The Life and Sad Ending of Mary Wells

[arr&bee]

Legend has it that her next motown song would've been the cool[whisper you love me],her best post motown song was the classic[dear lover].

[motony]

Motown was smart business wise in NOT releasing any records by her after she left as they would have been hits. Motown wanted to send a clear message to their other artists not to leave.

[Blaksoulfire]

Legend has it that her next motown song would've been the cool[whisper you love me],her best post motown song was the classic[dear lover].

My favorite post Motown work is definitely Mary's "Serving up Some Soul" lp and even more so the Sequel CD compilation - The Complete Jubillee Sessions" vastly under-rated recordings [[my $.02)

[motony]

Yes, all Marys' Jubilee Records were GREAT as she & her then husband Cecil Womack wrote & produced "Servin Up Some Soul" and the "Come Together" LP.

[kenneth]

Yes, all Marys' Jubilee Records were GREAT as she & her then husband Cecil Womack wrote & produced "Servin Up Some Soul" and the "Come Together" LP.

I agree. The CD that combines these two albums, the latter of which was unreleased until the CD came out, are well worth listening to and are a side of Mary that Motown never tapped, more soulful, more bluesy, and the choice of material is very interesting. Some of the arrangements seemed rather sparse, almost unfinished in nature, but Mary’s voice is in good shape and she seems to have a real affinity for the material.

I think the only recordings that haven’t been released in full are her Atco recordings. A CD came out on the Ichiban label but for whatever reason it didn’t even include the whole Atco album, although it did have a few unreleased tracks. Unless there are a number of additional recordings in the Atlantic vaults there seemed to be no reason why the Ichiban CD couldn’t even include all the recordings we were aware of. But that label seemed to be that way; they had a Number of interesting releases but they were always somewhat lacking in that they seemed to have lots of room left over on the CDs which they didn’t fill.