Post by ClassicSoul on Feb 13, 2006 12:21:40 GMT -5
Mary Wilson: Supremely grateful for the music
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Mary Wilson believes in the power of music.
Not only did her career with the Supremes bring her from Detroit's Brewster Housing Projects to the world stage, but her songs have brought people together - even mortal enemies.
"I just got back from Bosnia where they were celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreement," Wilson said in an interview last week. "At the end of the show, Bosnians and Croatians were standing side by side singing, 'Someday, We'll Be Together.' "
The onetime warring factions found common ground in the Supremes' 1969 tune, the vocal group's 12th No. 1 hit and one of its 33 Top-40 hits.
Among the memorable songs that the legendary Motown group gave the world are such perennial favorites as "Stop! In the Name of Love," "Where Did Our Love Go," "You Can't Hurry Love," "Baby Love," and "Love Child."
One of Wilson's personal favorites is "I Hear a Symphony," a song that is well-suited for her Saturday performance at the Stranahan Theater, when she will be featured in a pops concert with the Toledo Symphony.
"It's always wonderful when you have a chance to perform with a symphony," Wilson, 61, said from her home in Las Vegas, where she was nursing a slightly twisted ankle. "I do about 60 shows a year and maybe 10 to 15 with symphonies, and it's always a treat. Instead of five or six or eight instruments, you have 60, or sometimes I sing with a symphony that has a hundred musicians, and it just makes the music so wonderful."
Wilson said the Supremes' trace their roots to 1959, when she was 15 years old and teamed up with local girls Florence Ballard and Diana Ross.
The three girls had mutual friends who sang in a guy group called the Primes, which later evolved into the Temptations, and the Primes were scouting around to start a girl group that would open their shows.
The Primes decided to invited Wilson, Ballard, Ross, and another Brewster Projects teenager, Betty McGlown, to audition.
Did the singers' voices click right away?
"We did. It might sound kind of corny, but we did," said Wilson. "Florence started singing one of Ray Charles' songs, 'Night Time is the Right Time,' " Wilson recalled. "Diana chimed in, and then Betty and I chimed in on the harmony, singing the high parts, and we blended right there. They said, 'OK, we're gonna call you the Primettes.' We sang at record hops around Detroit before we went to Motown."
'Staying normal'
The girls were recommended to Berry Gordy, Jr., founder and president of Motown Records, by Smokey Robinson, one of Ross' neighbors. Gordy turned them down at first, but in late 1960 signed them as a trio with Ross, Wilson, and Ballard, and when he suggested a name change, Ballard came up with the Supremes.
"We went to Motown in early '61 and started recording," Wilson said. "From 1961 to 1964, we recorded six or seven songs that were released. None of them were major hits but some of them were played quite a lot in Detroit. We were very well known in Detroit before 1964."
In 1964, the same year the Beatles invaded America, the Supremes broke through with their first Top 30 hit, "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes." Released in January, it reached No. 23 on the U.S. charts.
That song was composed by the songwriting team of Holland, Dozier, and Holland, and they and the Supremes continued a long string of successes, including the girls' first No. 1 hit, "Where Did Our Love Go," in August, 1964.
Over the next few years, everything the Supremes touched turned to gold. But Wilson said the sudden fame and fortune didn't change her very much.
"Personally, I think I did a wonderful job of staying normal," she said. "Certainly, in any group that becomes successful, you'll find kooks and crazy folks coming around. But for the most part we were fine."
Her mother was disappointed, however, because Wilson didn't go to college. Years later, when she was in her 50s, she fulfilled her mother's desire, which had become her own, and enrolled at New York University, earning an associate's degree in liberal arts in 2001.
"My mother could neither read nor write. She was a wonderful woman and really quite a brilliant woman," Wilson said. "She accomplished a lot without a formal education. But I saw her struggle to write her name. I have a Bible right now and her name is on every page, because she was constantly trying to write her name and her Social Security number. One thing she wanted to do in life was see her children go to college. It broke her heart when I didn't go, but later on when we became successful she understood. Going to college at NYU was kind of like me carrying out her dream, and I'm very proud of that."
