Mary Wilson
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Background information
Born 6 March 1944, Greenville, Mississippi, USA
Origin Detroit, Michigan, USA
Genre(s) R&B/pop/soul
Occupation(s) Singer, actress, and author
Instrument(s) Vocals
Years active 1959 - present
Label(s) Motown
Associated
acts The Supremes
Website
www.marywilson.com
Mary Wilson (born 6 March 1944 in Greenville, Mississippi) is an American singer best known for her work as a member of the Motown soul and pop group The Supremes. Wilson was the only Supreme who remained in the group from the very beginning in 1959, when the group was known as The Primettes, until the very end, when the group was dissolved in 1977. As a member of the Supremes, Wilson (along with Florence Ballard, Diana Ross, and later, Cindy Birdsong) enjoyed twelve US number-one hit records.
Biography
The Supremes
Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard were good friends in junior high school with a mutual interest in singing. When Milton Jenkins, manager of male vocal group The Primes, decided to form a female spin-off called The Primettes, he recruited Ballard, who recruited Wilson. Wilson then recruited a new friend of hers, Diana Ross, and Jenkins added Betty McGlown to complete the lineup.
By 1961, The Primettes had signed to Motown Records, replaced McGlown with Barbara Martin, and changed their name to The Supremes. In the early days, the girls traded lead vocals, with Wilson handling many of the ballads in her distinctive alto voice. The Supremes went two years without a Top 40 hit, finally scoring with "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through his Eyes" in 1963. By 1964, Diane Ross (now Diana Ross) was the sole lead singer of the group, which finally began a long streak of Holland-Dozier-Holland-helmed Top 10 hits, including ten US #1 hits, beginning with "Where Did Our Love Go".
After three years of phenomenal success, Motown chief Berry Gordy changed the name of the group to Diana Ross & the Supremes and replaced Florence Ballard with Cindy Birdsong. The group carried on for the rest of the 1960s, although hits were less frequent than they had been during the middle part of the decade.
When Diana Ross left the group in 1970 for a solo career, singer Jean Terrell was brought in as her replacement. The "New" Supremes -- Wilson, Terrell, and Birdsong -- continued their hit-making process from 1970 through 1972 with big hits like "Up The Ladder To The Roof," "Stoned Love", "River Deep-Mountain High" (with The Four Tops), "Nathan Jones", and "Floy Joy". Wilson began sharing leads with Terrell on several of the singles, including "Touch", "Floy Joy", and "Automatically Sunshine".
Cindy Birdsong left the group in April 1972 to start a family and was replaced by singer Lynda Laurence, formerly of Stevie Wonder's Wonderlove group. This pairing did not last long. After the Stevie Wonder-produced "Bad Weather" failed to ignite much interest in 1973, both Terrell and Laurence departed the group. Wilson enlisted Scherrie Payne, Freda Payne's younger sister, and welcomed back Cindy Birdsong to carry on the group. It took nearly two years for Motown to produce new recording contracts for the Supremes, during which time the group concentrated on live performances, and Wilson married Puerto Rican businessman Pedro Ferrer.
Wilson took charge of the Supremes, sharing lead vocal duties with Payne, and assisting her husband in managing the group. This lineup continued on until 1976, when Birdsong was replaced by Susaye Greene, also a former Wonderlove member. With Greene, the Supremes recorded two more albums before they disbanded and gave their final performance at the Drury Theatre in London, England.
Solo career
Mary Wilson continued on as a solo artist, releasing her debut album on Motown Records entitled Mary Wilson, and the single, "Red Hot," which hit number 95 on the Billboard R&B charts in 1979. Motown released Wilson from her contract in 1980, and she sought deals with Atlantic and the Boardwalk labels. For her live shows, Wilson periodically billed herself as "The Supremes Show with Mary Wilson" or "The Supremes Starring Mary Wilson," leading to legal trouble with Motown, whom Wilson found wholly owned the Supremes name and, despite protracted legal battles, would not cede it to her.
