Shaye Cogan

Shaye Cogan is one of those performers whose work turns up today almost exclusively in two sets of cult vehicles -- a fetching blonde, she appeared as an actress in two movies starring Abbott & Costello: Comin' Round the Mountain (1951) and Jack and the Beanstalk (1952), co-starring in the latter; and as a singer, she appeared in one of the defining juke-box movies of the late '50s, Mr. Rock 'n Roll (1957), starring Alan Freed and featuring Little Richard and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. The latter reflected her singing career on Roulette Records, which was aided by the fact that she was married to Phil Kahl, partner to Roulette chief Morris Levy. In point of fact, Cogan wasn't any more of a rock & roll singer than Gale Storm, but she did have a servicable voice, capable of credibly covering material that might otherwise have fallen into the hands of Georgia Gibbs. She got access to a series of catchy novelty-type tunes, of which "Doodle Doodle Doo," from 1957, was the best. Cogan was good enough (or her indirect marital-business connection to Morris Levy was influential enough) to rate her a place on the same bill with Buddy Holly, Little Richard, the Del Vikings, Mickey & Sylvia, and the Moonglows as part of the Alan Freed Great Holiday Rock 'n Roll Show at the Brooklyn Paramount in New York (August 30-September 8, 1957). And as late as 1960, she placed a single ("Mean to Me") in the British Top 40. Her husband, Phil Kahl, had entered the music business in 1944 and at one point was a senior executive in Disney Music -- he became partners with Morris Levy in 1953 in music publishing and in Roulette, and later sold out his interest to Levy. Cogan was last heard from professionally at the beginning of the '60s. ~ Bruce Eder