The Motown studio, dubbed Hitsville USA by Gordy, was a mecca for Detroit-area musicians and songwriters in the 1960s. Even when they weren't scheduled to work, artists like Robinson, Gaye, Martha and the Vandellas, the Temptations, the Four Tops, and Stevie Wonder hung around the studio and sang backup vocals or added hand claps to the recordings, Wilson said.
"Many of us were still in school. We would come down after school and see if they needed help. We looked forward to that," she said. "In fact, that's how the Supremes were signed. We were hanging around one day and somebody didn't show up for a Marvin Gaye session. We were the only ones there and said we'd do it. They needed hand claps for 'Can I Get a Witness.'
"Motown in those days was like a musical Disneyland, and we were all the rides," Wilson said.
Jazz singer
In 1969, Gordy told the Supremes that he wanted Ross to become a solo artist, and was changing the name of the group to Diana Ross and the Supremes. Ross ended up leaving the next year, and was replaced by Jean Terrell.
Wilson kept the Supremes going until 1977, and had a reunion concert with Ross in 1983. The Supremes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
Wilson has continued recording as a solo artist, appeared in the touring musical "Beehive" and has acted in several movies and television programs, and has written a New York Times best-seller, "Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme.
Lately, Wilson has been performing as a jazz singer, something she has always wanted to do. She was booked for a two-week gig at San Francisco's Plush Room nightclub in December, and the show was extended an extra week. She cites Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, and Nat "King" Cole as among her favorite jazz vocalists.
She is finishing up a new CD and also has helped to organize a touring exhibition of the Supremes' gowns and costumes.
In 2003, Colin Powell appointed Wilson a United States Cultural Ambassador for Rhythm, Blues, and Pop, representing the U.S. State Department. Her role as an arts emissary has taken her to Bosnia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mozambique, Botswana, and South America.
"The music does bring a lot of people together and it helps you get away from the mundane, everyday things you do and celebrate life," she said. "It's been a very special career and I'm very proud and grateful."
Link
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Mary Wilson believes in the power of music.
Not only did her career with the Supremes bring her from Detroit's Brewster Housing Projects to the world stage, but her songs have brought people together - even mortal enemies.
"I just got back from Bosnia where they were celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreement," Wilson said in an interview last week. "At the end of the show, Bosnians and Croatians were standing side by side singing, 'Someday, We'll Be Together.' "
The onetime warring factions found common ground in the Supremes' 1969 tune, the vocal group's 12th No. 1 hit and one of its 33 Top-40 hits.
Among the memorable songs that the legendary Motown group gave the world are such perennial favorites as "Stop! In the Name of Love," "Where Did Our Love Go," "You Can't Hurry Love," "Baby Love," and "Love Child."
One of Wilson's personal favorites is "I Hear a Symphony," a song that is well-suited for her Saturday performance at the Stranahan Theater, when she will be featured in a pops concert with the Toledo Symphony.
"It's always wonderful when you have a chance to perform with a symphony," Wilson, 61, said from her home in Las Vegas, where she was nursing a slightly twisted ankle. "I do about 60 shows a year and maybe 10 to 15 with symphonies, and it's always a treat. Instead of five or six or eight instruments, you have 60, or sometimes I sing with a symphony that has a hundred musicians, and it just makes the music so wonderful."
Wilson said the Supremes' trace their roots to 1959, when she was 15 years old and teamed up with local girls Florence Ballard and Diana Ross.
The three girls had mutual friends who sang in a guy group called the Primes, which later evolved into the Temptations, and the Primes were scouting around to start a girl group that would open their shows.
The Primes decided to invited Wilson, Ballard, Ross, and another Brewster Projects teenager, Betty McGlown, to audition.
Did the singers' voices click right away?
"We did. It might sound kind of corny, but we did," said Wilson. "Florence started singing one of Ray Charles' songs, 'Night Time is the Right Time,' " Wilson recalled. "Diana chimed in, and then Betty and I chimed in on the harmony, singing the high parts, and we blended right there. They said, 'OK, we're gonna call you the Primettes.' We sang at record hops around Detroit before we went to Motown."
