Customer Reviews

My Guy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"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.

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.

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.

Tracks...

1) My Guy
2) The One Who Really Loves You
3) Two Lovers
4) You Beat Me To The Punch
5) Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie
6) Soul Train
7) What's Easy For 2 Is Hard For 1
8) You Lost The Sweetest Boy
9) Old Love (Let's Try Again)
10) What Love Has Joined Together

I originally bought this in 1993 and subsequently lost it. I purchased it again because I remembered liking it but listening to this music again I fell in love with this album all over. This album has a quality missing from most Motown albums of this period. I find some of them such as "He's the One I Love," "He Holds His Own," and "If You Love Me" with their rather naieve expression of a young woman's blind love for a man to be so poignant in their innocence, and also sad given the rather tragic turn of events Mary's life took in the remaining thirty years left to her after the release of this album.

Personally, I don't think leaving Motown was such a bad idea although it must have seemed so. Really, how much steampower would have been left in her career after the Rise of Ross which I believe would have been inevitable even if Mary had recorded "Where Did I Love Go", which is the only Supremes single I can picture Mary Wells singing lead on. I don't believe Diana Ross hapened because Mary Wells absconded from Motown. Perhaps Mary would have had a few more years of hit singles like that other Motown diva Martha Reeves and then, like Martha, Mary would have been kicked to the curb when Holland-Dozier-Holland left the company and deprived Berry Gordy of that plethora of material that songwriting trio spun out for all the female singers at the record company. A least by going to another record company Mary Wells found herself with more money in the hand than she would have ever gotten Berry Gordy to cough up; that she chose to squander that money is another matter altogether.

This an mp3 album called My Guy. These 11 tracks are the ORIGINAL MOTOWN RECORDINGS in stereo. The 2 reviews attached to this listing are actually for "Mary Wells Sings My Guy" MSLP-617 released in 1964(which is a fantastic album also). The link to the also available on disc is linked to a disc of the same name but it contains some original JUBILEE recordings along with some Motown RE-RECORDINGS made for the album "The Old The New And The Best Of" on Alligence Records. If you purchase that disc you will be in for a big let down. IF YOU WANT THE ORIGINAL MOTOWN RECORDINGS PURCHASE THIS MP3 ALBUM. Just thought I would clear this up.