death of an Irish Setter owned by Beach Boys member Carl Wilson. The song, “Shannon,” became an international hit.

Shannon, is gone I heard,
She’s drifting out to sea;
She always loved to swim away;
Maybe she’ll find an island with a shaded tree,
Just like the one in our backyard.

The Story Behind “Shannon”

There is something gut-wrenching about the beautiful song.  So much of it seems real that one may wonder how could this be a song about somebody else’s dog? Well, it really is only partly about Wilson’s dog. Gross also had a dog named Shannon.

In 1972, when Gross was twenty-one, he became involved with a woman named Kathy Reinmann, first as a friend then as a girlfriend. She had a two-year old Irish Setter named Shannon. As Gross described the dog later, “She was an uncannily human dog whose ability to manipulate her human counterparts cannot be understated.”

Around this time, Gross was touring with the Beach Boys and struck up a friendship with Carl Wilson. While visiting Wilson at his home in Los Angeles, Wilson told Gross that he had previously had an Irish Setter too.  Wilson explained that he lost his dog when it was hit by a car. His Irish Setter, coincidentally, had the same name as Gross’s dog, Shannon.

Soon after the trip, Gross sat in his apartment trying to write a song. But a neighbor was playing loud music that interfered with his creative process.  So, Gross put on an environments record called The Ultimate Seashore. While listening to the sounds of the ocean on the record, he thought of the Beach Boys, Carl Wilson, and Wilson’s dog Shannon.

Gross looked at his dog Shannon, and he thought of “the indescribable sadness that losing such a beloved partner in life must be.”  He later recalled, “The song seemed to write itself taking no more than ten minutes and with almost no cross outs on the paper.”

Inspired by the sounds of the ocean on the record, Gross sang about Shannon “drifting off to sea.” The setting also sounded more romantic than getting hit by a car. The lyrics were ambiguous enough that listeners would not know it was about a dog and could imagine their own story.

Gross initially sent the song to Wilson, hoping he would provide background vocals. But the timing never worked out. So Gross recorded his version, which appeared on his album Release, and “Shannon” was released in 1976.

Gross’s song blanketed the nation that year. A country weary from Watergate and the Vietnam war was looking for something new in its bicentennial year. The release of “Shannon” and Gross’s high aching voice captured some of the sadness of the times.

Gross eventually took Shannon’s owner Kathy Reinmann as his wife, although the two would later divorce. They remained friends for decades until she died of lung cancer.

Gross continues to make music since “Shannon,” as you can hear on his website, some with degrees of success. For example, he co-wrote the top 40 country song “Big Guitar” for Blackhawk.

But he never had a hit quite like his song about a dog. Below, Gross performed “Shannon” in 2014, showing he still can hit the high notes.  And yes, he still has dogs (and cats).

And that is the story behind the song.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Max Yasgur, the Farmer Behind Woodstock

    Woodstock Farmer

    One of the important people of the rock era, Max Yasgur, was born to Jewish immigrants from Russia on December 15 in 1919. Yasgur’s place in rock history came nearly five decades later. He was the owner of the dairy farm that hosted the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which was held between August 15 and August 18, 1969.

    After other towns in upstate New York rejected the idea of hosting the festival, Yasgur leased a field in Bethel, New York to the concert organizers. The 49-year-old farmer was paid for the lease. But he also proved his generosity.

    When Yasgur saw that such a large number of kids showed up for the concert, he worked to make sure there was enough free water. Also, he told his own kids to give away all of his milk and dairy products to feed the concert-goers.

    At one point during the concert, Yasgur addressed the crowd. He began by saying “I am a farmer.” Then, he explained he did not know how to address a crowd of young people. But as you may see in the video below, he did.

    Many of Yasgur’s neighbors were angry at him for allowing his land to be used for the concert. Some of them sued him. And his own land suffered damage from the concert.

    In 1971, Yasgur sold his land and moved to Florida. A year and a half later on February 9, 1973, he died due to a heart condition. But as Brian Doyle recently wrote in “The Sudden City” in the April 2016 issue of The Sun magazine, “Max had a great heart.” Doyle uses Yasgur’s acts of generosity to remind us in today’s cynical world that there are people everywhere doing good things to help others.

    Yasgur’s kindness reminds us to be nice to others. On top of that, he also helped set the table for a concert that emerged as a symbol of people coming together in peace and love.

    There was great music. But as Doyle writes, “perhaps the deeper story, the better story, the more substantive story, is how a sudden city of young Americans arose briefly on a hillside for one summer weekend, and no one got beaten up, and hundreds of people . . . handed out water and sandwiches and blankets.”

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Richie Havens Foresaw Cell Phones On the Woodstock Stage
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    Richie Havens Foresaw Cell Phones On the Woodstock Stage

    Woodstock

    This week, on August 15 in 1969, a Friday, the “Woodstock Music & Art Fair” began in Bethel, New York. Of course, today we remember the festival with simply the name “Woodstock.”

    I took the above photo in 2007 after making a pilgrimage to the site. At the time of my visit, there was not much to commemorate the site beyond the large plaque. But there also was a man who had attended the concert who came on his own to tell stories to eager tourists like me. It was cool. The owners of the site finally did build a museum though.

    Back in 1969, the musical performances started at 5:07 p.m. when Richie Havens took the stage. After he performed his set, the crowd kept calling him back for more, so that he finally had to resort to improvising a song based on the old spiritual, “Motherless Child.” Thus, he closed his set with his iconic performance of the much-improvised “Freedom (Motherless Child).” He later explained, “When you see me in the movie tuning my guitar and strumming, I was actually trying to figure out what else I could possibly play! I looked out at all of those faces in front of me and the word ‘freedom’ came to mind.”

