Wells, Mary (1943–1992)

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Wells, Mary (1943–1992)

African-American singer, known as the Queen of Motown, who was the first woman to become a major R&B star on the Motown label. Born Mary Esther Wells on May 13, 1943, in Detroit, Michigan; died of throat cancer in Los Angeles on July 26, 1992; married Herman Griffin, in 1960 (divorced 1962); married Cecil Womack, in 1966 (divorced 1977); children: (second marriage) four, including Stacey Womack.

After graduation from high school, applied for an audition at Berry Gordy's Motown studios, using a song she had written herself at age 15; became the Motown label's first established star with a series of successful releases, including "My Guy" (early 1960s), but her career declined when she left Motown and signed with another label (1964); though she was acknowledged by later Motown artists as an inspiration for their own careers, her personal life was marred by financial difficulties which worsened after she was diagnosed with throat cancer (late 1980s); musical stars of all types contributed to a fund for her welfare as a tribute to her influence.

Singles:

"'Bye 'Bye Baby" (1961); "You Beat Me to the Punch" (1962); "Two Lovers" (1963); "My Guy" (1964); "Set My Soul on Fire" (1968); "Dear Lover" (1968); "Dig the Way I Feel" (1970); "Give a Man the World" (1970); "Gigolo" (1982).

On a warm summer evening in 1992, scores of candles flickered to life outside a modest building in a predominantly African-American section of Detroit. The edifice was the original home of Motown Records, and the candlelight vigil was in honor of the woman who had once been known as "Mother Motown." Even so, Mary Wells had died nearly penniless only a few days before in Los Angeles, her last days made more bearable by contributions from a musical family that had been born because of her artistry.

Mary Esther Wells had actually wanted to be a scientist. Born on May 13, 1943, in a poor section of Detroit, Wells spent the first years of her childhood bedridden with spinal meningitis and, later, tuberculosis. When she finally recovered, she dreamed of finding a cure for both diseases when she grew up; but the dreams of a young African-American girl soon had to give way to the realities of life for America's urban blacks. "In Detroit," Wells once said, "there were three big careers for a black girl. Babies, the factories, or daywork." By the time she was 12, her father had died, her two brothers had left home, and Mary was helping her mother scrub the floors of wealthier families afternoons after school and on weekends. Any thoughts of a scientific career had long ago been given up. "We were just two women alone, helpin' each other out," Wells recalled. "Now, church helped. [Mama] always stood better when she come out of there on Sunday, and I was singing there since I was a baby."

Mary Wells">
The term is oldie but goodie, right?
—Mary Wells

Wells had begun singing in public in the early 1950s, when Detroit was just becoming the center of growing national interest in gospel music and its more commercial relative, rhythm and blues. She sang at first in her church choir and at school events, later at local dances, and began writing songs in her mid-teens, all in the R&B style. During her senior year at Northwestern High School, Mary began to notice the activity at a house not far from her own, over the front of which hung a banner which read "Hitsville U.S.A." It was a record company, everyone said, and the rumor was that an audition could be arranged just by walking in the door.

Less than a year after graduating, Wells boldly sauntered into the studio and asked to sing a number she had written two years earlier for her favorite R&B singer, Jackie Wilson, called "'Bye 'Bye Baby." Wilson was managed by Berry and Raynoma Gordy , the couple waiting for her in the studio, and they were as impressed with her performance as with the song itself. Berry Gordy persuaded a stunned Mary to record the song herself, guiding her through 22 takes. It would be the first release for his new label, Motown.

Gordy, an ex-boxer who only a few years before had been working on the assembly line at Ford Motors, had begun his career much like Wells, writing songs in his spare time until persuading Jackie Wilson to record one of them, the 1957 hit "Reet Petite." Realizing that the real money lay in managing and producing, Gordy formed the Five Stars with a group of friends and wrote songs for them which he produced himself, working out of his apartment. Adding other artists to his new company, he and Raynoma soon formed Rayber Records and, by 1959, had made a deal with United Artists to distribute their R&B material under a new label, Tamla. Moving into larger quarters—the "Hitsville U.S.A." which Wells had noticed—Berry and Raynoma created still other labels for other music genres besides R&B: soul, gospel, rock, and even country music. In 1961, Gordy sensed that a new audience was waiting for a more poporiented R&B sound and decided to create yet one more label that would take advantage of it. In a nod to the "Motor Town" that had given him so much success, he called the label "Motown" and had a hunch that Mary Wells, with a rich, fluid voice that one critic would later compare to "burnt honey," would be the right artist for his new venture.

