Originally Posted by
benross
Mary had some nice solo and duet [[with Cindy) moments in the Irving Berlin Medley. On the Tarzan show, she all but had the lead in the opening version of Michael Row The Boat Ashore, and she held her own; Cindy and Diana were barely audible and seemed unnecessary. Also, I enjoyed some of her leads in the '70s groupings, especially the ballads, whether on records or on stage [[Quiet Nights, for instance). During her late 1970s-early 1980s, her personality and beauty helped her sell her solo show interpretations, and some of the songs from her first and only Motown album sounded fresh, not frenetic, when performed with a small backup band. But she had some less than stellar moments, too, such as the not-yet-released Son Of A Preacher Man; the idea of that one may have seemed good on paper, but she aped Dusty poorly and added nothing new or exciting to make the song hers. Too, as has been mentioned on this site before, when Mary offers her versions of Love Child or other 1964-1969 hits, many of us wince a bit, as it was Diana's leads that made the songs memorable. Mary's had a challenging predicament, riding on her distant past and trying to create something new, and while she has done okay, despite the ill-advised second-rate, dated disco tunes, the times were changing by the late 1970s, and the nightclubs/jazz clubs where she might have had a chance to become a star in her own right disappeared, along with what may have been a lucrative avenue for her.
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