Billy Sha-Rae - Sad News RIP

Jerry Zolten recently passed on the sad news to the site regarding Billy Sha-Rae passing on earlier this month.

Jerry Z has posted a detailed entry on this sad news via a facebook page which can be read via the link below

Preview clips follow below...

A remembrance of BILLY SHA-RAE who passed away on November 5, 2015. In the 1960s Billy made his name performing R&B in the Pittsburgh area. I knew him as Billy Wilson from Uniontown, PA.

In those days I was spinning records at record hops. Part way through the evening I would feature a live performance by a local artist. Billy Sha-Rae was one of them.
Billy was tall, a smooth-voiced charmer, Sam Cooke handsome with lithe moves ala Jackie Wilson. The teen crowds loved him. Though he was older than me, we became friends, someone I could talk to about my crummy love life and my own farfetched aspirations to make music in some yet-to-be-defined way.

Billy was a recording artist. He had cut a number of tracks for a local label – Bay-Uke Records out of Greensburg, PA. He gave me a handful of his 45-rpm singles and I would spin them over the sound system. He would sing along to them over a microphone. About a half an hour’s worth. That’s how it worked and we did quite a few record hops together over the years. *see photo of Billy singing, me barely visible behind the table in the background.
“To Love and Be Loved” (Bay-Uke)

....I tried to reconnect with Billy Sha-Rae over the years but with no luck...until news of his passing reached me last week via Billy’s son Billee who lives in Detroit.
Billy “Sha-Rae” Wilson was born in 1938. He left the music business for the Cayman Islands and there became a popular television and radio personality. His last years were spent in Louisville, KY where he died earlier this month. Thinking of you Billy Sha-Rae and your family. Time may indeed slip away but not the marks people make on our lives..