Camden Native Mary Cross' Pre-Teen Friends Told Her She Was a Singer

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CAMDEN – Everything was likely set into action in the early 1970s when 12-year-old Mary Smith played kickball with neighborhood kids on some open grass near her Arnold Street home.

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They spent a lot of time at the lot in those days before video games. “You’d come home when the streetlight came on,” she recalled.

When they took a break from kickball, Mary would say to her friends “You know, I really like this song” and sing and one day she put her voice to work on a then-popular Captain & Tennille tune.

"I can mimic that lady,” Mary told her friends.

“No,” they disagreed, correcting her: “You can sing.”

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That turned into years of performing for the Camden native whose married and stage name is Mary Cross , the singer who entertained in May at Mayor Victor Carstarphen’s State of the City Address.

In late June, Cross sang 56 songs with her 2NspireU band in a four-hour tribute to her idol, the late jazz and soul singer Phyllis Hyman, at a show at the Claridge in Atlantic City that sold out 550 seats.

Cross, 60 years old and now a Lawnside resident, attended H.B. Wilson elementary school, where she skipped from fourth to sixth grade because she excelled as a student.

She went to Morgan Village Middle School and graduated from Camden High School. Her husband, Jeffrey Cross, also from Camden, graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, which now is Eastside High School.

The singer works as the office manager for the Rowan Medicine OB/GYN practice in Stratford. She has worked for the health care provider for 21 years.

Despite a lifetime of singing, Cross does not perform full time – but she manages to play 30 or 35 gigs each year.

Finding her voice, and her role as a chanteuse, was not easy for Cross, who was a foster child.

Her voice has always been deeper and her childhood debut in the Tenth Street Baptist Church choir was disturbing for the young singer: She was assigned to the tenor section with the boys because of her voice.

As she got older, she was still trying to find herself as an entertainer.

"I didn't have any reference at all for a voice that could (turn her into) a solo artist," she told TAPinto Camden in an interview.

Then she discovered the music of Hyman, whom she had never met.

Hyman, a Philadelphia native, had a deep voice like Cross and recorded the popular songs “You Know How to Love Me” and “Living All Alone.” Hyman died in 1995 at 45 years old, a suicide victim.

Cross planned to sing 58 Hyman songs at the Atlantic City tribute but made it to just 56 because she started at 5 p.m. and had to end the show at 9:15.

How does someone physically manage to sing 56 songs?

“I don't know how I can do it, but I'm able to do it,” said Cross, who noted that she never smoked or drank alcohol.

She recalls sitting at an Atlantic City comedy club about 15 years ago with her niece. The comedians were great, she said, but each went up to the mic and looked like everyone else. Nothing special because they were not dressing the part, she said.

Cross said she knew she could dress the part of a stage singer and decided “I’m going to start a band.” Many helped her get started even though in the beginning she “didn’t have any idea how I was going to pull this off.”

Ed House, whom Cross refers to as her brother even though not biological, is her sound engineer. Dane Clarke, who lived around the corner from Cross when she lived in Camden, is her musical director. And Daille Kettrell, her keyboardist, has lived in Parkside his whole life, she said.

The name of the band, 2NspireU, evolved from Cross’ view of music: It should inspire you and tell stories.

Her repertoire is not limited to Hyman – her tunes date back to the 1920s and include today’s music.

Her song list goes into the hundreds, and she said she recalls the lyrics and the music.

“These songs are things that tell stories,” she said. “You have to convince an audience you know what you’re singing about.”

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