Mary Weiss

In 2005, Weiss left her job in commercial interiors to get back to music. In March 2007, Norton Records released Dangerous Game, a critically acclaimed solo album, on which she was backed by The Reigning Sound. She has been performing elsewhere in the United States, and in Spain and France.

Weiss took a job as purchasing agent in New York City in Manhattan; as she recalled, "I went to work for an architectural firm, and I was seriously into it. Then I got into commercial interiors, huge projects, buildings." She later moved up to be the chief purchasing agent and ran the commercial furniture dealership. In the late 1980s, she managed a furniture store and was an interior designer. By 2001, she was a furniture consultant to New York businesses.

She has maintained a very low profile, appearing only twice for group reunions in 1977 and 1989. Her first marriage ended in divorce after 11 years, but she is currently happily wed to a paralegal, although she has never had any children. She and her second husband now live in Babylon, Long Island.

The small Red Bird label eventually folded in late 1966 due to financial problems and the group signed with Mercury Records, but changing musical tastes and litigation over bad contracts led to the group's demise in 1968. Mary went on to work as a secretary for an architectural firm in midtown Manhattan and eventually became a successful commercial interior designer and furniture installer in New York City.

Mary was only 15 when the newly-formed group was discovered by Red Bird Records producer/songwriter George "Shadow" Morton in 1964. Although the Shangri-Las began the year being photographed in chiffon dresses and high heels, Morton soon cultivated a biker-chick/bad girl image for them, with the group usually appearing live clad in tight pants and black leather vests.

Their songs featured melodramatic music and lyrics dealing with such themes as love lost, death, and general teenage angst, and often included sound effects, such as seagulls along the beach in 1964's "Remember (Walking in the Sand)", their first hit, and roaring motorcycles, as can be heard in their signature song from that same year, the biker epic "Leader of the Pack. " Incidentally, both tracks featured a young session pianist by the name of Billy Joel.

Growing up in Queens, Weiss, her older sister Elizabeth (known as Betty) and her older brother George lived in Cambria Heights. She sang in school plays and church choirs. Additionally, she listened to her brother and his friends perform popular songs of the day; George being an Elvis fan. Mary appreciated such performers as Neil Sedaka and the Everly Brothers; she attended her first Everly Brothers concert in 1963 at Freedomland U.S.A. at the age of 14.

Mary Weiss was the lead singer of the 1960s girl group The Shangri-Las, four New York City Catholic schoolgirl friends that included her older sister Betty and a couple of classmates, twins Mary Ann and Margie Ganser.

Mary Weiss (born December 28, 1948) is an American pop music vocalist, best known as the lead singer of The Shangri-Las in the 1960s. She then vanished from the music scene for decades, returning in 2007 to record her first solo album with Norton Records.