"'Bye 'Bye Baby" wasn't the crossover blockbuster Gordy had been looking for, but it did make #45 on the pop charts as well as the top ten on the R&B charts, encouraging him to put Mary in the hands of a new, young producer who had just joined the company, Smokey Robinson. Although Smokey and his group, The Miracles, would make a name for themselves some years in the future, Robinson was content to produce and co-write a string of hits with Mary Wells during her time at Motown, like 1962's "You Beat Me to the Punch," which made #1 on the R&B charts and, as Gordy had been hoping, made a respectable showing on the pop charts; the million-selling "Two Lovers"; and, in 1964, Mary's biggest hit, "My Guy," written by Robinson. It shot to #1 on Billboard's pop charts in May of that year. Not only had Wells delivered Berry Gordy's first pop hit, she was the first Motown artist to appear on "American Bandstand," a tremendous promotional boost for Gordy's company, and the first of "Gordy's girls" to lend an air of sophistication and maturity to his efforts by appearing on tour in elegant gowns and elbow-length gloves, a style that would be followed by the likes of Diana Ross and The Supremes , and a host of Motown female groups. "Mary was the established star," says ex-Supreme Mary Wilson , one of Mary Wells' closest friends. "She was a hometown girl made good. And she was the first female there in a man's world, so she really gave us initiative."

Despite these successes, the early years of Wells' stardom were bittersweet. "We were … just a bunch of kids that cared about each other, just havin' fun," Wells once remembered. "It's something like what I've heard people describe

about their college years, I guess. Those were our years of higher education." In the first flush of success, Wells had married one of Motown's backup singers, Herman Griffin, when she was only 17. By the time they were divorced two years later in 1962, Mary had had two abortions which she later claimed Griffin had forced upon her so she could keep working. On tour, Wells had her first encounters with the racism from which she had been shielded in her African-American milieu in Detroit, although the stage lights were so blinding that she didn't at first notice that she was usually playing to a white orchestra section and a black balcony. But an incident in New Orleans made things all too plain, when Wells walked into City Hall on a sweltering day and stopped to drink from a water fountain. "All these people started lookin' at me," she said. "And me, so much a fool, I say to myself, 'Oh, they know who I am, I'm Mary Wells.' Then I look up and see the sign. WHITES ONLY. Me in my little Motown star bubble. All of a sudden everything kind of crushes."

In 1964, Wells became the first Motown artist to play to an audience outside the United States, traveling to Britain when "My Guy" reached the top ten on that country's charts. She toured with the Beatles, who had heard her sing during their first U.S. tour and had been immediately smitten. "John Lennon was funny, but always gentle to me, always respectful," Wells remembered. "I have a hard time with the fact that some fool murdered the man."

The year 1964 held another surprise for Berry Gordy and the Motown "family," for in that year, Wells announced that she was leaving. Some said that Herman Griffin had convinced her to accept an offer from 20th Century-Fox, an offer that included not only a $500,000, fouryear recording contract, but the possibility of an acting career in films. Others claimed that Wells had used Fox's offer as a bluff to force Berry Gordy to pay her royalties she said had not been forthcoming. (She was to be the first of half a dozen of "Gordy's girls" to make such accusations.) If so, Gordy called her bluff, and Wells left Motown despite the fact that her contract was still in effect. In the lawsuit which Motown filed against her, Mary pointed out that Motown could not enforce an agreement she had signed when still a minor; in the end, the case was settled out of court when Fox merely bought out the disputed contract. Esther Gordy Edwards , Berry's sister and a vice-president of Motown at the time, remains convinced that Wells was probably encouraged by others to leave. "We hated to lose her," Edwards has said. "I think she would have been a super superstar if she had stayed with Motown because of the nurturing, and the organization she had here was conducive to a great career."

Once settled in Los Angeles, Wells discovered how important Motown had been to her. With no Smokey Robinson to produce her songs and a weak concert booking office, 20th Century-Fox marked the beginning of a sharp decline in her fortunes. Fox's record producers often forced her to do 30 or more takes of a song, her voice turning hoarse from the strain; and the flurry of movie offers she had been expecting failed to materialize. (She did appear in a small role in one long-forgotten film, 1967's Catalina Caper.) After barely a year at Fox, Wells moved to the Atco label, a division of Atlantic Records, only to find that Atco was busy promoting Aretha Franklin and would have no time for her until the next year. Three of her songs for Atco reached the charts, including "Set My Soul on Fire" and "Dear Lover," but all remained near the bottom of the lists. Impatient and still searching for another Motown, Mary left Atco in 1969 and moved to Jubilee records, for which she recorded "Dig the Way I Feel" and "Give a Man the World" in 1970. Both failed to sell, and her luck at her next two labels, Reprise and Epic, did not improve.