    At one point during the song, he apparently foresaw the use of cell phones in the future when he sang, “I got a telephone in my bosom / And I can call him up from my heart.” What a great way to begin the advertised “3 Days of Peace & Music.” In this video below, Havens looks back on Woodstock forty years after the event.

    Do you wish you were at Woodstock in 1969? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Star-Spangled Banner: Francis Scott Key & Singers Who Redefined His Words

    Marvin Gaye National Anthem

    On September 13 in 1814, a 35-year-old American lawyer wrote down a poem aboard a ship.  He had just watched Fort McHenry in Maryland being bombarded by the British all night long during the War of 1812. British troops had already attacked Washington, D.C. and were now looking to take Baltimore.

    The lawyer had come to Baltimore to successfully negotiate the release of a prisoner who was his friend.  Now, he became inspired when during dawn’s early light, he saw the U.S. flag still flying over Fort McHenry.

    The Song

    And so, immediately, the lawyer began writing a poem called “The Defense of Fort McHenry.” Francis Scott Key’s poem began invoking his sight of the flag, “Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?.”

    After the poem was published in newspapers, the words were linked to the music of an English drinking song by John Stafford Smith, “To Anacreon in Heaven.” The union of the American poem and the British music took on a life of its own as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And eventually it was adopted as the U.S.’s official anthem in 1931.

    Criticisms of “The Star Spangled Banner”

    There are many critics of the national anthem.  Some critics note that the song is difficult to sing.  Thus, we get various poor performances ranging from Cyndi Lauper’s minor lyrics flub at the 2011 U.S. Open to more disastrous results.

    Others criticize the song because it celebrates war over the nation’s other accomplishments. Personally, I love “America the Beautiful,” which many advocate as a replacement anthem.  But there is something inspirational in the old drinking song tune put to Key’s words.

    Houston Star Spangled As a pre-Civil War song, the reference to the “land of the free” is about a land where American slaves were excluded from that freedom. In fact, Francis Scott Key had owned slaves, worked against abolitionists in his law career, and generally held a number of racist principles.

    Thus, it is fascinating that the greatest versions of the song were performed by African-American singers and a man born in Puerto Rico.  These singers instilled the song with different meanings.

    Whitney Houston’s 1991 Super Bowl Performance

    The most recent of these versions is the rousing and patriotic Super Bowl version by Whitney Houston at the Super Bowl in January 1991.  She performed the song while the nation was involved in the Gulf War.

    People immediately recognized her version was something special. I remember seeing the single CD of the beautiful performance for sale in record stores, and Houston made the national anthem a best-seller.

    The fact that Houston pre-recorded the vocals and sang into a dead microphone does nothing to take away from how amazing her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is — or how much she gave to the performance. Her voice rose over a full band.

    On a day when the nation was on high alert and Americans were unsure of the future, Houston altered the 3/4 waltz of the national anthem by changing it to 4/4 time.  She thus elongated the notes, steeping the song in the time signature of the blues.

    Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969

    Maybe the single most famous public performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the Jimi Hendrix guitar version from Woodstock in 1969.  His instrumental version instills new meaning into the song and captures the turbulent time.

    Although Hendrix had been scheduled to close the Woodstock Music and Art Fair on Sunday night, various delays resulted in him taking the stage around 8 a.m. on Monday morning, August 18, 1969. Thus, the closing act appeared before a crowd that had thinned out since the beginning of the weekend.

    Hendrix first performed many of his most popular songs. Next, as the band began improvising, Hendrix told the crowd, “You can leave if you want to. We’re just jammin’, that’s all.” And then in the midst of the jam, he launched into “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

    Even though Hendrix had played the tune on stage in the past, this performance was one for the ages. Hendrix took a song written about two nations fighting a battle, and he turned it into an elegy to a nation battling itself.

    Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game

    The third example is one of my favorites, which is Marvin Gaye’s performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the 1983 NBA All-Star game. In what could have been just another pre-game performance, Marvin Gaye surprised us all.

    At the time, Gaye was fighting a serious drug addiction problem, and within a little more than a year, he would be killed by his own father. On the night of this performance, he must have wondered how the crowd would react.  He was running behind schedule on his way to the game after his only rehearsal of the song had not gone well.

    That night, I remember watching the All-Star game. After Gaye began, at first, I wondered what was going on. Then, like the crowd, I began to realize that something incredibly special was taking place.

    Gaye, like Hendrix before him, was reclaiming the national anthem, transcending the original warrior lyrics, capturing the pain and celebrating the joy of a troubled country, and giving it a little bit of soul.

    José Feliciano at the 1968 World Series 

    Before any of the above versions, José Feliciano, another person who would have been excluded from Francis Scott Key’s country, reinterpreted the national anthem during an afternoon game of the 1968 World Series.

    Feliciano performed in Detroit before Game 5 of the series between the Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals. The Tigers and NBC received angry calls and letters following the unconventional performance.

    But one may find an attempt to heal a divided nation in Feliciano’s voice.  The year had already seen the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.  Riots erupted in August at the Democratic National Convention. As the Viet Nam conflict continued, the nation seemed to be coming apart.

    You may hear Feliciano’s amazing version below.  Also, check out his discussion of the controversy caused by his October 7, 1968 performance.

    In less than a month, the country elected Richard M. Nixon as president.  The war continued and the nation remained divided.  But Feliciano — like Gaye, Hendrix, and Houston — had reminded us that the national anthem and the nation still could be saved.

    What is your favorite version of “The Star Spangled Banner”? Leave a comment.

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