I traded Johnny Thunders' white boots for a copy of a Shangri-Las album. It's true. How I came to be in possession of the legendary footwear in the first place is a Cinderella story. On a 1976 visit to the Thunders abode with fellow NY Dolls fan/Ohio import Stiv Bators, I had eyeballed the scuffed yet stylish stackers abandoned in a corner, and had fallen into reverie about their magnitude. "Take them," our host had offered. Heaven only knows, I did just that. Some time later, Stiv moved the entire Dead Boys gang and his record collection into my East 5th Street apartment. In with his albums was SHANGRI-LAS '65, which I coveted greatly. Long story short, he proposed a trade. What's a girl supposed to do? He got the boots, I got Right Now And Not Later, Out In The Streets -- a dozen superb songs packaged in spooky cover with mysterious forensic police sketch style artwork -- the Shangri-Las second album.

That three way swap between avowed Shangri-Las fans was thirty years ago, and now, as Easter breaks head on into the greatest summer of our collective lifetimes, it's only fitting that Mary Weiss, the anguished, attitudinal, astonishing voice that launched a thousand throttling engines into orbit, is once again leading the charge. Generations later, the elusive blonde lead singer of the Shangs, has a lot to say and do, and the party starts now, with a kick start interview conducted at Mary's beautiful secluded home tucked hours away from the New York City streets she immortalized.

Above: UPBEAT outtake '66! Chippewa Lake Amusement Park, Medina, Ohio

The Shangri-Las started as two sets of teenage sisters from the Queens neighborhood of Cambria Heights -- Mary and her sister Liz (Betty), and the Ganser twins, Margie and Mary Ann. The girls began singing at local dances and soon came to the attention of multi-talented George "Shadow" Morton, who shot them into the charts with massive hits on the Red Bird record label including Remember (Walking In The Sand), Leader Of The Pack, Give Him A Great Big Kiss, I Can Never Go Home Anymore, Give Us Your Blessings and Out In The Streets, written by Morton and/or Red Bird's Brill Building staffers Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. The Shangri-Las gave a voice to real teenagers, with Mary's explosive lead vocals delivering emotion packed melodramas that made them one of the most consistently exciting groups of the day. Their rise to fame was truly meteoric, with three Top Ten records -- eleven Top 100 hits -- in a two year period, during which they were on the road constantly, crossing to England twice. The Shangri-Las played on bills with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and even had a Shangri-Las Day declared during the NYC World's Fair in 1964. Their groundbreaking Leader Of The Pack hit #1 in October 1964, and even broke the Top Ten in Britain twice in the 1970's. Mary Ann Ganser passed away in 1971, three years after the group broke up. They last performed together in 1989, when they sang as a trio at Cousin Brucie's first Palisades Park Reunion Show. Margie Ganser passed away in 1996. With regard to recording, Mary has not been heard on wax since 1967 except for an uncredited backup vocal on Aerosmith's 1979 version of Remember (Walking In The Sand). Although they received considerable press during their heyday, none of the members has spoken candidly until now, with Mary having made the decision to record and perform again.

And about that SHANGRI-LAS '65 album I swapped for back in '76 -- well, you know something funny? That LP vanished at a house party right away. Stiv and Johnny checked out ahead of schedule in 1990/1991 respectively. And those dirty old white boots -- you may find them washed up on the beach next time you're walking in the sand, or abandoned on a corner, out in the street.