In 1986, Wilson released her first autobiography, Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme, which told the story of her life with the Supremes up to 1970, and including Florence Ballard's later years and funeral. Dreamgirl was a New York Times Best Seller for months, and was also eventually released in paperback. The title of the book is taken from the Broadway musical Dreamgirls, which is loosely based upon the Supremes story. Wilson's follow-up book Supreme Faith: Someday We'll Be Together, was published in 1990, and followed Wilson's life from the days of the "New Supremes" into and through the 1980s.
In England, Wilson recorded the dance single "Don't Get Mad, Get Even" on the Motorcity label. She continued to tour, appearing in Vegas, Reno, Tahoe and other venues alongside comedians such as Jay Leno, Don Rickles, and Joan Rivers. In the early 1990s, Wilson recorded her first solo album in twelve years, Walk the Line, on CEO Records. Two singles were released, "One Night With You," and the title track, "Walk the Line." However, the record company folded shortly after Wilson's album was released.
Later years
In the years since, Wilson has released other singles, namely "U" (1995) and "Turn Around" (1996) for various labels; both were hits in Europe. She continues to tour nine to ten months out of every year, singing the Supremes' hits. In 1997, she moved to New York City and enrolled at New York University, graduating in May 2001 with an Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts. In April 2001, she performed in the musical Leader of the Pack at the Shubert Theatre in Boston. The year after, she starred in the national touring company of Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies.
In the late 1990s, Wilson appeared in a New York comedy play called Grandma Silvia's Funeral as a wise-cracking, but bitter family member. Wilson had a cameo appearance in the 1999 comedy film Jackie's Back, playing Jackie's former school teacher.
In 2002, Wilson appeared, along with other 1960s and 1970s stars, in the motion picture Only The Strong Survive. In March 2003, she performed in The Vagina Monologues at the Detroit Opera House. She began hosting The Motown Show, a syndicated radio program on Westwood One, that September.
Wilson recently moved to Las Vegas from New York City, where she had resided for several years. While in New York, she co-hosted a mid-morning radio show with Bob Law, playing classic R&B hits, on WWRL. In July 2006, Mary underwent angioplasty after complaining about severe chest pains. She has since recovered and is back on the road. Wilson also recently released the DVD Mary Wilson Live at the Sands, on which she performs many of the old Supremes hits in celebration of the forty-fifth anniversary of the group. Currently, she is recording an album of songs taken from her personal diaries for the Holland brothers, co-writers of many of The Supremes' number-one hits of the 1960s.
Other work
A tireless humanitarian, Wilson has also been touring and lecturing across the U.S., speaking to various groups nationwide. Her lecture circuit, "Dare to Dream", focuses on reaching goals and triumph over adversity. Wilson's charity work includes the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the American Cancer Society, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, the Easter Seals Foundation, UNICEF, The NAACP, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the All-Star Network, and Figure Skaters of Harlem, a youth organization devoted to helping children towards entering the Olympics.
Most recently, Wilson made headlines for proposing a bill to ban impostor groups to perform under the name of 1950s and 1960s rock groups, including Motown groups such as The Marvelettes and The Supremes, which was passed in several states.
Personal life
During the mid-1960s, Wilson dated and later lived with Four Tops member Abdul "Duke" Fakir. Temptations bass singer Melvin Franklin was also said to have romantically pursued Wilson.
Wilson adopted her cousin's son, Willie, During the late 1960s, and raised him as her son. Wilson and her husband Pedro Ferrer had three children together: Turkessa (born 1975), Pedro (born 1977), and Raphael (born 1979). In 1981, Wilson divorced Ferrer, whom she describes in Supreme Faith as being habitually abusive. On January 29, 1994, tragedy struck Wilson when she fell asleep at the wheel of her Jeep Cherokee, which hit the central barrier of a highway in California. As a result of the accident, Wilson suffered serious injuries, and her son Raphael died. Today, Wilson is divorced and has two living children and five grandchildren.
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