By Davie Gordon (193.122.21.42) on Saturday, November 23, 2002 - 11:40 am:

I've now collated as much chart info. as I can find on Mary's sixties' discs so I'll post the
chart data first then follow it up on a separete
post with my comments.


The format of this listing is as follows

SONG TITLE, highest R&B, pop chart placing
a) entry date - Billboard R&B chart
b) entry date - Billboard "bubbling under" chart
c) entry date - Billboard Hot 100

If there's a date for "c" but no "b" date it means
that the record went straight into the Hot 100

"NC" means that there was no Billboard R&B chart
at the time of the record's presence on the Hot 100

"----" means that the record didn't hit this
chart

dates are in the US format - month,day,year

Bye Bye Baby r&b #8 , pop # 45
a)12.19.60 b) --- c) n/k

I Don't Want To Take A Chance r&b # 9, # 33
a)07.24.61 b) 07.03.61 c) 07.17.61

The One Who Rewally Loves You r&b # 2 , pop # 8
a)04.28.62 b) 03.17.62 c) 03.10.62

You Beat Me To The Punch r&B # 1, pop # 9
a)09.01.62 b) --- c) n/k

Two Lovers r&b # 1 , pop # 7
a)12.08.62 b) 11.24.62 c) 12.01.62

Laughing Boy r&b # 6 , pop # 15
b/w Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right pop # 100
a)03.02.63 b) ---- c) n/k
a) ------ b) 03.02.63 c) 03.23.63

Your Old Stand By r& b # 8, pop # 40
a)06.15.63 b) 05.18.63 c) 05.25.63

What's Easy For Two r&b # 8, pop # 29
b/w You Lost The Sweetest Boy r&b #10, pop # 22
a)10.26.63 b) 09.21.63 c) 09.28.63
a)10.16.63 b) 09.21.63 c) 09.28.63

My Guy r&b NC pop # 1
a) NC b) ---- c) 04.04.64

MARY WELLS & MARVIN GAYE
Once Upon A Time r&b NC pop # 19
b/w What's The Matter With You Baby pop # 17
a) NC b) ---- c) 05.02.64
a) NC b) ---- c) 05.16.64

That brings us up to Mary's last Motown single
so I'll break here. Her post-Motown charters
follow.

By Davie Gordon (193.122.21.42) on Saturday, November 23, 2002 - 11:55 am:

Now for the post-Motown records

Ain't It The Truth r&b NC , pop # 45
Stop Taking Me For Granted r&b NC, pop # 88
a) NC b) --- c) 10.31.64
a) NC b) 10.31.64 c) 11.07.64

Use Your Head r&b # 13 pop 34
a) 01.31.65 b) ----- c) n/k

Never Never Leave Me r&b #15 , pop # 54
a) 03.20.65 b) 03.06.65 c) 03.20.65

He's A Lover r& b ---- pop # 74
a) ---- b) 06.05.65 c) 06.19.65

Me Without You r&b ---- pop # 95
a) ---- b) 09.04.65 c) 09.11.65

Dear Lover (Atco) r&b # 6 , pop # 51
a) 02.19.66 b) 02.12.66 c) 02.19.66

Hey You Set My Soul On Fire r&b ---, pop #122
a) ---- b) 04.01.67 c) ----

Such A Sweet Thing r&B --- pop # 99
a) ---- b) 06.25.67 c) 07.02.67

As this brings to the end of Mary's chart career
at Atco this seems a convenient point to close
this survey which has cover her chart successes
from her first record to the end of '67.

By Davie Gordon (193.122.21.42) on Saturday, November 23, 2002 - 12:18 pm:

The main reason I started this thread, apart from
providing some information on Mary's successess
was to challenge a viewpoint that I've read in
various places over the years that seems to me to be in danger of becoming accepted as gospel.
This is the view that black artists in the sixties had to have reached high levels in the R&B
chart before their records were played on pop
radio stations / made the pop charts.

It's clear from the dates shown above (all the
information is from Joel Whitburn's Billboard
chart Books) that Mary's discs were hitting the
Hot 100 at more or less the same time as they entered the R&B charts. There's the occasional
instance where a record would enter the Hot 100
a week or so before hiting the R&B chart but that
is probably due to the fact that the R&b charts
in those years only showed, at the most, the top
fifty best-selling R&B discs.

However one noteable case is "The One Who Really
Loves You" which entered the Hot 100 a full six
weeks before the record hit the R&bB charts.

I used to believe artists like Solomon Burke who
claimed that his records had to get into the R&B top 10 before the same record would get into the
Hot 100. Now that may well be his perception but
the argument is just not supported by the evidence.

Continuing belief in this myth does a disservice
to almost everyone, it certainly doesn't seem to me to show that the audience for pop and r&b in
the sixties were far more open-minded than they're given credit for. All it took in the
mid sixties to get a hit was to make a good record
- the artist's colour or how photogenic they were
didn't come into it. People went by their ears
and hearts and bought records they liked and it's
no exaggeration to say that this musical crossover
had a huge impact on race relations both in the
US itself and in the wider world.

I'm looking forward to some feedback on this.

I'll gladly quote other chart statistics (if I've got the info).

Oh,yes, I considered Mary was towards the poppier#
end of the spectrum of black music so just out of
curiosity I check the chart dates for two sixties
hits which owe nothing to pop music - Ko Ko
Taylor's "Wang Dang Doodle" and Slim Harpo's
"Baby, Scratch My Back" to see if there was a
gap between hitting the R&B and pop charts

Here's what I found : -

KoKo Taylor r&b # 4 pop # 58
a) 04.16.66 b) 04.09.66 c) 04.16.66

Slim Harpo r&b # pop # 16 !!
a) 01.22.66 b) 01.22.66 c) 01.29.66

Could you imagine the equivalent of these artists
making the charts these days ?

