THE CHIFFONS

In the early 1960s the Chiffons stood among New York’s finest girl groups, merging cheeky attitude with wide-eyed charm across multiple landmarks of the form. Already armed with prior releases, they claimed the top chart position through “He’s So Fine,” whose signature “doo-lang, doo-lang” figure was later borrowed by George Harrison for his own 1970 blockbuster “My Sweet Lord.” A judge later required Harrison to remit considerable sums to the original copyright holders, although he maintained throughout that any similarity had been inadvertent. Their immediate successor, the Goffin-King composition “One Fine Day,” proved equally potent, highlighted by incisive piano figures supplied by King herself. The track had first been cut for Little Eva; once the Chiffons’ vocals were inserted in its place, the single rose to the Top Five. Further notable successes arrived with “I Have a Boyfriend” and the Motown-tinged “Sweet Talkin’ Guy,” while experiments such as the Martha & the Vandellas-echoing “The Real Thing” landed as intriguing near-misses, and a handful of sides appeared under the pseudonym the Four Pennies. Across the decade the quartet amassed a sizable body of recordings, most of them plainly derivative of prevailing trends.