Mary Weiss, who has died aged 75, was the lead singer of the Shangri-Las, who created a string of unique and influential hits in the mid-1960s including Remember (Walking in the Sand), I Can Never Go Home Anymore and, above all, their US chart-topper Leader of the Pack, the acme of tragic teenage angst. Mary’s voice brought a streetwise yet vulnerable timbre to their sound, which was exploited to full effect by their inspired songwriter and producer George “Shadow” Morton.
Remember (Walking in the Sand), from 1964, was their first collaboration with Morton. Even though it was supposedly the first song he ever wrote, his skills were evident not just in the song’s doomed-romance lyrics but also in its sepulchral piano, panoramic vocal harmonies and twittering seagull sound effects. Weiss later commented that Morton “used to be very difficult to get into a room at a scheduled time, but a brilliant man”. When Aerosmith released their version of the song in 1980, Weiss contributed uncredited backing vocals.
