Biography
One of rock & roll’s earliest and most striking instances of true outsider music arrived with the short-lived, fiercely divisive trio known as the Shaggs. Their atonal vocals, rudimentary instrumental skills, and disorienting handling of melody and form struck many ears as simply incompetent. Yet a dedicated audience responded to the group’s utterly distinctive voice, sustaining interest in their story and keeping their catalog available long after the band dissolved in 1975. Alongside instrumental pieces so peculiar they register as inadvertently avant-garde, the Shaggs’ 1969 debut album Philosophy of the World stood out for lyrics that blended childlike innocence, curiosity, and an underlying melancholy.
The lineup consisted of three sisters from New Hampshire’s Wiggin family—Dot, Helen, and Betty. In the mid-1960s their father Austin Wiggin, acting on a prophetic vision once shared by his own mother that his daughters would one day form a band, removed them from school, purchased instruments, and required daily hours of rehearsal. After several years of such preparation and regular local appearances at nursing homes and town-hall dances, the sisters entered a Massachusetts studio for a one-day session that produced Philosophy of the World. The pressing of one thousand copies on the short-lived Third World imprint vanished almost entirely—only about one hundred survived—when the label’s president disappeared. Bassist Rachel Wiggin later joined, and the group maintained a local performing schedule until Austin’s death in 1975 ended the project for good.
In the decades that followed, the lone, flawed recording gradually acquired cult renown. Frank Zappa named Philosophy of the World his third-favorite album of all time in a Playboy interview and declared the Shaggs “better than the Beatles.” NRBQ oversaw a 1980 reissue that introduced the music to fresh listeners, while Red Rooster Records issued the 1982 compilation Shaggs’ Own Thing, drawn from unreleased originals and informal covers. Subsequent generations of musicians continued to embrace the band’s uniqueness: Kurt Cobain placed Philosophy among his ten most treasured records, tribute albums appeared, and an off-Broadway musical based on the Shaggs’ story entered production in 2011. Both Philosophy of the World and Shaggs’ Own Thing received further reissues over time, and in 2013 Dot Wiggin ended a thirty-eight-year recording silence with the Dot Wiggin Band album Ready! Get! Go!.
The lineup consisted of three sisters from New Hampshire’s Wiggin family—Dot, Helen, and Betty. In the mid-1960s their father Austin Wiggin, acting on a prophetic vision once shared by his own mother that his daughters would one day form a band, removed them from school, purchased instruments, and required daily hours of rehearsal. After several years of such preparation and regular local appearances at nursing homes and town-hall dances, the sisters entered a Massachusetts studio for a one-day session that produced Philosophy of the World. The pressing of one thousand copies on the short-lived Third World imprint vanished almost entirely—only about one hundred survived—when the label’s president disappeared. Bassist Rachel Wiggin later joined, and the group maintained a local performing schedule until Austin’s death in 1975 ended the project for good.
In the decades that followed, the lone, flawed recording gradually acquired cult renown. Frank Zappa named Philosophy of the World his third-favorite album of all time in a Playboy interview and declared the Shaggs “better than the Beatles.” NRBQ oversaw a 1980 reissue that introduced the music to fresh listeners, while Red Rooster Records issued the 1982 compilation Shaggs’ Own Thing, drawn from unreleased originals and informal covers. Subsequent generations of musicians continued to embrace the band’s uniqueness: Kurt Cobain placed Philosophy among his ten most treasured records, tribute albums appeared, and an off-Broadway musical based on the Shaggs’ story entered production in 2011. Both Philosophy of the World and Shaggs’ Own Thing received further reissues over time, and in 2013 Dot Wiggin ended a thirty-eight-year recording silence with the Dot Wiggin Band album Ready! Get! Go!.
Albums
