Mary Weiss

Who is Mary Weiss? She was my first teenage celebrity crush. She was the lead singer of The Shangri-Las that had some hit records between 1964 and 1966. She is the blonde girl on the right in the photo.

I saw The Shangri-Las perform at an outdoor concert in 1965. They were playing in a parking lot at a carnival down on Erie Avenue. I took the trolley to get there and I was actually more interested in the sideshow tents but then the music started. I worked my way up to the front of the crowd near the stage and watched The Shangri-Las perform some of their hits. I was 14 years old and enthralled with the performance.  Mary Weiss was 17 years old and looked right at me while singing Remember (Walking in the Sand).

She vanished from the music industry for decades and then released her first solo album Dangerous Game in 2007 that was backed up by The Reigning Sound.