'Staying normal'
The girls were recommended to Berry Gordy, Jr., founder and president of Motown Records, by Smokey Robinson, one of Ross' neighbors. Gordy turned them down at first, but in late 1960 signed them as a trio with Ross, Wilson, and Ballard, and when he suggested a name change, Ballard came up with the Supremes.
"We went to Motown in early '61 and started recording," Wilson said. "From 1961 to 1964, we recorded six or seven songs that were released. None of them were major hits but some of them were played quite a lot in Detroit. We were very well known in Detroit before 1964."
In 1964, the same year the Beatles invaded America, the Supremes broke through with their first Top 30 hit, "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes." Released in January, it reached No. 23 on the U.S. charts.
That song was composed by the songwriting team of Holland, Dozier, and Holland, and they and the Supremes continued a long string of successes, including the girls' first No. 1 hit, "Where Did Our Love Go," in August, 1964.
Over the next few years, everything the Supremes touched turned to gold. But Wilson said the sudden fame and fortune didn't change her very much.
"Personally, I think I did a wonderful job of staying normal," she said. "Certainly, in any group that becomes successful, you'll find kooks and crazy folks coming around. But for the most part we were fine."
Her mother was disappointed, however, because Wilson didn't go to college. Years later, when she was in her 50s, she fulfilled her mother's desire, which had become her own, and enrolled at New York University, earning an associate's degree in liberal arts in 2001.
"My mother could neither read nor write. She was a wonderful woman and really quite a brilliant woman," Wilson said. "She accomplished a lot without a formal education. But I saw her struggle to write her name. I have a Bible right now and her name is on every page, because she was constantly trying to write her name and her Social Security number. One thing she wanted to do in life was see her children go to college. It broke her heart when I didn't go, but later on when we became successful she understood. Going to college at NYU was kind of like me carrying out her dream, and I'm very proud of that."
The Motown studio, dubbed Hitsville USA by Gordy, was a mecca for Detroit-area musicians and songwriters in the 1960s. Even when they weren't scheduled to work, artists like Robinson, Gaye, Martha and the Vandellas, the Temptations, the Four Tops, and Stevie Wonder hung around the studio and sang backup vocals or added hand claps to the recordings, Wilson said.
"Many of us were still in school. We would come down after school and see if they needed help. We looked forward to that," she said. "In fact, that's how the Supremes were signed. We were hanging around one day and somebody didn't show up for a Marvin Gaye session. We were the only ones there and said we'd do it. They needed hand claps for 'Can I Get a Witness.'
"Motown in those days was like a musical Disneyland, and we were all the rides," Wilson said.
Jazz singer
In 1969, Gordy told the Supremes that he wanted Ross to become a solo artist, and was changing the name of the group to Diana Ross and the Supremes. Ross ended up leaving the next year, and was replaced by Jean Terrell.
Wilson kept the Supremes going until 1977, and had a reunion concert with Ross in 1983. The Supremes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
Wilson has continued recording as a solo artist, appeared in the touring musical "Beehive" and has acted in several movies and television programs, and has written a New York Times best-seller, "Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme.
Lately, Wilson has been performing as a jazz singer, something she has always wanted to do. She was booked for a two-week gig at San Francisco's Plush Room nightclub in December, and the show was extended an extra week. She cites Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, and Nat "King" Cole as among her favorite jazz vocalists.
She is finishing up a new CD and also has helped to organize a touring exhibition of the Supremes' gowns and costumes.
In 2003, Colin Powell appointed Wilson a United States Cultural Ambassador for Rhythm, Blues, and Pop, representing the U.S. State Department. Her role as an arts emissary has taken her to Bosnia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mozambique, Botswana, and South America.
"The music does bring a lot of people together and it helps you get away from the mundane, everyday things you do and celebrate life," she said. "It's been a very special career and I'm very proud and grateful."
Link
