He's a lover-mary wells

[Philles/Motown Gary]

I LOVE almost ALL Mary's recordings with 20th Century Fox AND ATCO. The songs were mostly very, very good quality in terms of their writing. The only songs I didn't like that she recorded for 20th Century Fox were The Beatles' remakes. Saying that her material at 20th was inferior BECAUSE "Motown producers knew Mary's skill better than anyone." Her producers at 20th Century Fox were ALL ex-Motowners, and she recorded in Detroit [[using several sometime Motown musicians on some cuts). Robert Bateman and Andre Williams were her producers there. The writers, producers and arrangers for her ATCO recordings were Carl Davis and his Chicago crew, who produced Jackie Wilson's great 1965-74 recordings, as well as ex-Motowners, Barrett Strong and Sonny Sanders. The problems were not weak material, but mainly in the mixing at 20th Century, and in their marketing, and the fact that distributors wanted to keep loyal to Motown.

I do agree that she made a mistake by leaving Motown. But she couldn't have known that 20th Century Fox would never intend to allow her to appear in films, and that they would not know how to market her. Her EX-husband, Herman Griffin gave her bad advice, because he wanted to become her manager again. He was NOT married to her by that time, and she was determined to leave Motown because she thought she was not being treated right by Berry, because she was making a tremendous amount of money for Motown, and not seeing most of it.

"Me Without You" was a fantastic song. When I heard it, I thought it was a Motown cut. "Ain't It The Truth", "He's A Lover", "Everlovin' Boy", "Why Don't You Let Yourself Go", "Use Your Head", "I'm Sorry", "we're Just Two of a Kind", and "He's Good Enough For Me" were all really good.

At ATCO, "Dear Lover" and "Such A Sweet Thing" and "Keep Me In Suspense" were excellent recordings, sounding like Carl Davis' greatest Okeh cuts. They just didn't get the sales because distributors didn't want to push them because they wanted to keep a good relation with Motown.

I can imagine all of them recorded at Motown. several of them would have been big hits. So would several of the recordings she made at Motown that were left in the can [["Honey Boy", "When I'm Gone", and others).

I liked "The Doctor" as not too bad, and I liked "Two Lovers' History" a little bit. But, I thought Mary's material dropped off quite a bit at Jubilee, from how good it was at 2oth Century Fox and ATCO.

Robb, with regard to Mary Wells' post-Motown recordings, I agree with every word you said from her 20th Century Fox recordings up through and including her Atco and Jubilee material. Also, can't forget her early-'80s Epic releases. "Gigolo" and "These Arms" should have put her back on top -- especially the 12" versions. When they first came out, I couldn't stop playing them. They were that powerful.