Mary Wells

Mary Esther Wells (May 13, 1943 – July 26, 1992) was an American singer who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s.

Signing with Motown at the age of 17, Wells's best-known hit singles include "The One Who Really Loves You", "Two Lovers" and "You Beat Me to the Punch". Her signature hit, "My Guy" (1964), was her biggest international single and her only number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. During Wells's Motown tenure, she was nicknamed "the Queen of Motown".

Wells's early success with Motown led her to become part of the era's surge in black music on radio stations and record shelves in mainstream America, "bridging the color lines in music at the time".

Wells left Motown shortly after "My Guy" peaked at number one, and she subsequently struggled to release songs through big and small record labels until her death from cancer in June 1992. Wells was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and was later inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame.

Mary Esther Wells was born near Detroit's Wayne State University on May 13, 1943, to Geneva Campbell Wells, a mother who worked as a domestic, and Arthur Wells, an absentee father. One of three children, she contracted spinal meningitis at the age of two and struggled with partial blindness, deafness in one ear and temporary paralysis. At age 10, Wells contracted tuberculosis. During her early years, Wells lived in Black Bottom and struggled with poverty. By age 12, she was helping her mother with house cleaning work.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.