By TonyRussi (68.18.34.83) on Monday, November 25, 2002 - 08:06 am:

Hey Davie,the audiances(us teens at the time) were far more open minded than pop radio.After the "British Invasion" I firmly beleive it was harder for black artist,especially female, to get automatic play on pop radio...this would be Jan. '64 and possibly more true in the South.I use to have big arguments with program directors here in Orlando about playing my favorites. Also the Billboard R& B charts were a top 30 or 40 in the 60's.The order of Mary Wells releases on Atco were 1)Dear Lover/Can't You See 2) Such A Sweet Thing/Keep Me In Suspense 3.)Fancy Free/Me & My Baby 4)Set My Soul On Fire/Coming Home.Take care man.

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Monday, November 25, 2002 - 04:02 pm:

Davie:
I have to agree with Tony Russi about the open-mindedness of the teen audience and the resistance of radio in the 1960s.
My older brothers & sister were teenagers during that time and their musical tastes ranged from Motown, Curtis Mayfield, the Rascals & James Brown to Chicago, Simon & Garfunkel, Blood Sweat & Tears and Steve Winwood (both Spencer Davis & Traffic years). They can all testify to the fact that R&B stations such as WUFO in Buffalo would beat an Impressions or JB single against the trees for weeks before WKBW (the leading Top 40 station) would give that same record the time of day. That was because Pop stations were very cautious about R&B - except for Motown (and later Philly International) these stations wanted to be sure these songs were popular enough to (here we go) cross over.
Bear in mind that a song's chart listing on Billboard is the RESULT of the song's chart life based on the sales & airplay it received when the tune was new. The reason why Motown may have had songs chart on the Pop listings before R&B is because of the label's practice of servicing both formats simultaneously (which not many labels did during the 1960s)and the fact that many Motown songs had more of a Pop/Latin feel to them than straight-up R&B (Mary's "The One Who Really Loves You" would be an example).
Regards,
KevGo

By TonyRussi (68.18.34.83) on Monday, November 25, 2002 - 04:33 pm:

Mary Wells first non-Motown release,"Ain't It The Truth" was a great single.When I went to the record shop I thought they had the wrong record in her slot when I saw that 20th Century record sleeve.Hearing it on the radio(R&B station) I, like alot of people thought"Motown". The R& B station went off at sundown so at night we had to listen to the pop station and they would tell me"oh thats not going to be a hit...she left Motown".

By Davie Gordon (193.122.21.34) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 02:37 pm:

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

So it looks as if we're pretty much agreed that
the white audience for soul music was way ahead
of the top 40 stations - but that's really
a criticism of the nature of TOP 40 radio.
Black records at least had some black (or at least R&B) stations that would support them.
How difficult was it for white acts who weren't
part of The British Invasion to get airplay / sales ?

Tony's point about the domination of the 1964
radio waves by UK groups is important but it
doesn't seem to me that it was THAT much of a hindrance. When "My Guy" entered the Cashbox top
100 it was the second highest entry for that week
- the only new entry higher than it was the Dave
Clark Five's "Bits And Pieces"

1964 was also the year of chart debuts for the
Velvelettes, Brenda Holloway, Jackie Ross - it
would be interesting to follow the history of
one or more of these. We'd need to know the
actual release date and then see how long it
took to enter the charts.

A final point - "My Guy" MUST have sold at the
very least. a million, it was the biggest R&B
record of 1964 and was on Cashbox's chart for
a good 4 months.

By Sue (152.163.188.68) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 03:37 pm:

Davie,
I'd disagree about the Top 40 stations in Detroit, which is the market I know about and listened to throughout the '60s. WKNR, CKLW, WXYZ and WJBK not only played Motown, Cameo-Parkway and Philly International, but they played non-Motown Detroit R&B as well.

The Impressions, Jerry Butler, Booker T and the MGs and Stax-Volt, Wilson Pickett, Archie Bell and the Drells, Sam Cooke ...this is what we grew up on in Detroit, on all our stations.

The R&B stations, WCHB and WJLB hopped on most of it first, but "Gino is a Coward" by our Gino W. was played within an inch of its life by all the pop stations, "Misery" by the Dynamics, pre-Motown Edwin Starr, as well as the top Fortune stuff like Nolan Strong's "Mind Over Matter" and in the early '60s, Nathaniel Mayer's "Village of Love."

The Parliaments "I Wanna Testify" ruled the Keener charts for much of '67, later there were many P-Funk "hits" played on Keener that apparently didn't make as big a dent nationally.
And you didn't get more Top 40 in Detroit, than Keener.

I was in a meeting once with a bunch of baby boomer-age, top editors; when I hummed "Mind Over Matter" (making a point about a story), all of the ones raised in Detroit -- black and white -- knew the song immediately. We grew up hearing mostly the same music. We didn't know how good we had it.

By ExDetroiter (65.133.219.125) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 03:44 pm:

CKLW was Carl Carlton's second home. They played virtually all his Backbeat recordings.

By TonyRussi (68.18.34.83) on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 04:03 pm:

I envy you guys growing up in Detroit!In the early 60's(til June '64) I lived in Miami and ofcourse Chubby Checker, Dee Dee Sharp, the Orlons & Motown got extensive play on pop radio because they were Rock N Roll but after 64 & especially here in the Orlando area(more red neck back then) the only black artist that got automatic pop air play(on the whole) were the Supremes & Temptations. The others had to be huge R& B hits before they would even consider playing them. If I had grown up in Detroit I probably would not have made it through school as I would be at 2648 W. Grand Blvd. everyafternoon!!While Mary Wells was at Motown airplay wasn't a problem but with the first 20th Century release she never got the proper exposure nationally.