Shirley O’Garra became Shirley Elliston when she married the lead singer of The Metronomes in 1949 of which she was also a member. By the mid-fifties she was already a songwriter having written two B sides for The Chords (of Sh-boom fame) and for The Heartbreakers. In 1959 she started working with Lincoln Chase who’d already written hit songs for The Drifters and Johnnie Ray (Such A Night) and Lavern Baker (Jim Dandy). This was Elliston’s first, and only, release under her married name; it was as Shirley Ellis she became famous for the big hits such as The Name Game and The Clapping Song (Clap Pat Clap Slap) in the mid-sixties.
