Now that was a girl group *

Before the Ronettes, the Supremes or the The Shangri-Las were The Exciters. They recorded "Tell Him," by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, before anyone else and sing it in this apparently rare 1963 video clip from French television. Check out the French teenage style of the time. (Notice also the lingering ass shot at the one-minute mark, more French than American Bandstand.) That year, The Exciters were also the first to record Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich's Do Wah Diddy Diddy before it became a Manfred Mann cover hit. Hat tip to David Ulin on Facebook for the DWDD video.

* Writer credit update: Several readers who know these things say that "Tell Him" was written by Bert Berns as Bert Russell. Leiber and Stoller produced the recording. And after all, Russell is credited on the record itself.