Mary Wells at Motown

Today entry is around a double cd  by artist whose career that lasted many years only really flourished briefly and often is ignored when it comes to Motown's contribution to the evolution of Soul Music.

You see the people we associate more with Motown, like Diana Ross& the Supremes, the Temptations and the Four Tops were only really successful after Mary Wells left the label but during the first years it was her, the Miracles and Marvin Gaye who were the bit hitters chart wise. Indeed the Supremes were dubbed the 'no hit supremes' while the Beatles hung out with Mary and even shared billing on tour.

Motown was like a giant music factory working all hours recording and refining 'product' for the quality control meetings where the decision to release or just can the recordings were made so like many Motown artists, Mary had a lot of material, really fine material that commercially Motown had no use for regardless of its quality.

This set issued in 2012 is in some respects the replacement for 1993's ultra rare Looking Back double, part of a ground breaking set of releases exploring work by less well known artists or those whose careers spun more at 45 RPM from the master tapes so had few if any lps.

While I have a number of those cds and the periods 'Anthologies' of more popular artists, hers is one I didn't get at that given we're looking at around over £100 when you see a copy, I'm not likely fill that gap.

This set has 25 unreleased tracks, a good number of new stereo mixes of tracks previously issued including duets with Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson plus work with the Four Tops and Supremes (the Diana Ross & the Supremes group styling came in in 1967 after these were recorded).

Mary took advice, sadly very misguidedly to leave Motown in 1964 from what was admittedly a poor contract but the process took it's toil on her poor health that went back to her disadvantaged childhood and lack the nurturing environment and the pool of talented writers was to cost her commercial career dear.

Meanwhile one does need the Hits and there has been a number of compilations issued over the years.

 This one dating back to 1986 remains my favourite even if the art isn't top draw and isn't hard to find used Taking in 1960's Bye Bye Baby, Two Lovers, Your Ol' Standby and You Beat Me To The Punch  as well as My Guy, a big UK hit in early 1964 although it has nothing from the Together album of duets recorded with Marvin Gaye who was rather disowning of it.

Although there is a more recent identical coupling of these two original studio albums which are very well recorded by Motown standards, this 1986 2 on 1 set is a favourite for the songs (the albums are surprisingly solid with little 'filler' making the case for her most versatile voice taking in such songs as Two Lovers, Laughing Boy, Whisper You Love Me and My Baby Just Cares for Me.

There goes the neighborhood

Here we go a week on from the enforced rest edition and I'm slowly recovering from this rotten head cold and associated cough that is stuck down my tubes.

Talking of that old laptop, a few of you how much I like stuff along the Eagles, Don Henley, Glen Frey and Joe Walsh direction and how I'd filled in some of the missing albums over the last year I didn't get around to backing up.

Dig the tank picture!

The origins of my Joe Walsh collection were from various sites that had the downloads on although I did get the various 'audiophile' editions of his cds at cost, but many of his albums are hard to find in cd form.

I tracked a few down on iTunes in their better sounding Mastered for iTunes versions but until recently this one escaped me as it wasn't available at any reputable store such as  7Digital or Amazon either.

Released in 1981, shortly after he'd left the Eagles, it was his fifth solo album and the home of the 45 'A Life of illusion' recorded as early as 1973 but only completed for this album which only got as far as a top twenty placing.

It features former Eagles  band mates Timothy B Schmidt  and Don Felder playing and concludes with 'You Never Know' an angry swipe at the Eagles band management company.

This was recently re-released digitally by Rhino/Warners and I as able to get the download from iTunes after a bit of consenting to the new customer agreement which does sound quite a bit better than the mushy Mp3 version I had before.

Now playing "Who's Better, Who's Best" by the Who.

Looking back at structures and the need to be little

 

I often feel pretty much that young child to be honest and Bertie the teddy bear is a constant companion of mine just there when I need a hug and a cuddle.

I was talking with someone about the past, yes I know we has a present an' a future too but the past has lessons for you and is after all where you started out from and some of ideas I think are worth sharing.

