The legendary ’60s girl group The Shangri-Las say their monster hit “Leader of the Pack” was ripped off and wrongfully used in a TV commercial.
The Shangri-Las’ two surviving members and the estates of two other members filed suit yesterday in Manhattan District Court against LPL Financial Services and Working Class.
The group – formed by two sets of twin sisters in Cambria Heights, Queens, in the early ’60s – wants $250,000 in damages.
The suit charges that LPL aired an ad touting itself as “leader of the pack” in providing up-to-the-second financial information.
The commercial – produced by the Working Class media company – aired on the CNBC, FNN and Fox News Channel cable networks. It used the original 1964 recording by the Shangri-Las, which rocketed to No. 1 across the nation.
While LPL and Working Class paid licensing fees for the song – written by Shadow Morton, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich – they never obtained the group’s permission to use their voices, the suit alleges.
“That permission is clearly spelled out in the terms of the Screen Actor’s Guild contract,” the group’s lawyer Alexander Peltz told The Post.
The two surviving members, twins Liz Weiss Nelson and Mary Weiss Stokes, are now in their 50s and still live in the metropolitan area, Peltz said.
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(Different version in the metro and sports extra editions.)