Mary Wells

[theboyfromxtown]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU6kkOcozTo

[theboyfromxtown]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOPwLxK6hgU

[reese]

These are great!

[rrussi]

Thanks so much for posting these rare television performances. These two singles, both on Jubilee Records, written and produced by Mary and Cecil Womack, although they charted nationally R&B, should've been much bigger hits.

[rrussi]

The Hy-Lit Show was syndicated to about 30 markets nationwide and was filmed in Philadelphia, where Lit was a popular disc jockey.

[motony]

THANKS, so much!!Mary looks so good!I'll make sure Sugar & Stacy know about this.

[copley]

Always great to see Mary but these songs are truly awful!

[theboyfromxtown]

I'm so pleased you guys enjoyed the clips. We are lucky that the youtube poster shared them.

[Bluebrock]

Copley - I totally agree! Whilst it is nice to see these performances I do not like the songs at all.

[rrussi]

These recordings did not sound full enough. I don't know if it were in the mastering, the production, or a combination. I thought at the time Dig The Way I Feel sounded like a hit. They both charted R&B and Dig The Way I Feel even got on the Cashbox Top 100 chart.

[luke]

I love Mary's post motown stuff...the Doctor, Can't you see.., Never Never Leave Me, Ain't it the truth, Dear Lover etc ...another myth that she bombed after leaving Motown. In some ways she soulfully surpassed it. I doubt she would have written and produced at Motown.

[mr_june]

I didn't like those songs either.

[rrussi]

Almost all of her Jubilee singles, including these two, were chosen as "Best New Record of the Week" in the R&B section of Billboard Magazine. It's amazing that none of them did better, but airplay just wasn't there, apparently.

[reese]

I like a lot of Mary's Jubilee material. Her first album for that label, SERVIN' UP SOME SOUL, had some good songs on it.

[nosey]

I thought i would be an outcast by saying that those songs were bad but i see several others agree with me. Being an avid listener to georgie woods those songs never got played in philly. The only song i remember that got played after she left motown was dear lover.

[motony]

I LOVE all the music Mary & Cecil wrote & produced. Way ahead of its time . The words were great & music with a groove & soulful.Mickey Eisner messed with the tracks but when you heard them in full they were great. Mary Wells would have been SUPERSTAR plus if she had stayed with Motown. She would have been a top writer & producer as well.

[mr_june]

I thought i would be an outcast by saying that those songs were bad but i see several others agree with me. Being an avid listener to georgie woods those songs never got played in philly. The only song i remember that got played after she left motown was dear lover.

Nosey, I thought the exact same thing.

[rrussi]

She was also on a syndicated show out of Cleveland which was called, I think, Upbeat. She was on that show a few times after leaving Motown, once doing Dear Lover when it was her latest single, and then during her Jubilee period when Don't Look Back, issued in either late '68 or early '69, was her latest single. I think on Upbeat they may have performed the music "live" with a band.

[rrussi]

I did a little google research on Upbeat, which was filmed from '64 to '71, but the information says it was national its last five years of production and was filmed in color from '67 thru '71. It does mention the Upbeat houseband as well. Does anyone else have information? It seems the show was shown in several markets, but we did not get it here in Central Florida.

[luke]

I heard many of Mary's post motown songs on philly radio stations.