You can’t hurry love — or music
Former Supreme Mary Wilson’s new album is five years in the making, will reflect ‘life and life’s issues’

By Jerry Fink (contact)

Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Chris Morris

It’s been a long time since Mary Wilson, the former Supreme, has recorded an album.

“I think it was way back when Arsenio Hall had a television show,” says the Las Vegas resident who will perform Saturday at the Silverton, singing hits from the Supremes and mixing in some old time rock ’n’ roll by other artists.

The long wait will be over in a couple of months for Wilson’s fans.

“Five years ago I started recording this CD and I’m finally told it may be released in the next month or so,” she says. “I feel like Stevie Wonder or someone in terms of taking so long to record, but the industry has changed so drastically and I didn’t have a record company, so it took some time to figure out how we were going to move forward.”

Wilson ended up signing with Brian and Eddie Holland, who teamed with Lamont Dozier in the early ’60s to write and produce “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “This Old Heart of Mine,” “Nowhere to Run,” “I’m a Road Runner” and many others.

They produced hits for the Supremes, Junior Walker & the All Stars, the Four Tops, Martha & the Vandellas, the Isley Brothers and the Elgins.

“The album is going to be great,” she says. “I’m very pleased with it. It’s all original music — you know everyone tries to put me in a Supremes bag and I’m really more of a Tina Turner, kind of like a wild woman. I’m not saying Tina is wild, but I’m like her, kind of edgy.

“It’s hard to get people to think of you the way you really are.”

The as-yet-untitled album will be available through her Web site,

marywilson.com.

“I actually gave the producers some of my diaries — not the real juicy stuff. I have kept journals all my life; that’s the way I wrote my two books,” Wilson says. “We collaborated on the concept of the album, and the concept was about life, and the journey of life and the experiences and the clarity about life that one gets after having gone through as much as I have. We all agreed that would be the concept, more about life and life’s issues.”

Wilson hasn’t been totally out of the recording studio.

Two years ago she, Smokey Robinson and other Motown legends flew to Australia to add their voices to the album “Get Ready,” featuring the Aussie group Human Nature. She sang “River Deep, Mountain High” and “It Takes Two” on the platinum album.

Human Nature, known for its tribute to Motown recordings, has since landed a long-term engagement at the Imperial Palace, with Smokey Robinson lending his name to the energized production.

Robinson has performed in the show, and Wilson probably will as well.

“We’re talking about my making a couple of guest appearances,” Wilson says.

Even though the recording industry has changed dramatically since the 65-year-old Wilson began her career in 1959, she has not lost her enthusiasm for performing.

“Singing is still great,” she says. “I work all over the world, a lot outside the United States. It’s hard for a lot of us (vintage entertainers) to work in the United States because (producers) just want to make it an oldies act. We are more appreciated in Europe.

“But I hate to say appreciated, because we have many fans in the United States, but it’s the way we’re marketed here. People don’t know we’re still out there performing.”

Today the younger entertainers who have gained instant fame garner all the publicity.

“Now I look back when we were becoming famous and I wonder if artists of that time felt the same way — the Ella Fitzgeralds and all those people who were really huge and then here comes rock ’n’ roll,” Wilson says. “But I do think we were a little fairer. We were on the same shows together.

“But today they totally close people out. ‘OK, you’re through. Bye.’ ”

Remember in 2000 when Diana Ross tried to put together a Supremes reunion tour? Mary was pissed because she and the other Supreme were gonna get paid only $2 million while Diana was gonna get $11 million,or something like that It's a shame they couldn't work it out.

SoulAlive said:

Yeah I remembered that. I think even Mary regrets doing what she did, wishing she and Diane and Cindy had talked it over and worked it out instead of bitching to the press. Regardless I do wish them well.

Mary tried to make a comeback about 10 years ago and it was terrible. Her voice is gone! She needs to give it up.
[Edited 9/11/09 10:02am]