In 1966, some stability seemed to come into Wells' life with her marriage to Cecil Womack, a singer with a group called The Valentinos and the brother of R&B star Bobby Womack. The couple had four children, the last born after they had divorced in 1977 and Wells had begun a relationship with Cecil's brother, Curtis. "I think the majority of entertainers should never get married," Wells said after her divorce from Cecil. "People expect too much. They're expecting you to wake up like a movie star in the morning, to have a hit record out every day. You are a symbol, a dream, a myth … [and] you have to think about living up to it." But Curtis, and especially the children, seemed proud and even a little surprised at Mary's talents as they sometimes traveled with her on tour. "[The kids] see their mama getting people wild and happy," Cecil once told a reporter. "And before you know it, one of them will be saying to me, Whoa, look at Mama get down!"

Wells' tour schedule during the 1980s must have seemed a far cry from that of 20 years before. Gone were the appearances on top-rated TV shows, interviews with fan magazines, and trips to Europe. Now, after fading into obscurity during the 1970s, she was forced to accept appearances at oldies events in anything from converted beer halls to football stadiums. Admitting she was at first hurt by "this goldie oldie thing," she learned to put it in perspective. "It can't hurt me," she said. "I like to come home, take care of the kids, wash the clothes, clean the house myself … and then go back out there and work. I can do both. Mother taught me independence, and I tell you, I need it more than a man or a career."

What Wells didn't say was that she had to keep working. Never careful about her business arrangements and lacking a knowledgeable business manager, she had seen her income from touring and royalties on her recordings dwindle steadily since leaving Motown. With four children to raise, she had little choice but to accept whatever appearances were offered. She recorded new versions of her old hits for the Allegiance label, but she had no records on the charts after 1982's "Gigolo." There was briefly cause for hope during the mid-1980s when negotiations were opened to return to Motown after she appeared on a TV special, "Motown 25," in 1983, but the deal fell apart.

By the late 1980s, even her concert appearances were becoming more difficult as her voice began to grow weaker. Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas remembers that during what would be Mary's last tour in 1989, the singer who had charmed the nation with "My Guy" and "Two Lovers" could barely whisper the lyrics. Forced off the concert circuit, Wells, who had always been a heavy smoker, was told in 1990 that the polyps which had formed on her larynx were malignant.

The course of treatment she underwent was not only painful, but expensive, and whatever money Mary had was quickly used up. When she was threatened with eviction from her home in Los Angeles, her plight came to the attention of The Rhythm and Blues Foundation in Washington, D.C., set up to help R&B artists in difficult financial straits. The Foundation immediately launched a fund drive, and Wells might have taken comfort in the fact that her "family" had not forgotten her, after all. Berry Gordy, who had built Motown into a $60 million business, contributed funds to secure Wells' housing; Diana Ross gave $15,000, and similar amounts poured in from such diverse musical entertainers as Bruce Springsteen, The Temptations, and Phil Collins. The Foundation raised a total of $125,000. "It speaks a lot to the power of her music that we got contributions from all over the world," said the Foundation's executive director, Suzan Jenkins , "from people who couldn't even speak English."

Despite the course of radiation therapy and a tracheotomy, doctors found that Wells' cancer had spread to her lungs. But, said her daughter Stacey Womack , "She never complained. She only cried because she couldn't do what she liked to do, which was sing." On July 26, 1992, Mary Wells died.

"She was loved," Esther Gordy Edwards told reporters at the candlelight vigil in Mary's honor organized by Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves. "Everybody loved everybody, and once a part of that Motown family in the 'sixties, you remained part of it forever." But Mary Wells was part of a much larger family, made up of the fans who never forgot her when it seemed everyone else had. One of them, a middle-aged white man born in the bleak New York City suburbs, stood outside her dressing-room door in a smoky New York nightclub in the early 1980s, clutching a yellowed record album he had carefully preserved since first hearing Mary Wells as a young boy. "White kids get their own blues in a two-family dump in Flushing," he told a reporter. "Mary saved me. I love her."