Henry Gross, who was born in Brooklyn on April 1 in 1951, was the youngest person to perform on the main stage at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969. At the time, he was eighteen years old, performing as one of the founding members of Sha Na Na. But Gross is best known for his song about a dog.
The members of Sha Na Na formed out of a Columbia University a cappella group that started performing under the Sha Na Na name in 1969. The group, with Gross, eventually performed prior to Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock.
Some credit Sha Na Na’s short appearance in the Woodstock film with contributing to the nostalgia for the 1950s in subsequent years. That nostalgia led to the film American Graffiti (1973) and the TV show Happy Days.
In 1970, though, Gross left Sha Na Na to pursue a career as a solo singer-songwriter. He initially found little success. But he played guitar as a session musician on one of the classic albums of the early 1970s, Jim Croce’s I Got a Name (1973).
Following some modest success with his own recordings, Gross wrote a song about the death of an Irish Setter owned by Beach Boys member Carl Wilson. The song, “Shannon,” became an international hit.
Shannon, is gone I heard,
She’s drifting out to sea;
She always loved to swim away;
Maybe she’ll find an island with a shaded tree,
Just like the one in our backyard.
The Story Behind “Shannon”
There is something gut-wrenching about the beautiful song. So much of it seems real that one may wonder how could this be a song about somebody else’s dog? Well, it really is only partly about Wilson’s dog. Gross also had a dog named Shannon.
In 1972, when Gross was twenty-one, he became involved with a woman named Kathy Reinmann, first as a friend then as a girlfriend. She had a two-year old Irish Setter named Shannon. As Gross described the dog later, “She was an uncannily human dog whose ability to manipulate her human counterparts cannot be understated.”
Around this time, Gross was touring with the Beach Boys and struck up a friendship with Carl Wilson. While visiting Wilson at his home in Los Angeles, Wilson told Gross that he had previously had an Irish Setter too. Wilson explained that he lost his dog when it was hit by a car. His Irish Setter, coincidentally, had the same name as Gross’s dog, Shannon.
Soon after the trip, Gross sat in his apartment trying to write a song. But a neighbor was playing loud music that interfered with his creative process. So, Gross put on an environments record called The Ultimate Seashore. While listening to the sounds of the ocean on the record, he thought of the Beach Boys, Carl Wilson, and Wilson’s dog Shannon.
Gross looked at his dog Shannon, and he thought of “the indescribable sadness that losing such a beloved partner in life must be.” He later recalled, “The song seemed to write itself taking no more than ten minutes and with almost no cross outs on the paper.”
Inspired by the sounds of the ocean on the record, Gross sang about Shannon “drifting off to sea.” The setting also sounded more romantic than getting hit by a car. The lyrics were ambiguous enough that listeners would not know it was about a dog and could imagine their own story.
Gross initially sent the song to Wilson, hoping he would provide background vocals. But the timing never worked out. So Gross recorded his version, which appeared on his album Release,
Gross’s song blanketed the nation that year. A country weary from Watergate and the Vietnam war was looking for something new in its bicentennial year. The release of “Shannon” and Gross’s high aching voice captured some of the sadness of the times.
Gross eventually took Shannon’s owner Kathy Reinmann as his wife, although the two would later divorce. They remained friends for decades until she died of lung cancer.
Gross continues to make music since “Shannon,” as you can hear on his website, some with degrees of success. For example, he co-wrote the top 40 country song “Big Guitar” for Blackhawk.
But he never had a hit quite like his song about a dog. Below, Gross performed “Shannon” in 2014, showing he still can hit the high notes. And yes, he still has dogs (and cats).
And that is the story behind the song.
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