Yes, they're the great pretenders

HOW CAN THIS happen in America? If I plunk down my hard-earned entertainment dollars to see a group called the Coasters, it's got to at least have something to do with the Coasters, right? Somebody has to have had some connection to "Yakety Yak," "Charlie Brown," "Poison Ivy" and the other classic hits that made the Coasters the first group to be inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, right?

Not necessarily. In fact, Carl Gardner, who sang virtually every Coasters lead and is the holder of the federally registered trademark of the name, has spent years trying to shut down shows by Coasters impostor groups. But even with the trademark as a weapon, his task has proved nearly impossible. He is more than entitled to quote Charlie Brown and ask, "Why's everybody always pickin' on me?"

Impostor groups are everywhere. In a sophisticated form of identity theft, they perform across the country at theaters, festivals and fairs. Often they perform on the same oldies bill as one another, duping consumers and stealing the remuneration and applause due the real pioneers of rock 'n' roll.

It hasn't happened to me. But when I sang with Sha Na Na, which began paying homage to vintage rock 'n' roll in the late 1960s, I met most of my childhood idols, the people who sang those songs. I'm honored to call them my friends. And I'm distressed to see so many of them suffer while impostors take their livelihood and, what's worse, their glory.

It's done cleverly. There's usually at least one really old guy in the phony group, so that you can sit out in the audience and say: "That must be the 'real one.' " A young lady recently told me that she was taken by her parents to see what she thought was her favorite group, "The World Famous Platters," for her Sweet 16 party. She reports that "Rooster," the lead singer, told her he sang lead on all the Platters' hits and then "proceeded to deface my Platters' albums with his autograph." You see, she'd noticed that there was no "Rooster" listed on any of her albums.

A group claiming to be the Shangri-Las ("Leader of the Pack") has actually gained legal rights to the group name in a court settlement, but even under existing law that still doesn't entitle them to the group's history. I once saw two "Shangri-Las" barely out of diapers hold up the hand of the "real one" and say: "And this is Mom," implying that she was both a member of the original group (which she wasn't) and their mom (which she also wasn't).