Originally Posted by
RanRan79
Let me be clear also, my comment about Ross, particularly her walking into a record company and not being signed, was not meant to imply that she was not vocally talented or that record labels wouldn't have thought her vocally talented. [[Not that you Maniac took my comment that way, but it's clarity for anyone who might have.) She became a member of the Primettes because she was vocally talented. I just personally believe that someone with a special ear for her voice would have to hear what exactly made her special in order to get behind it. You mention Aretha and Barbra but I don't think anyone had to have a special ear to recognize that kind of talent, even if they still needed the "right" material to be paired with in order to be successful.
Personally I find Mary's performance of "Eyes" on Hollywood Palace and most other sources to be rather boring. [[The exception being the Live In Japan album version, which I think Mary killed.) And I've never cared for that "Lucky" song either. IMO there are singers who can sing someone else's song and make it theirs. Aretha is famous for it. She'd take someone's song and you would barely remember- if you remember at all- that there was a version before it. Diana Ross has a voice that lends well to covering other folks' songs because she's a master at interpretation, but I don't know if one ever forgets that someone sang it before she did. Mary does not have that kind of voice IMO. She can occasionally do good covers [[I love her on "Our Day Will Come" and the studio version of "Eyes" is nice as well), but to me she really only outdoes the originals of the two Dionne Warwick songs she sang lead on, "Teardrops" and "Heart of Me", the former IMO could've been a single. [[She definitely has the superior version of "A Heart Like Mine" but the two versions are so different and from different eras and sounds that it's not hard to compare.) Mary also has what is probably my favorite version of "The Way We Were" [[a song I mostly hate) that she performed on a TV show after she left the group, but the average person was not going to forget Barbra Streisand, or even Gladys Knight, after hearing it.
Mary needed that person who hears what I hear. Sucks that she never came across them. Like I said, I'm not convinced she was ever going to be a superstar or even a household name. But I think she was good enough to be a decent seller in the Phyllis Hyman, Angela Bofill, Brenda Russell type of way with the material written and produced especially for her. She just needed the confidence, the connection and for everything to line up to her advantage. Unfortunately Mary is the norm for people making a go at a singing career, no matter how talented. Most people never get a big break. And most people who get a big break in a group never get a big break as a soloist. Sucks but it is what it is.
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