Here's a performance Mary did on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the 90's..............
Here's a performance Mary did on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the 90's..............
I agree
It is great
edafan
What was she promoting when she made this appearance? I don't think this song was on the Walk the Line album, was it? Or was this when her management was re-branding her as the "young Tina Turner"?
Here she is looking super hot as usual on another show during that era.....whew! LOL! Look close and check out how one of her back up babe's loses her shoe during this number! LOL!!!
Last edited by marv2; 04-14-2014 at 09:06 PM.
Mary should have wen to the background with the other singers on this one.
When did Mary drop the idea of trying to be a more rocking Tina?
At some stage, she must have realized there would be no recording contract and she went back to the Supremes hits and the Supremes name and went to college and all those other things she has an interest in ~ Dare to Dream, the talks, the jazz show.
When did all that happen?
She still sometime does Bad Case of Loving You in her shows, as well as Satisfaction/Brown Sugar. And certainly her recording of Green River back in 80 was in the rockfish vein.
I applaud Mary's efforts on this but this did not work for her. She should not sing with those yells or screeches that she does because it sounds like she is in pain whether than excitement. She does not embrace the stage it seems to swallow her. Mary can do so much better.
I thought it was hot every time she sang "Bad Case of Loving You". She was especially hot when she'd wear the skin tight leather mini and her dark sunglasses! Mary ROCKS! LOL! There were a lot of people that agreed with me which is why she kept it in her act for years......
Check out the audience reaction......HOT!
Great. Thanks Marv. Mary can really handle any genre of music. Hard to believe she was 50 ish in these videos!
I've always thought people like Marv make more people hate/dislike Mary Wilson than anything. And his youtube Rossnation counterparts do the same for Ross.
I suppose Mary generally has had to make all the publicity she can in order to make a career.
Probably the majority of my friends don't know who Mary Wilson is, so they were all fairly objective. A few said, "I thought you hated her" and wondered why I would show off her talent. I guess some people can't separate my hatred of her slanderous, divisive back stabbing and her ability. Two commented that we already have a Tina Turner.
I think the performance is fine and Mary is in good voice, but I think the reason she's never really made it as a solo attraction is because her voice just isn't that distinctive. There's nothing unique or different about her voice, and although her voice has gotten stronger [[and I think somewhat deeper) over the years, it still lacks a character or tone that makes you think when you hear it, "That's got to be Mary Wilson," unlike many of the famous chanteuses such as Tina, Ross, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and others.
Don't kill me, Marv! I think she's a fine person and a good singer; I just don't think she stands out as a solo against the other more famous singers.
Also, she's a much better entertainer now than back in the 70's. Most of the time I see her in those free-for-all MSC/MSS appearances, she makes me cringe. Yet, when I see the promo clips for her solo act a few years later, she's just great, but, as you say, nothing special. She is prettier than her competition like Marlena Shaw, Tina, Millie, Gladys, Martha etc etc, but not original enough to get a record gig or work outside of a Supremes show that was never very good, IMHO. By the time she began her Up Close show, she had found her niche, but 20 years too late. I first saw it in SF at The Razz, I think, the room was pretty full and she was great. The next night, it was half full and she was just as good. A year or two later, she played to 18 people at Feinsteins and acted like it was 18,000. She gave it her all and she was very good - but not everyone likes her voice. We are used to it. I witnessed droves of people exiting during her Rock and Roll show every time I've been to it. At a balloon festival in Central Oregon, unkind comments could easily be heard by exiting attendees. I think, had someone talked her out of being a rock star, she'd have had a nice career as a balladeer. She works small rooms well and adores performing, but just seems not connect strongly enough to generate any buzz to get held over or repeat gigs.
I haven't heard all her solo work but I still feel her finest moment on record was the second side of the "High Energy" album in which, to me, she evoked a Sarah Vaughan type sensibility. I agree with Supremester that ballads were her natural strength and she could have developed more had she chosen to focus there.
Thanks guys for keeping it classy!
Then what does that say for Ms. Wilson who derives her whole set list from songs Ms. Ross sang lead on?
What you say has some truth but more so for Wilson than Ross. It's why some of the so called Christmas Extravaganza was cancelled and why Ms. Wilson at times appears before an audience of 18 or 20 people, at retirement centres, schools and trailer courts - her audience has aged and moved on, sometimes to a place they didn't want to go.
But she still works and she is an icon to the fans and for Marv, much like Miss Reeves is to Roberta.
In successive posts you have straightened us out brilliantly: Mary Wilson is a legend and Ross, a virtual unknown. Thank you for that.
I will be in NYC June 14-17, June 21-24, Aug 21-26 and would love to buy you a beverage, meal or Italian Ice.
Alas, in the 3 decades since your last Diana Ross concert, her demo has changed. If I were you, I wouldn't comment about shows you did not attend. I dare say that I attend more shows of both Ross & Wilson than you and I am quite amazed at the number of new, young fans at Ross' shows. A lot of 20 somethings in Austin, ditto Milwaukee where I befriended a group of nine young women and asked what they were doing there. They had become fans because of Double Platinum and always see her shows in the area. In Austin, they acted like everyone knows her music. In Nashville, I met young fans from Detroit, CT, PA, SC it's quite interesting. Many of the younger fans are dismissive of The Supremes years - a surprising number - especially the HDH stuff. They like Someday, No Matter What Sign You Are, Love child, and YCHL and Back In My Arms Again. Not Stop! or Baby Love etc. They like stuff that my generation didn't embrace as much like The RCA Ross album, Workin Overtime etc. You might consider attending the MSG show so you could at least have a pretense of knowing what you are talking about. The cult is growing, Marv. It's getting bigger and bigger and younger and one day, will come for YOU. Be ready with your Oooh Child cassette to ward them off!
QUOTE=marv2;223427]That is called a cult. Kinda like those people that use to follow the Grateful Dead around from concert to concert ; seeing them multiple times in a year. Those were not new and interested fans. Why? LOL!!!![/QUOTE]
I thought Miss Ross was broke and was playing dumps like the Hollywood Bowl where the vermin, rats, moths, fleas and spiders outnumber the people, most of whom are seedy and strung out? And she's going to be playing a room in the basement of MSG where it's quite common for the floor to be overrun by sewage leaking from the faulty pipes of the NYC Sewage System, which has never been the same since Ed Norton retired. Po' Diana.
The cult is 18,000! Where does that put the 18?
You could get put out of the audience of 18, I guess. But, you'd have to draw lots of attention to yourself to get tossed out in a crowd of 18000.
Only Marv could do it and some of the convoluted logic here shows me why it happened.
I'm not sure I agree with this. To be fair, Dreamgirls generated a lot of buzz in Diana Ross, particularly among the younger Beyonce crowd as did the BET Awards the next year. The crowds at both the Hollywood Bowl and NJPAC last year had a good deal of folks in their 20s and 30s in attendance. The bigger Diana Ross fan groups online, particularly "The Ultimate Fans" have quite a few members as early as high school through folks in their 20's, 30s and early 40s. Diana and The Supremes are recognizable "legacy" artists right up there with The Beatles, Elvis and The Stones. They certainly aren't AS widely favored as those other acts but in terms of female artists, there really aren't many from that era that continue to draw an age-diverse crowd. Cher perhaps although I can't speak from experience. Barbra Streisand's audience tends to lean a little older.
Bookmarks