Lesley Gore

In early 1963, an ambitious A&R man at Mercury Records was sent demos of songs by a girl who had just turned 16. He called her up, and at the end of March, they entered a studio together, and by June 1 It's My Party had topped the American charts. Within the year, Quincy Jones had become the first Black vice-president of Mercury Records, while Lesley Gore had become an instant sensation.

Gore was born Lesley Sue Goldstein in Brooklyn, NYC, in 1946. She was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, and was a junior at the Dwight School for Girls in nearby Englewood when It's My Party became a number-one hit. The song eventually was nominated for a Grammy Award for Rock and Roll recording. It sold over one million copies and was certified as a gold record. Here it is:

In 1981, keyboard wizard Dave Stewart had a UK #1 hit with his own version of It's My Party, featuring vocalist Barbara Gaskin. Dave Stewart would then have another big hit, featuring ex-Zombie Colin Bluntstone - and then he would go on to form the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox. It's worth listening to:

For Lesley, that was a great way to start a career. However, there's always the danger that such a huge first hit will totally define emerging artists, turning them effectively into one-hit wonders. Lesley sidestepped that pitfall by following it up with three great singles, which also became major hits.

The direct follow up was an answer hit to It's My Party called Judy's Turn to Cry, which is the happy end to the former hit's sad story. Which goes to show that every story can have a happy or a sad end. It all depends on the point that the narrator decides to put his final full stop.

She followed this up with She's A Fool, also very successful:

Her next big hit is my favorite song of hers, an early feminist song of empowerment. You Don't Own Me made #2 in the US, being held off the top spot by none other than the Beatles and I Want To Hold Your Hand, at the very beginning of Beatlemania.

The song is currently a  big hit all over the world, in this version by Grace ft. G-Eazy:

This, unfortunately, would be Lesley's last Top 10 hit. Partly attributed to the changing climate in Pop music (the British Invasion) and partly to bad luck: Lesley was given first shot at recording A Groovy Kind of Love, but a record executive refused to let Gore record a song with the word "groovy" in its lyrics. The Mindbenders went on to record it, and it reached # 2 on the Billboard charts. She would go on to have, however, 7 more Top 40 hits.

First there was That's the Way Boys Are (1964):

There were 2 more Top 40 hits during that year. Here's I Don't Wanna Be a Loser:

Maybe I Know was an even bigger hit:

1965 began well, with Look of Love...

... And then got even better, with Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows, a Bacharach/David composition that was eventually nominated for a Grammy:

Her next hit would be My Town, My Guy and Me:

Her last US Top 40 hit would peak at #16 in early 1967. It was called California Nights, produced by Bob Crewe, with music by Marvin Hamlisch. In the January 19, 1967 episode of the Batman TV series, "That Darn Catwoman" Lesley (in her role as Catwoman's underling, Pussycat) lip-synched the song to a trio of Catwoman's henchmen.

After high school, while continuing to make appearances as a singer, Gore attended Sarah Lawrence College, studying British and American English literature. At college Folk music was popularly lauded as 'chic', whereas Pop music was often derided as 'uncool'. "Had I been tall with blonde hair, had I been Mary Travers, I would have gotten along fine." She graduated in 1968.

In 1969 she had a minor Adult Contemporary hit with a medley of 98.6 and Lazy Day:

In 1970 she had another minor Adult Contemporary hit with Why Doesn't Love Make Me Happy:

Lesley composed songs for the soundtrack of the 1980 film Fame, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Out Here On My Own, written in collaboration with her brother Michael. Here it is, as sung in the film by Irene Cara:

And here's Lesley herself, performing the song live in 2011:

Brother Michael did win the Academy Award (without Lesley) for Best Original Song for the theme song of the same film. He also won a second Oscar for Best Original Score. Here's Fame, one of the songs that would define the 80s:

Lesley co-wrote a song, My Secret Love, for the 1996 film Grace of My Heart. The film includes a subplot about a young singer named Kelly Porter, who is based in part on Gore and is played by Bridget Fonda. The character, who is a closeted lesbian, performs My Secret Love in the film. Here it is:

In 2005 Gore recorded Ever Since (her first album of new material since Love Me By Name in 1976), with producer Blake Morgan. The album received favorable reviews from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard Magazine and other press. The album also included a revised version of You Don't Own Me, about which the New York Daily News wrote: "In Lesley Gore's new version of You Don't Own Me, cut more than 40 years after its initial recording—she lends a pop classic new life." Gore commented: "Without the loud backing track, I could wring more meaning from the lyric". And: "It's a song that takes on new meaning every time you sing it." I love this version:

Lesley often lent her voice to reproductive and LGBT justice campaigns, including Joan Jett’s feminist PSA and the LGBT docuseries In the Life, which she hosted beginning in 2004. She had a soft spot for rural gay people (“there are probably two gay people in the whole damn town,” she sympathized when meeting Midwestern LGBTs during her tour), and she was friends with Dusty Springfield and feminist icon Bella Abzug.

On her coming out: “I never found it was necessary,” she told an AfterEllen interviewer in 2005 of the soft-spokenness with which she’d approached coming out. “I really never kept my life private. Those who knew me, those who worked with me, were well aware.”

She was in a relationship with luxury jewelry designer Lois Sasson since 1982. At the time of her death, the couple had been together for 33 years. Gore died of lung cancer on February 16, 2015, at the NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, New York City; she was 68 years old. After her passing, Page Six revealed that Lesley’s estate was worth $50,000. By celebrity icon standards, she died appallingly broke.