Silver Wham Bam

The early 45 pressings had the Shang-A-Lang, but eventually the later 45 pressings had the shortened title.

The Bay City Rollers had a 1974 UK #2 hit with a song titled "Shang-A-Lang." Both artists were on the same Arista label.

Looks like the decision was made to shorten the title on the Silver release to avoid confusion.

I seem to recall the title was shortened midstream because the 'Shang-A-Lang' in the title was too bubblegummy.

The record is not a bubblegum song. It is a wuss-rock song.

(The band hated the song.)

Andy

Paul Haney wrote: FWIW, the Billboard Hot 100 showed the full title until the chart dated August 14, 1976 (its 9th week on the Hot 100), when they shortened the title to just "Wham Bam."

Yes indeed. At number 33 with a star that week. Silver only had a total of three singles plus one album released. I don't recall hearing any other songs by the group.

From the 45cat site and mentioned briefly above -

"According to American Top 40, Silver (lead by John Batdorf of the duo Batdorf and Rodney) really disliked the song and resisted recording it. Arista's Clive Davis was convinced of the songs potential and not only pressed the group to record it, but to release it as their debut single.

Apparently the song was shortened from "Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang" to just "Wham Bam" at the insistence of the Bay City Rollers (also on Arista) who had a UK hit earlier in 1974 called "Shang-A-Lang" and feared confusion."

John Batdorf still performs to this day. For those of you on Facebook, he loves when he hears his deeper track material on SXM's Deep Tracks channel and he posts about it on Facebook.