My Guy [Import]

Mary Wells | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 2, 1997)
• Original Release Date: November 4, 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: AIM RECORDS
• ASIN: B0000020TS
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #421,307 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Two Lovers

2. You Beat Me To The Punch

3. Oh Little Boy What Did You Do To Me

4. What's Easy For Two Is Hard For One

5. What Love Has Joined Together

6. You Lost The Sweetest Boy

7. My Guy

8. The One Who Really Loves You

9. Old Love, Let's Try Again

10. I'm A Lady

11. Make Up, Break Up

12. I Feel For You

13. To Feel Your Love

14. Money Talks

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Her last fully new LP for Motown, September 26, 2003

By 

D.V. Lindner "D.V. Lindner" (King George, VA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Guy (Audio CD)

"My Guy," of course, was indisputably Mary Wells greatest hit. It was the summit of Smokey Robinson's two years-plus work with Wells as her chief producer and, by the spring of 1964, he perhaps knew instinctively what material was exactly perfect for her. In 2004 the song will be forty years old but even now when you hear it start up on the radio it is the aural breeze to your heart via your ears that is was then. Indicative of his genius, by the way, is that fact that Smokey came up with the equivalent male perspective of passionate new love less than a year later ("My Girl").

In June 1964, this LP didn't need anymore than its single monster hit to succeed. It wasn't the quality of the record, but other reasons, that kept it from spawning more. Egged on by her then-husband Herman Griffin, as well as a vague promise of movie work, Twentieth Century Fox Records had Mary thinking the grass was greener elsewhere. Then 21, she renounced her Motown contract and, after some courtroom scrimmaging, she was free. Subsequent history (and chart numbers) suggests it was one of the worst career decisions in pop music.

Motown, I suppose, could hardly be blamed for not releasing any lame duck Wells' singles whose success would only have bolstered Mary's career stock for some other company. Tracks one through six of this disc (the 'in-house' material), as well as many of the tracks that subsequently saw the light of day on her 1994 "Looking Back" double-CD package, suggest there were a lot of Mary Wells' singles in the pipeline.

On this disc there's Holland-Dozier-Holland's "He Holds His Own" and "Whisper You Love Me Boy." This famous production trio had already proven with "You Lost The Sweetest Boy" that they could get hits on Wells. Probably though, among the candidates here, it's the other Robinson tune, "He's The One I Love One" or William Stevenson's breezy and charming "Does He Love Me" that would have given Wells her most adequate follow-up single to her signature hit. This is positively the album you want if you've ever asked yourself "what happened to her after 'My Guy?'"

The remaining six songs are interesting in a whole different way. Mary's found singing standards like "It Had To Be You," "My Baby Just Cares For Me," and "I Only Have Eyes For You." Mary handles these perfectly well, but they also get one wondering: was Berry Gordy hoping to groom Wells' for the Copacabana-Las Vegas set that he eventually so successfully managed with the Supremes? It's only one of many questions Mary's abrupt, worthy-of-Garbo departure from Motown will leave forever unanswered.

I bought this album on CD in early 1993, but then, very luckily, also found a vinyl copy too (Motown LP #617). I'll not waste keys arguing against the sonic superiority of the CD version, and I don't expect anyone under 40 to understand this, but there's something far more psychologically satisfying while listening to see that blue Motown label with its Detroit map rotating reassuringly at 33&1/3 turns, than a bloodless countdown of minutes and seconds in some puny digital window. Then there's the cover. Writer Gerri Hershey has called the cover of this album "soul music's 'Mona Lisa.'" Perfectly put - you could write at least two or three dozen different meanings in that semi-profile glance of Mary's couldn't you? All the better to have it in 12x12 size than a mere 5x5.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Remake, November 9, 2006

By 

Ildefonso Y. Makinano Jr. - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Guy (Audio CD)

These are not original tracks.
These are remakes of the original.

If you are looking for original Mary Wells
songs as I was, Do Not purchase this CD.
These are remakes of the original.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Voice is still there, but not the originals, October 5, 2004

By 

Ronald Levao (Princeton, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Guy (Audio CD)

I've enjoyed Mary Wells for years, but nostalgia buffs should beware. These are all remakes, and not terribly interesting ones, lite-jazz, bouncy-pop backings. MW's voice is still delightful, but buyers should shop around (excuse me Smokey Robinson) if they are only going to buy one of her albums.