Mary Wilson, co-founder of the Supremes, passed away at age 76

• 
  

courtesy of Dancing With the Stars

Singer Mary Wilson, who founded the Supremes year-old as a 15-year-old in a Detroit housing project and stayed with the legendary hit-making Motown Records trio until it's disbandment in 1977 died on Monday night at her home in Las Vegas. She was 76.

Wilson's longtime publicist, Jay Schwartz, reported that she died suddenly. The circumstances of her death were not immediately revealed. Funeral services will be private because of COVID, he said, but there will be a public memorial later this year.

"I was extremely shocked and saddened to learn of the death of an important member of the Motown family, Mary Wilson of the Supreme," Berry Gordy said in a statement Monday night. The Supremes have always been known as the 'cuties of Motown'. Mary, along with Diana Ross , came to Motown in the early 1960s, Florence Ballard. After an unprecedented string of No. 1 hits, TV and nightclub bookings, they opened doors for themselves, the other Motown acts, and many, many others. … I was always proud of Mary. She was a star in her own right and continued to work hard over the years to boost the legacy of the Supremes. Mary Wilson was extraordinarily special to me. She was a pioneer, a diva and will be sorely missed.

"Just Two days before her death, Wilson posted a video on its YouTube channel in which they announced that with Universal Music worked on releasing solo material, including the unreleased album" Red Hot "she in the seventies recorded with producer Gus Dudgeon "Hopefully some of that will come out on my birthday, March 6," she said in the video. She also promised upcoming interviews she'd done about the Supremes' experiences with segregation that she said would come in honor of Black. History Month

Wilson was highly visible in 2019 when she appeared on the 28th season of "Dancing With the Stars" and released her fourth book "Supreme Glamor."

Wilson had prepared to participate for part of the year. celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Supremes, still the most iconic female singing trio of all time,

Those who immediately weighed in at the late hour to pay tribute to Wilson ranged from Questlove to Paul Stanley from KISS. "OMG! Mary Wilson of the Supremes has passed away suddenly," tweeted Stanley. "I was on the phone with Zoom for about an hour on Wednesday and never could have imagined this. So full of life and great stories. Absolutely shocked. Rest In Supreme. Peace Mary. ”

Featuring singer Diana Ross and founder Florence Ballard (and with Ballard's replacement Cindy Birdsong), Wilson appeared on all 12 of the Supremes' No. 1 pop hits from 1964-69; During that time, the act - the largest of Motown's vocal groups thanks to their silky sound - charted a total of 16 top-10 pop singles and 19 top-10 R&B 45s (six of them toppers).

As Ross rose to fame as the group's international superstar and Ballard, who died prematurely in 1976 at the age of 32, was remembered as his tragic figure, Wilson was his steady, ubiquitous, and outspoken driving force - though many consider her little more than a supplier of the spare hooks that supported Ross's main work.

The Supremes: Mary Wilson, left, with Florence Ballard and Diana Ross.Courtesy Motown Archives

"They think I'm just an 'ooh girl,'" Wilson said in a 1986 San Francisco Chronicle interview.

After Ross left the group for solo stardom in 1970, Wilson remained at the center of the action, dutifully supporting a series of front women. Although the Supremes never regained their dominance of the '60s, they still managed to get a 1970 R & B no. 1, "Stoned Love", to collect and they returned five times back to the pop top 20.

The The act's image of glamor and offstage sisterhood, carefully crafted by Motown, was belied by Wilson's scathing portrayal of bandmate Ross in a 1986 bestselling memoir, Dreamgirl: My Life As a Supreme, the first narrative tome by a member of the so-called "Motown family".

In the book, Ross - emphatically referred to by her birth name Diane throughout - was portrayed as an attention-seeking and underhanded diva who used her relationship with Motown founder-chairman Berry Gordy to get what she wanted professionally and personally.

Opening the book with an episode where Ross literally pushed her aside onstage during a recording of the 1983 recording of the NBC anniversary special 'Motown 25', Wilson wrote with mixed feelings: 'She did a lot of things to hurt her. humiliating, and upset me, but strangely, I'm still over her and proud of her.

"Wilson,which issued two solo albums and successfully toured a solo act that cabaret combined with renditions of her old Supremes hits, was included in 1988 in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the group.

She was born on March 6, 1944, in Greenville, MS After moving to St. Louis and then Chicago with her parents, she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Detroit at the age of three, and she grew up believing that she was their daughter. She only found out who her real parents were when she was six, when her mother came to Detroit to live with the family.She moved with her mother several times until she settled at Brewster-Douglass Housing at the age of 12. Project.

Wilson had previously sung in a group led by Aretha Franklin's younger sister Carolyn when she was approached by Ballard, a charismatic neighbor in the Brewster projects, to form a new group that would serve as a "sister. ract "by the Primes, a male quintet starring Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, both future members of the Motown unit The Temptations.

