Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson helped establish the Supremes as one of the most successful and influential vocal groups ever and remained their constant presence. After the ensemble disbanded in the late 1970s, she occasionally stepped forward as a solo artist, issuing her Motown debut, Mary Wilson, in 1979. Already recognized as a model of elegance and poise, she later became a best-selling writer with Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme, joined the Supremes in their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, and returned with the independent release Walk the Line in 1992 plus scattered singles on smaller labels. Until her passing in 2021, she continued working without pause as a performer, writer, activist, speaker, and cultural representative.

She entered the world in Greenville, Mississippi, and spent time with her family in St. Louis and Chicago before being sent, at age three, to live with relatives in Southwest Detroit. Once her mother rejoined her, Wilson relocated at twelve to the Brewster-Douglass housing project, where she encountered Florence Ballard. Through that connection she entered the Primettes, who issued a single in 1960, then joined Motown and adopted the name Supremes. Breakthrough arrived in 1964 when the group launched a run of five consecutive number-one pop singles: “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and “Back in My Arms Again.” Alongside numerous hit albums, they reached the top of the pop chart seven additional times before Diana Ross departed in 1970 to pursue a solo path. Wilson stayed central to the lineup through repeated personnel shifts, and although the Supremes achieved less commercial traction in the 1970s than in the prior decade, their post-Ross recordings—anchored by eight further Top 40 entries ranging from “Up the Ladder to the Roof” to “I’m Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking”—continue to attract devoted listeners.

Two years after the Supremes’ final concert in 1977, Wilson launched her solo career with the Hal Davis–produced Mary Wilson album on Motown. The project included the charting midtempo disco track “Red Hot” and reached number 73 on Billboard’s Top Black Albums chart. In 1983 she briefly rejoined Diana Ross and Cindy Birdsong, the latter having taken Florence Ballard’s place, for a performance of the group’s last number-one single, “Someday We’ll Be Together,” on the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever. Three years afterward she published Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme, which appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list; the title alluded to Dreamgirls, the Broadway musical partly drawn from the Supremes’ story. She would go on to release three additional volumes: Supreme Faith: Someday We’ll Be Together, a revised and combined edition of her earlier two books, and Supreme Glamour.

Although she focused chiefly on live work, including a well-received Las Vegas residency, Wilson completed a second album, Walk the Line, issued in 1992, and continued recording occasional singles into the later 2010s. As an advocate she supported numerous causes, among them the Truth in Music Advertising Act and the Music Modernization Act. In 2019, the same year Supreme Glamour appeared, she took part in Dancing with the Stars. At the time of her death from heart disease on February 8, 2021, she was preparing an expanded reissue of her 1979 debut, which arrived digitally two months later containing tracks from a 1980 session and the new message song “Why Can’t We All Get Along.” Those solo recordings, together with selected well-known, lesser-known, and previously unreleased Supremes material, were gathered on the two-disc Motown Anthology, released in 2022.