One is given our chronological (so-called real life) ages, we've seen the world and the Countries we've lived in change from when we were little girls quite dramatically with the removal of many a Dictator, the greater freedom of expression of thought, religious beliefs and for differing ways of life.

We can to a very large extent say what with think without being arrested or effectively suppressed, in countries that had one majority faith, we can join and practice freely another and this is good.

One thing that perhaps for some of us is a negative is the way in which we've moved from very prescribed boundaries to such a state of rampant individualism that challenges any notion of social norms in our society.

We care less about how what we do may impact on others, the sense in which we are (and certainly I and people of my generation) felt being a part of a society that had shared aims and standards of behaviour in public at least. 

Everybody pretty much knew what was expected of them and that included respect for (adult) authority at home, at school, in the workplace never mind that of the Police even if they weren't perfect.

Today it seems that very much the idea of any respect for social rules has gone-want that seat on the train, grab it even if has been reserved, if at odds with each other in the street then call each other cuss words loudly in front of the under 12's, and so on to the point that it's hardly surprising that the only rules teens see exploring their emerging selves is that of own peer group in that way. 

While we tested the boundaries too, you knew adult authority would step in and critically your own folks would support them as having been punished for coming home the worse for drink once I'm well aware of shall we say.

For some us part of our being 'little' be it in caregiver relationships, or being just 'a little' may stem from a longing for those certainties be they from your own upbringing or perhaps looking back on those of others, you wish for them.

It provides some of the structure  we find ourselves craving.

Kickabout time

I am a feminine sissy but that doesn't mean all my interests are just those you might of traditionally associated with girls sometimes just because where my own interests lie and that inevitably in that era I was socialized formally along boys lines.

Footie or Soccer as it is called has always been a thing with me from the days we played it on the street, in open spaces, at school to following it religiously watching the F.A. Cup final never the times I watched with nan as we devoured Cadbury's Fruit and Nut chocolate together and we're getting well into the 2015/16 season.

Today we are seeing more girls and women's teams around where when I grew up girls were strongly discouraged from playing, boys refused to play with them and schools did not have girls football as a team sport.

That's progress and as a sissy I support allowing females to play whatever sport they wish.

Dress and the adult child

 Sometimes the question may get asked why wear clothes associated more a childs as a Adult Little?

To me it's not a hard and fast rule that anyone who sees themselves more as a Adult child should have to dress like one and for a good number of us, it may get in the way of things such as workplace dress codes and so on and at times I do wish some in our community were a bit less uptight over it. I mean it's only fabric after all.

There are a number of settings though where I do feel it's of very real benefit of which one is if you're with a Adult authority figure (male or female) in a relationship where anything like this needs to be talked through.

The other might be you do have an external authority figure or Mentor, you don't but may be meeting others possibly with some responsible adults or it's just how you see yourself.

To me the principal advantage is simply it makes you look more the Child you are because it removes the last bits of adult standing from your appearance at a distance.

You look into the mirror and you see something more like that child in it which aids you in doing those things that come natural to you as the adult child as you see nothing unchild in you.

An almost as important advantage when it comes to dealing with Adult authority figures is they see the child, their charge who looks very much it as they treat you very much like the junior you are, playing, drinking your milk and watching cartoons.

It is more complicated for me in being a modern gurl because for some of the time it may well be I in more contempory play attire even if my head may be running with some feminine traits too which means it may be t shirts and casual  shorts.

However there will be other times where I will gender present in  more feminine way  too

I love character t shirts like Hello Kitty ones and being in dresses and skirts which also happen to be easier when it comes to giving me my spankings in them in what is a very authentic junior experience leaving me clear just who is in control.

When it comes to underwear I like fuller briefs sometimes with cute designs on that are more like the sort you had when you were younger rather than anything that's clearly more grown up or be put in soft pretty satin  frilly ones . 

My feeling is that's more appropriate for the adult-child little sissy gurl you are and are being treated as.