The two girls were soon joined by Ross (who would only take the professional name "Diana" after the group's first hits). Starring fourth member Betty McGlown and her successor Barbara Martin, they would act as the Primettes until they renamed themselves the Supremes in early 1961

. Lupin; Wilson sang lead on the single B-side "Pretty Baby," but, like Ballard, she was soon moved up front by Ross. Finally brought on board in Motown, they struggled to find their musical niche by recording songs (by Smokey Robinson and others) that were either languishing on the charts or in the safe. In 1963, the fourth member Martin left the unit.

The trio finally started playing when brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier's songwriting team became their main cleffers. After reaching No. 2 on the R&B side with the writers 'When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes' in late 1963, the Supremes climbed to the pinnacle of both the pop and R&B lists simultaneously with the footstep "Where Did Our Love Go" in the summer of 1964.

With Ross now installed as lead vocalist, the trio vied for the Beatles for the ubiquity of radio and charts over the next three years. Their number 1's from 1964-67 included 'Baby Love', 'Come See About Me' and 'Stop! In the Name of Love, '' Back in My Arms Again ',' I Hear a Symphony ',' You Can't Shark Love ',' You Keep Me Hanging On 'and' Reflections'.

In mid-1967, the increasingly unreliable Flo Ballard, ravaged by alcoholism, drug abuse and depression, was expelled from the Supremes and replaced by Birdsong. Gordy - who already envisioned a career in Las Vegas, TV and movies for Ross, with whom he now had a romantic relationship - established his lover's supremacy by renaming the group Diana Ross & the Supremes that year.

The writing really was on the wall for the Supremes after Ross began recording as a soloist in 1968 and it was announced late the following year that she would be leaving the group. The act's swan song with founding lead singer 'Someday We'll Be Together' topped the pop and R&B charts in December 1969, and Ross left her after a heavily stage-led farewell performance at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas in January 1970. The single marked the act's last visit to the top of the US charts.

The Vegas show introduced Jean Terrell - the sister of heavyweight prize fighter Ernie Terrell, and a singer in his group The Knockouts - as the new lead vocalist for the Supremes. Amazingly, Berry Gordy quickly tried to replace Terrell with Syreeta Wright, Stevie Wonder's wife, but according to Mark Ribowsky's sharp, impure 2009 history of the group, Wilson intervened; while Terrell stayed, the Supremes never enjoyed the kind of budgets or promotion they had with Ross in the fold.

With Terrell in charge, the Supremes held on to some momentum: Beyond "Stoned Love" they hit the R&B top 10 with "River Deep, Mountain High," "Nathan Jones" and "Floy Joy. But Wilson remained the one constant in an ever-changing line-up after 1972, and by the end of the 70s the trio was engaged in lightweight disco gear - some of it provided by the returning Holland-Dozier-Holland team.

The Supremes folded their tents with a farewell performance in London in June 1977. Wilson's self-titled solo LP for Motown (which Marvin Gaye planned to produce before sinking his divorce battle with Gordy's sister Anna) failed to make it to the national album chart, and the single peaked at number 95.

Apart from her performance in the '83 Motown special, Wilson was little heard until her brow-raising memoirs were published (She would write two more books about the Supremes, in 1990 and 2019.) The title 'Dreamgirl' is inspired. on the 1981 hit Broadway musical, which the singer said was a largely accurate portrayal of the uproar within the Supremes. during Ross's tenure.

She defended herself in a 1986 interview in Jet against possible allegations of serving sour grapes, saying, 'I'm sure people will have their own opinion on that, but I really don't care. My main thing is that when I was in the group, I kept my position and not stepped into Diane's position. I am no longer in the group. I have my own position to uphold and it is not in the background.

"An Attempt to Wilson reunite with Ross and the other surviving members of the Supremes for a tour in 2000, came to nothing after a long and public fight over Wilson's fee for the trek.

Wilson's album" Walk the Line "in 1992 released on the CEO label, she released a pair of live DVDs in the new millennium

In 2015 she released what would be their last single, "Time to Move on" from that number 23 reached the Billboard dance chart publicist..

she  said she had tried to get a US postage stamp for Ballard. Wilson's activism included traveling to Washington, DC to lobby for the Music Modernization Act, which passed into law in 2018.

She is survived by her daughter Turkessa and grandchildren ( Mia, Marcanthony, Marina); her son, Pedro Antonio Jr, and grandchildren (Isaiah, Ilah, Alexander, Alexandria). Both children are from her marriage to Dominican businessman and former Supremes manager Pedro Ferrer, from whom she divorced in 1981. In 1994, the couple's 14-year-old son, Rafael, was killed and Wilson was injured when her jeep overturned on the Las Vegas road. and Los Angeles.

Wilson is also survived by her sister Kathryn; her brother, Roosevelt; her adopted son / cousin Willie and grandchildren (Erica (great-granddaughter, Lori), Vanessa, Angela).

Instead of flowers, the family has asked friends and fans to support UNCF.org and the Humpty Dumpty Institute too.