Joan Marie Johnson Faust, one of the founding members of the New Orleans girl group the Dixie Cups, died Oct. 5, 2016, according to multiple news sources. She was 72.
Sisters Barbara Ann and Rosa Lee Hawkins formed the Dixie Cups along with Faust, their cousin. In June 1964, the trio famously kicked the Beatles out of the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with the song “Chapel of Love.” It proved to be their biggest hit, selling more than 1 million copies.
Faust and her cousins had several other hits including 1964’s “People Say,” which reached No. 12, and “You Should Have Seen the Way He Looked at Me,” which made it into the Top 40. In 1965, the Dixie Cups had a top-20 hit with their version of a traditional New Orleans song “Iko Iko.”
Faust became a member of the Jehovah’s Witness religious denomination and left the Dixie Cups after the trio stopped recording temporarily in 1966.
In 2007, the Dixie Cups were inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.