|  To
date, Mary Wilson’s life has been a Supreme-ly unique
experience.
From her beginnings as an original member of one of the most
renowned singing groups in history to her longtime career
as a solo singer, she has been the true “Dream Girl,”
carving a niche for herself in the business that today still
finds her living on a high note.
“Florence Ballard left the group in the late 60’s
and Diana Ross left in 1970 and the Supremes performed our
last concert together at the Frontier in Las Vegas in January
1970,” recalls Wilson, who will be performing a poolside
concert at the Silverton casino this Saturday night, June
14th.
“After that, I started a new group of Supremes but when
I realized that the dream and magic were gone, we disbanded
in 1977. I knew at that time that I needed to do it myself
and I’ve been a soloist ever since. I had to start building
my name all over again but being Mary Wilson of the Supremes
made it a lot easier. It still was hard and it took a lot
of perseverance. You have to believe in yourself and love
being on stage, as I do. And if you’re good, the public
will accept you.”
“I currently perform about 100 concerts a year –
from symphonies to rock ‘n roll concerts to nightclubs
like Feinstein’s in New York -- all over the world,”
she adds, “ I do a lot of the Supremes’ songs
as well as a lot of contemporary numbers from Sting to the
Rolling Stones to Stevie Wonder. It’s a fun show –
people can even get up and dance if they want to. It’s
not about looking at me; it’s about having a fun time.
I accept the fact that I’m not Aretha or Gladys as a
singer, but I’m a great performer.”
Wilson admits that there’s an actual technique to singing
out in front and that she’s still learning it. She says
that to be a solo singer she also had to learn to sing vocals
again because she had spent her years with the Supremes singing
harmony as opposed to lead.
“Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn things,”
Wilson notes. “We often get caught up in not being able
to do what we want to do right now. The critics will tear
you down. We should be allowed to make mistakes and get up
and start again. I was afraid of making mistakes or of being
wrong. I’m not afraid anymore. Life is an ongoing school.
People forget that or maybe they’re not taught it.”
<TOP>
Wilson reveals that she always felt “pretty perfect”
but that her confident internal voice ended up fighting the
outside voices that tried to tell her differently. She was
only a 13-year-old growing up in Detroit, when she and 13-year-old
Ballard, who went to the same school, were asked by a guy
who wanted to put a group together to join forces. Going across
the street, he recruited another young 13-year-old -- Ross.
The girls began performing at neighborhood dances under the
name of the Primettes. Ironically, the guy who put them together
became a member of the Temptations while the three girls became
the Supremes.
The Primettes were only 15 1/2 when they got an audition with
Motown and were under contract by the time they were 16. While
they had all been singing lead as a performing group, it was
the record company that decided that Ross should sing lead
on all records and live performance.
“That had an effect on me, but it probably had more
of an effect on Florence,” Wilson explains. “We
just wanted to make it and Berry Gordy wanted Diana to sing
lead so we just went along with it. Later on, it became an
issue because Florence and I realized that we’d never
sing lead.”
“Diana and I are trying to do a heal right now so I
don’t want to go into all the dirty laundry stuff,”
she adds. “Sometimes it’s hard to get over things
if everyone keeps hounding you about old stuff. And we really
want this to happen.”
Wilson says that the Supremes’ success was great and
that the ending was painful but that she had to overcome her
pain and keep going. A performer at heart who knew what she
wanted to do with her life since the day she started singing,
after she disbanded the second Supremes group she continued
on as Mary Wilson of the Supremes. Though Motown in initially
tried to stop her from using the Supremes name, they got beyond
it and allowed her to use it if she wished.
Along that vein, Wilson was one of the people who got the
Truth In Music Act, which recently passed in Nevada, started.
Working on the bill in Washington D.C. since the early 1990’s,
she says that she has personally gotten bills passed in four
states, working with the National Foundation of Women Legislators.
“The bill was born out of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame,”
Wilson says. “A lot of the group members all began talking
and we realized that we had a lot of similar problems. Five
groups of Supremes had sprung up that I knew of and I spent
a couple million dollars trying to stop them. But I couldn’t
do anything because I didn’t own the trademark. The
bill, which says that in order to use a recording group’s
name you had to have been a member of that group when their
records were made, has passed in 10 or more states. At least
now we don’t have all these Supremes groups stealing
our legacy.”
Where that legacy is concerned, Wilson notes that the Supremes
made important strides in terms of the Civil Rights movement.
<TOP>
“There were many African-American pioneers who made
history but never received the accolades they should have,”
she acknowledges. “When we came in the 1960’s,
we broke down barriers. We sold 12 million records and were
able to stay in integrated hotels. When we appeared on the
‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’ it began a whole new era
in the Civil rights movement. We showed a professional, beautiful
face to Black America that everyone was able to watch. It
was the beginning of Black heroes.”
Wilson states that while she lives in the present and future,
she is unable to cut off the past. Where her career is concerned,
the Las Vegas resident would love to do a Broadway show and
“get some good records out there” and is in the
process of recording. She also has all the Supremes’
gowns on exhibit in London’s Victoria Museum and hopes
to have her own museum in Las Vegas someday.
Until then, she’ll “just keep you hanging on”
with a great evening of music and fun.
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ADDITIONAL
ARTICLES
BY
BOBBIE KATZ
HERE |
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