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MARY WILSON
Baby, baby, where did our love go?
 Around the world and back again many times over, for starters. In fact, for Mary Wilson, who is still living a Supreme-ly unique life, love from still committed fans has given her the ability to create news that just keeps you hanging on.
The former member of one of the most popular singing groups in musical history, who as a solo artist still performs 100 concerts a year internationally and will have a new CD of original music out later this year, recently returned from England where she is presenting the Mary Wilson Supremes Gown Collection at the Victoria Albert Museum.
The collection is touring the U.K. for a year and then Europe for two years. It previously toured the U.S. While she was in England, Wilson was also a featured guest star on a TV show that is the counterpart to America’s “American Idol,” on which she mentored the young talent. It all goes to show that if you think of the Supremes as strictly an American group, Wilson’s reflections will change your tune.
“The Supremes biggest opening was in England,” Wilson, who will be appearing at the South Point Sept. 12-14, relates. “The people over there are more committed in terms of being fans. We were big in the U.K. and Europe before we hit in the United States in the same way that the Beatles were accepted here. America was still a very closed country back in the 60s. Things were just beginning to open up culturally.
“There were many African American pioneers who made history but never received the accolades they should have,” she continues. “When we came into the picture, 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 an entirely 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.”
That worldly presence has bode well for Wilson in more respects than in the performing arena. She is currently the spokesperson for the Humpty Dumpty Institute, which focuses on ridding the world of dangerous unexploded landmines remaining in countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, an issue that was brought into the public eye by the late Princess Diana.
“I’ve been to Sri Lanka and Laos,” Wilson says. “I did a lot of PR as the spokesperson and also put on a concert for the victims and companies that make prostheses and donated the proceeds. I visited a lot of villages and places along the Ho Chi Ming Trail where there are still unexploded landmines. I did the detonations myself. I’m going back to that area in October.”
Wilson, who was appointed Cultural Ambassador of the United States by Secretary of State Colin Powell, a position that lasted for three years until he left office, says that she has become really interested in the plight of people around the globe. Much of it stems from her desire to give back, having achieved such great success in her life. She feels that having had the opportunities she has had has made her a better person.
“Having come from a very humble background -- my mom was a single parent on welfare -- I now can understand what it’s like on both sides of the fence and pass that down to my children,” Wilson, the mother of three (one adopted) and grandmother of eight, acknowledges.
“I have been blessed. And even though my mother couldn’t read or write, she still was a brilliant woman who possessed passion and wisdom. She was extremely gifted spiritually and I inherited that from her. I’ve gotten through the tough times in my life because of the things she passed down to me.”
Wilson was only a 13-year-old growing up in Detroit, when she and 13-year-old Florence 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 named Diana 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 at 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.”
“Florence left the group in the late 60s and Diana left we performed our last concert together at the Frontier in Las Vegas in January 1970,” she adds. “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. It 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.”
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.
While she won’t talk about Diana Ross, stating that the best way to handle life is to keep it personal, Wilson does say that the biggest misconception about the Supremes is that no one understands how much they all truly loved each other.
“Even in the beginning, with the changes and Diana being out in front, we were never hateful towards each other,” she reveals. “If we spoke out, it didn’t mean that we didn’t love each other. Even today, Diana and I love each other.”
Wilson says that when she hears a Supremes song that there is a happiness inside her that she can’t explain that comes from knowing that the things that she, Diana and Florence dreamt about as young girls came true. She says that her favorite song has changed from time to time over the years and that today it is “Reflections” that she enjoys.
“Lyrically they are all wonderful songs and they all mean something,” she notes. “They have more depth than you would think. All of them were produced, and many of them were written by, Holland-Dozier-Holland and they still say something after 40 years.
“I perform everything 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.”
There’s no doubt that Wilson still hears a symphony that will keep her in the hearts of fans forever.
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