Wells, Mary Esther

(b. 13 May 1943 in Detroit, Michigan; d. 26 July 1992 in Los Angeles, California), pop-soul singer and the first solo star of Motown Records, who helped solidify the black-owned record label’s crossover appeal to the white mainstream market.

Wells was raised by her mother, who worked as a domestic, and began her singing career in the time-honored fashion of joining her local church choir. By her mid-teens Wells was also performing at school functions, talent contests, and clubs.

At the same time, a musical revolution was brewing in Detroit. In 1959 Berry Gordy, Jr., a former boxer, recordshop owner, and Ford assembly-line worker, founded the Motown Record Corporation. The company’s slogan embodied its crossover intentions: “The Sound of Young America,” not the sound of only black or white America.

The strategy worked admirably, with early singles like “Shop Around” by the Miracles and “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes (both released on Motown’s Tamia label) finding success on both the pop and R&B charts.

Although accounts differ as to how Wells and Gordy met, it is certain that in 1960, at age seventeen, Wells pitched Gordy a song she had written, “Bye Bye Baby,” hoping he would place it with Jackie Wilson. Instead, Gordy signed Wells to Motown and had her record the song herself. “Bye Bye Baby,” released on the Motown label in February 1961, performed respectably for a debut release, reaching the top ten in the R&B charts and just missing the pop Top 40, peaking at number 45. “I Don’t Want to Take a Chance,” cowritten by Gordy and Motown’s head of A&R, William “Mickey” Stevenson, became Wells’s first Top 40 entry upon its release in 1961, peaking at number 33 and again hitting the top ten in the R&B charts.

Wells was then teamed with a new songwriter, William “Smokey” Robinson (also a member of the Miracles), who steered her in a new direction. While her first singles had a strong blues element, Robinson aimed for a lighter, more sophisticated touch. In contrast to the girl-group records of the era, designed to appeal to teenagers, Wells’s songs took a more mature, adult approach to romance. In “Two Lovers” (1962), for example, Wells was clearly beyond adolescent yearnings for a boyfriend, coolly assessing her “two lovers” who turned out to be the two sides of her man’s personality.

For the next three years Wells enjoyed a steady stream of hits. Not only “Two Lovers” but also “The One Who Really Loves You,” and “You Beat Me to the Punch” hit the top ten in the pop and R&B charts in 1962. “Laughing Boy,” “Your Old Stand By,” “You Lost the Sweetest Boy,” and “What’s Easy for Two Is So Hard for One” (all 1963) hit the top thirty in the pop charts and top ten in the R&B charts. Wells’s career at Motown climaxed in 1964 with the charttopper “My Guy,” which gave the Motown label its first number one hit (Motown’s previous number one records had been on the Tamla label) and made Wells Motown’s first solo star. The song’s breezy melody was irresistibly catchy, perfectly matched by her confident yet lighthearted vocal. The worldwide success of the song landed Wells a coveted spot on the Beatles’ 1964 United Kingdom tour; the following year Wells released the album Mary Wells Sings Love Songs to the Beatles.

Wells had two more Top 40 entries on the Motown label: “What’s the Matter with You Baby” and “Once upon a Time,” both duets with the Motown singer Marvin Gaye and released in 1964. But when Wells turned twenty-one, at the urging of her then-husband Herman Griffin (a singer and Motown songwriter), she declared her contract with Motown invalid because she had signed when she was a minor. Wells then signed with Twentieth Century–Fox, but her sole Top 40 entry on the label was “Use Your Head” (1964), which reached number 34 (number 13 R&B). “Never, Never Leave Me” (1965), stalled at number 54, though it did reach the top twenty in the R&B charts. Wells subsequently signed to Ateo (a subsidiary of Atlantic), Jubilee, and Reprise, but never again recaptured the success she had had at Motown. “Dear Lover” (1966) hit the top ten in the R&B charts, but “The Doctor” (1968) and “Dig the Way I Feel” (1969) were only minor hits. She also appeared in the 1967 film Catalina Caper.

Wells divorced Griffin and married Cecil Womack (brother of the musician Bobby Womack) in 1967. She and Womack had three children. Divorced in 1977, Wells subsequently had another child with Cecil’s brother Curtis. Wells’s career was on hold for most of the 1970s while she raised her children. She returned to performing in the late 1970s, signing with Epic and releasing the album In and Out of Love in 1981. She also found work on the rock revival circuit, rerecorded her Motown hits for Allegiance, and released her final album, Keeping My Mind on Love, on Motor City in 1990.

The same year, Wells was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx and underwent surgery in August, followed by chemotherapy. The illness left Wells financially destitute. After she lost her house, the Washington, D.C.–based Rhythm & Blues Foundation (an organization founded by the singer Ruth Brown) raised money for her medical expenses. In 1991 physicians discovered that Wells’s cancer had spread to her lungs. She underwent further treatments but died at the Norris Cancer Center at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.

While Wells’s tenure at Motown was brief compared to that of acts like the Supremes, it was her success in the early 1960s that pushed open the doors for other African-American artists and helped eradicate the musical segregation of the era. In contrast to the turbulence of the decade, Wells’s songs, and those by other African-American artists, were able to bring people of all races together in celebration rather than strife.

There are no biographies of Mary Wells, but a substantial interview appears in Gerri Hirshey, Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music (1984). Martha Reeves with Mark Bego, Dancing in the Street: Confessions of a Motown Diva (1994) offers further personal insights; Nelson George’s Where Did Our Love Go? (1985) is a critique of Motown’s development; and Gillian Gaar’s She’s a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll (1992) examines Wells’s role as a woman in the music industry. The compact discs Mary Wells: Looking Back 1961-1964 (1993) and Mary Wells: The Ultimate Collection (1998) have useful liner notes by David Ritz. Brief biographies are in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (1983), The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (1995), and Colin Larkin, ed., The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, vol. 7 (1998). Obituaries are in the New York Times (27 July 1992) and People (10 Aug. 1992).

Gillian G. Gaar