Shirley & Company – Shame, Shame, Shame

From Playboy’s Switchboard To Disco’s Summit

When Shirley Goodman picked up the phone at Playboy magazine’s offices in late 1974, she had no idea the call from her old friend Sylvia Robinson would resurrect a career she’d quietly abandoned. Robinson, now running All Platinum Records in New Jersey, had written a disco track and needed Goodman’s distinctive voice. She paid for the flight from California, and within weeks, “Shame, Shame, Shame” became one of the first genuine international disco hits. Released in December 1974, the song reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and dominated the disco charts for four weeks. More remarkably, it topped the R&B chart and crashed into the top ten across Europe, hitting number one in Germany, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
The song’s chart performance tells only part of the story. At number 6 in the UK, it outpaced countless British acts during disco’s formative months. The single sold a million copies during a period when disco was still finding its identity, proving that the genre could deliver both dancefloor energy and commercial punch. Robinson’s track beat established stars to the top of the charts, cementing her reputation as a hitmaker who understood what made people move.
Robinson had originally intended the song for Donnie Elbert, an All Platinum artist. When that didn’t work out, she made a brilliant creative decision: pair 38-year-old Goodman, whose piercing soprano had defined Shirley & Lee’s 1956 smash “Let The Good Times Roll,” with Jesus Alvarez’s raw backing vocals. Goodman had spent nearly two decades in the wilderness. After her 1950s success, she’d worked as a session singer for Sonny and Cher, sang background on The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street, then retired from music entirely to work at Playboy, manning the switchboard. The partnership between Robinson and Goodman worked because both women knew what it meant to claw back from obscurity.
Recording at All Platinum Studios in Englewood, New Jersey, Robinson built the track around the Bo Diddley beat, giving it an instantly recognizable rhythmic pulse that separated it from the orchestral disco flooding the market. Saxophonist Seldon Powell delivered the memorable solo, and his instrumental version became the B-side, titled “More Shame.” The production was lean, garage-like, and Robinson kept the arrangement stripped down so Goodman’s shrill, glass-shattering voice could dominate. That voice, described by producer Cosimo Matassa as making you check for blood, pierced through radio static and club speakers with equal force. Robinson’s instinct to avoid lush strings proved correct. The raw energy made it feel immediate, urgent.
The single appeared on the album Shame, Shame, Shame, released in 1975 on the Vibration label, Robinson’s disco imprint under All Platinum Records. The follow-up single “Cry, Cry, Cry” reached number 91 on the Hot 100, but nothing could match the impact of their debut. For Goodman, this was a spectacular second act. For Robinson, it was another step toward creating Sugar Hill Records in 1979, where she’d produce “Rapper’s Delight” and essentially invent the hip-hop record industry. The album’s cover featured a drawing of Goodman wagging her finger at Richard Nixon, making the political undertones explicit.
The song’s influence rippled through disco and beyond. Linda Fields & the Funky Boys released an almost identical version in 1975 that charted concurrently in New Zealand. Ike & Tina Turner’s version hit number 27 on the Billboard Disco chart in 1980, and Izabella Scorupco’s 1992 cover reached number two in Norway and Sweden. The Rolling Stones even recorded outtakes covering the track during their Black and Blue sessions. Its phrases about diamonds in the back and sun roofs borrowed from William DeVaughn’s “Be Thankful for What You Got,” creating a disco dialogue that fans recognized instantly.
Robinson’s production gave Goodman a proper finale to an improbable career that spanned doo-wop, R&B, and disco across three decades. Goodman never achieved another hit, but she didn’t need to. As one music writer noted after her death in 2005, that bizarre mixture of flat and sharp notes in her voice made every record she touched distinctive. Robinson had given her friend the rarest gift in music: a second chance that actually worked.