Bananarama

Bananarama was one of the most successful British girl groups in pop history despite the original trio's inability to play instruments and refusal to do concert tours. Musically, Bananarama (the name combines the late-'60s kids' show The Banana Splits and Roxy Music's "Pyjamarama") presented fluffy pop tunes and a girly image that won fans and sold records.

Woodward and Dallin were childhood friends. Dallin met Fahey at the London College of Fashion, and the three began singing at friends' parties. Bananarama’s first single was produced by ex–Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook. The trio sang backup on Fun Boy Three’s “It Ain’t What You Do, It’s the Way That You Do It,” and the guys returned the favor on Bananarama’s first U.K. hit, “He Was Really Sayin’ Somethin’,” which was a minor 1965 hit for Motown’s Velvelettes. Deep Sea Skiving collected Bananarama’s earliest singles. Bananarama was produced and cowritten by Swain and Jolley (Spandau Ballet, Alison Moyet) and gave the group its first U.S. hit, “Cruel Summer” (#9, 1984). The song was big in England a year before it broke in the U.S.; the band always had greater success at home (although the British press hated the trio). “Robert De Niro’s Waiting,” Bananarama’s second single, got little airplay in the States.

Bananarama switched producers to Stock/Aitken/Waterman (Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley) while recording True Confessions (#15, 1986), and the team (who produced two of the album’s tracks) delivered the smash cover of Shocking Blue’s 1970 #1 hit “Venus” (#1, 1986). S/A/W produced Wow!, which featured “Love in the First Degree” and “I Heard a Rumour” (#4, 1987) (used in the Fat Boys movie Disorderlies).

In 1987 Fahey married the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart and a few months later left Bananarama. She was replaced on Pop Life by Jacqui O’Sullivan, formerly of the Shilelagh Sisters. That album was produced primarily by ex–Killing Joke bassist Youth and included a cover of the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running.” O’Sullivan left the group in mid-1991, and Bananarama continued as a duo, releasing 1992’s Please Yourself before being dropped from its record label the following year.

Fahey formed Shakespear’s Sister with Marcella Detroit, who in the ’70s toured with Eric Clapton and cowrote “Lay Down Sally.” Shakespear’s Sister’s first single, “You’re History,” made it clear that Fahey was eager to leave Bananarama behind. The band’s name came from a Smiths song, which was itself inspired by a Virginia Woolf essay lamenting the lack of credit given to female artists. Although its records have been self-consciously artsy and strange, Shakespear’s Sister had a major pop hit with a song from its second album, the ballad “Stay” (#4, 1992).

Shakespear’s Sister called it quits in 1993, and Detroit released her solo debut, Jewel, the following year. In 1996 Dallin and Woodward resurfaced with a new Bananarama album, Ultra Violet. The duo continues to perform, mostly overseas, and according to U.K. sources, has a new album in the works.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)