Former Sha Na Na lead vocalist sings new tune as law professor at the University of Oregon

Jet, July 13, 1998

Dennis Greene is probably best remembered as "Denny," the lone Black who was the former lead singer of the '50s revival group Sha Na Na. Today Greene is performing in a different arena and singing a new tune as a law professor at the University of Oregon.

The '50s revival group Sha Na Na generated wide recognition in the '70s with its television variety show, which ran from 1977 to 1980. Greene, who was the only one in the group with any formal dance training, did a lot of the choreography. He won fame as the group's chief vocalist, singing lead on such tunes as Tears On My Pillow, which the group performed in the 1978 film Grease.

"Being a rock star was never something that was particularly interesting to me," Greene said. "It was a great job. I loved the singing part. The byproducts, unfortunately, were exhausting travel and the ongoing-forever politics of being in a business controlled by young adults that were sort of self-managing."

Greene, 49, who received his undergraduate degree at Columbia University where the group had its roots in an a cappella singing group, stayed with Sha Na Na through its TV show. He then went on to earn a master's in education from Harvard in 1984. Three years later he graduated from Yale Law School.

From there Greene became a vice president at Columbia Pictures, working on, among other projects, Spike Lee's film School Daze.

It was while Greene was teaching a course on the entertainment industry at City College of New York and performing a two-man play he had written, Harlem Exchange, that one of his Yale classmates, who was teaching at Oregon's law school, suggested he bring his play to Eugene, OR, and think about teaching at the law school.

Now the former lead singer is an assistant professor, teaching torts, entertainment law and a course titled, Law, Mass, Media and Race, at the University of Oregon.

Of the other members of Sha Na Na-in which only two are still in the latest incarnation of the group-two became physicians, two lawyers, one an entrepreneur and three went into academia.