Quote Originally Posted by BigAl View Post
As I understand it, Mary did express regret over jumping ship. She was pressured by husband Herman and others when Morty Craft, who was at 20th Century-Fox Music at the time, dangled a carrot she couldn’t resist, offering her $250,000 up front [[this would translate to around $2 million today) and on top of that he gave her the impression that a film contract would be forthcoming as well. She wasn’t making anywhere near that kind of money at Motown and the offer seemed too good to be true, which it was. I can’t think of many folks who would turn their noses up at something like that. The movie contract never materialized [[probably because Craft had no intention of following through on that one to begin with). She was only 21 and had stars in her eyes. Although her 20th Century recordings were quite good, they didn’t have the distinctive Motown sound despite the involvement of a number of Motown folks like Robert Bateman. Still, the recordings were good, but deejays viewed her as being disloyal and were reluctant to play her records. Much has been said and written about the possibility of Gordy strong-arming folks in the industry not to play or promote her post-Motown records, but that’s mostly been debunked. It just was a bad decision on her part and she struggled for the rest of her life because of it.
Thanks for information. Greatly appreciate it. I understand a bit better why she decided to get out of her contract. I will check out those Motown songs you mentioned. Which 20th Century songs would you recommend?