Inside Hitsville, where Motown’s music changed pop and the world
Mary Wilson talks to Gemma Dunn about her life in The Supremes, which features in a new documentary
Mary Wilson only ever wanted to perform. The co-founder of The Supremes, and the only member to survive its many incarnations, had known from a young age she was born to sing, rebuffing her mother’s college wishes in pursuit of a stage career.
But America’s most successful ever vocal group? A landmark in black consciousness? Wilson could not have predicted reaching such dizzying heights.
“I walk down (memory lane) every day,” says the star, who is 75. “Every day I wake up, I’m pinching myself.”
And elements of the singing group’s rise to fame does read like a fairytale, for Wilson, Florence Ballard and Diana Ross first met in their teens while growing up in Detroit’s Brewster-douglass housing projects.
Sharing a love of music, the trio – along with Betty Mcglown – soon formed the Primettes, a spin-off from male vocalists, The Primes. But it was their signing to upstart label, Motown Records, in 1961 that changed their path.
Founder Berry Gordy’s deal breaker was that they rename their group. And it was then that The Supremes was born.
It’s an iconic story that, along with those of various other performers, is being celebrated in new documentary film, Hitsville: The Making Of Motown.
With more than 180 number one hits and one of the most impressive artist rosters the world has seen, the biopic details how this trailblazing hit factory was built and the impact its music had as it crossed the racial divide during the civil rights era.
It’s been an amazing movement to be a part of, says Wilson.
“The company hadn’t reached the same trajectory as now; everyone was still trying to get hits, but the talent was there,” she says of Motown’s early days.
“When we first went there, it was 1961. I’d graduated high school, so I was 17 years old, and it was like, ‘Whoa, all these handsome guys’,” she adds. “And the other thing was all the wonderful music; the creativity was something that, even now, makes me wonder how I got so lucky.
“People like Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, the Four Tops, The Temptations, we were right there.”
The film – the first cinematic feature documentary to be authorised by Gordy – offers unparalleled access to the man himself and his personal archive; plus a trip back to the tiny Detroit headquarters – Hitsville – where the label was built with his closest collaborator Smokey Robinson.
While Wilson and other big period names contribute, so do some of the prolific stars of today for whom the Motown stars paved the way, including Dr Dre and John Legend.
But it’s still the writers and producers who are the real stars, claims Wilson.
“They were always at the top, we artists were lower until we got a hit record!” she quips, The Supremes having failed to infiltrate the charts between 1961 and 1963. “Then you start moving on up.”
Wilson recalls just how desperate the girls were to make it.
“We went to Mr Gordy and we said, ‘We really want a hit record. We’ve released about six or seven and nothing has become a hit’,” she recalls.
“That’s when he put us with (songwriters) Hollanddozier-holland. The first one (they gave us) was When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes, which went into the charts; but the next one didn’t hit the charts at all, so I called us the ‘no-hit Supremes’ at that point.
“That’s when the Hollands brought us the song, Where Did Our Love Go.”
Although the group didn’t care for it at all, she admits.
“And that was our first major hit,” she says of the track, which reached number one on the US pop charts and number three in the UK after its 1964 release.
“Martha And The Vandellas had Dancing In The Streets, The Marvelettes had Please Mr Postman... we wanted something more R&B. And they bring us, ‘Baby, Baby, where did all the love go?’” she sings note perfect, fingers clicking.
“I still really don’t care for it; I just don’t like to sing it because for me it’s a little boring,” Wilson confides. “But it’s not, I realise that. It made us.”
It more than just made them. The Supremes’ star rocketed with the group becoming the first black female music act to appear on television, on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Four consecutive US number ones followed in the shape of Baby Love, Come See About Me, Stop! In The Name Of Love and Back In My Arms Again.
Wilson remained with the group following the departures of Ballard in 1967 and Ross in 1970. She finally took to the stage for a farewell concert in 1977.
What about The Supremes – would she reunite?
“If it happened I’d be thrilled, if it doesn’t I’m thrilled too because I got a life,” Wilson concludes. “I got options, that’s the way I look at it!”
“We went to Mr Gordy and we said, ‘We really want a hit record’”
● Hitsville: The Making Of Motown is in cinemas for one night only tonight, www. motown.film