Sha Na Na’s Bowser was actually a pedigreed canine

by David Safier

Amazingly (to me, anyway), this is the second time I've posted about the faux-50s rock group, Sha Na Na, who I never really liked. But I find the group's actual pedigree amusing, given the street corner doowop vibe the singers gave off.

These "street guys" were, in actuality, an a capella group from Columbia University. How did they get to Woodstock? Jimi Hendrix (I'm not making this up) saw them perform and got them booked. I learned this from the New York Times.

And now I learn more about Bowser, the black t-shirted wild man in the back row, fists clenched, shouting in proletarian rage. True story? This from the New Yorker.

In his pre-Bowser days, Jon Bauman was one of 36 Queens middle school students with a science aptitude who were placed in an accelerated program. He was also a gifted musician. When he went to his weekend classes at Juilliard (again, I am not making this up), he says, thugs taunted him. "I'd walk past them with my earflaps strapped under my chin — because, you know, you didn't want to catch a cold — and they would try to kick my books down the sewer." He modeled Bowser after those guys.

I don't know where Bowser ended up, but some of his fellow Na's became the director of the linguistics program at Hofstra University, a provost at Jewish Theological Seminary, a professor at San Francisco State and a lit prof at Texas Tech. Not bad for a bunch or seeming ne'er do wells, eh?

Here they are doing Pretty Little Angel Eyes, with wild-eyed Bowser singing bass.