Early in Greg Lakes’s career, he was part of a group called The Shame who released the single Don’t Go Away Little Girl, co-written by Lake and a young Janis Ian.
Ian, who was only in her mid-teens, was experiencing her own break-out success at the time with Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking) (1967 / #14) which interrupted a budding writing partnership between the two young artists, leaving their output at one song that had only a small amount of local success in the U.K.
With the passing of Greg Lake, Ian had decided to post a demo of the song from during the writing process. Ian writes:
RIP, Greg Lake… Some of you may know that Greg’s first group was The Shame, and their first single was my song “Don’t Go Way Little Girl.” Most people don’t know that we intended to do a bunch of writing together, but we only managed one piece before obligations and management intervened. It never saw the light of day, sadly. Greg sent me a cassette of the track with a few suggested melodic bits, and I sent back a new cassette with my vocal and lyrics overdubbed onto it.
Here is the demo tape and the single by The Shames:
