Teenbeat XVIIII - Mary Wells

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.

The random jottings of a girl on Monday...

Random Monday post.
First off, Tracy got the mini quiz on last Sunday's post right. It was Crewe station, just opposite  the Crewe Arms Hotel the photograph was taken from, where you get to most places in the UK from and where presuming HS2 happens, that service will call at too.
As those of you from a certain littles site in the UK with a chat room will be aware I haven't been too good with a cold and bad cough for most of the week so I've been on the Lemsips and herbal cough mixture which has left me feeling unwell, achy, woozy in the head and a bit lacking in motivation, although as Jodi put it you can't expect to feel much else although her support is helping at least the point I got a few things done today connected with the dead ghoulish upcoming events at GHS which I'm mooch looking forward too.
I'm glad to have people who do care about me.
I went to look at one site the other night and found its software and layout had changed quite a bit and found I had a few things to put aright on my profile there and found another doesn't seem to be so good in it's mobile view, something that with more and more people accessing sites via smartphones and tablets is becoming more important, not least for getting people to spend more time on them.
I can remember the early days when we'd almost huddle around our big desktop computers for hours trying to find the very sort of site we wanted and then stay on for hours as they were hardly portable in the way laptops and especially Netbooks are and often modern machines are more powerful than those 133mhz machines with by modern standards tiny amounts of RAM were.
Finally I've been putting Yet More Music on my Soul micro sd card all 64gb of it I use in my Fiio music player to listen to over the headphones or plugged in the mini system in my room when I'm poorly saving me carrying stacks of cds with me to put on.

Making sense of information

"This London Midland  service to Birmingham New Street calling at Wolverhampton, Coseley, and Smethwick Galton Bridge is now approaching Penkridge. Please ensure you have all you belongings with you."
"Eh, Jo. Are you really supposed to be getting off here???"

Anyone that knows me understands it's the very first thought that goes into my head about journeys is making sure I'm on the right service, going the right  direction and this really is my stop having had a number of messed up encounters with trains and buses earlier in my life with my amazing ability to transpose data from different columns on timetables and information screens thanks to dyslexia.
Somehow they just get all jumbled up although as far as you're concerned its correct until that moment when you're to use it and you find you're at the  wrong stop or even on the wrong platform.
That's why I have to be super careful and check separately the information that  I've got it -usually written down in a note book - correct so removing anything that I might transpose.
Usually when I read I use things like rulers or credit cards to screen out anything other than the lines I need to see but that's not so practical on a laptop or in bus or rail stations where it may be quite high up.

Onward bound

"I wonder what this is all about?" I hear you cry especially as we know me and trains have a lot bad memories and you generally won't see many pictures of them here and certainly it's very very rare for me to take a single photo of them plus only on one occasion did I take a series on slide film.

 The train is apparently a Class 350/2 built by Siemens having been in service for the last few years on this line and it was taking me away for a bit a break . A Mars Bar for anyone outside the Black Country who can identify the service and the station this was taken at.
Getting there had been fraught with its own issues between road works preventing me from getting to the station by one route potentially up to the the very morning and an accident along the next best alternative  route causing much disruption but I got there in good time to get some lunch while waiting for the train to come in.
One thing that changed at the station was due to re-modelling work, its owners had put in ticket operated barriers between the waiting area and the platforms which I found confusing.
I got in the disabled seating area and it wasn't long before I arrived at the other end to be greeted by a friend of mine who after some shopping took me to their place to meet Susan and Andi.
It wasn't long before the 'Junior Prefect' emerged in her black pinafore dress after unzipping the many zips of the turquoise suitcase to extract what was needed immediately which given much of what I had mentioned before was pretty much middles regression so it was Jessica dollie and my colouring book.
I over did the colouring a bit probably with getting 'too' in that regressed space apart from just feeling  very spaced out, so sorry about  that.
After a period it was time to eat and Susan and Jennifer had been working on something I'd never ever eaten before, Duck (no Fudge, not a yellow coloured wheeled item you know) with roast potatoes, asparagus and sprouts.
With apologies to the vegetarians, It's a bit like lamb when it comes to the taste and texture but in 'bird' form. It certainly tasted really well, a tribute to Susan's cooking skills  and we had chocolate and cherry cake afterward.
Afterward we listened between talking about various things, to so a few compilations including one by David Bowie  who I like a lot and the Eagles before making our way to bed.
Bed for me was with the glowing embers of the coal fire - you wouldn't believe how long they can stay alight - and I definitely got the sleep I'd been missing from the days before.
I was up around 7:20 and after a wash got changed for the morning, opening the curtains - there's something about the act of doing that that triggers that whole feeling of letting in the fresh day and sorting things out ready for off.
It wasn't long before I fixed some breakfast to be joined by Andi and Susan chatting over breakfast before it was time for me to return home.
Time regressed is I feel good time for me, it's not about escapism, it's more time to let out the the Middle within being herself as it is rather than a more groan uppy dressed as middle way because for me there's not much mode change.
You may change the attire but the Middle stands-that's me.

Thanks to Andi, Jennifer and Susan in strict alphabetical order for an enjoyable time socializing and for the lifts to the station.

Thanks

I'd like to this opportunity to thank everyone at GT,G.I,  IK,DDlg and FA for your concern following recent events and how they have left me feeling, be they comments in chat, on posts or face to face.
I was  pleasantly surprised to read one blog entry that addressed that topic of balancing your little and big lives an individual was facing that had a direct quote from  me upon my return after a few days so thanks Jake for that.
I'm slowly de-stressing and beginning to think more around how get to where I feel most comfortable and resolving some longstanding issues that compound if not of themselves create them.
Thanks again,
Jo
x

Sheltering edition

It's been a odd sort of a week for weather here with heavy rain earlier on and yes today we have brilliant sunshine which is more what I prefer although obviously we do need some rain and that even if there's never a really good time to it.
If you're thinking, have I missed a post before this, the answer is no because I needed to be out Thursday and Friday in particular to get some stuff I wasn't able to earlier and was too pooped out to be writing anything much so apart from not writing here, I didn't do much on other sites either apart from going bed earlier than usual set bedtime.
Before I forget thanks for those who read and commented on the last few entries here, it is very mooch appreciated especially on days like today when I have rather a lot on my mind which isn't so helpful when it comes getting in the mood to write and Marmalade has taken over my chair.
Like quite a few others I find dealing with the more 'adult' things not least unwell parents with an 'un-family' very stressful not least when no one is is even empathic never mind actually prepared do a thing to help and one has yet to return a phone call with a message left to a n other human they live with in seven weeks.
I can almost imagine the response I'd get If I called them out flat over how they are treating my folks never mind me, a person with multiple disabilities being left to care for them; One would just freeze doing nothing  and another would start a lasting feud as we've had several months of before now not talking and even acknowledging my very existence to others.
That's why I call them 'Un-family' cos legally they are but otherwise they may as well not be as they cut me out stone dead if they visit my folks and never inquire about me either.
I'd like a voucher to get a decent family with more than anything.

Looking back at structures and the need to be little

I'm late writing this but it something I needed some inspiration from and it only just arrive which is why I'm late todays.
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.

A message from Bertie

A new moth so that's seen me out delivering the community newsletter in the spirit of Middle girl helpfulness down the sides of house, walking on gravel pathways covered from head to toe in hello kitty attire.
Yes, it's a crazy world I live in,eh? (lol) but couldn't be any other for this girl.

 Given the problems I've had very recently it's been very much a kinda hug your plushie regressive time of it all and so I thought Bertie would like to introduce himself.
"Hello Girls and Boys. My name is Bertie and I've bin living  with Jo fur two year but she never give me a page and I was born in Congleton but they toss me over Congleton edge so I ended up being adopted in Biddulph in  Staffordshire where they used to get black stuff called Coal from so I speaks with quite a strong North Staffordshire accent like she doesn't.
Mind you, she don't sound British either most of the time and gets mail from Alberta and Ontario!
I like the Autumn as everything turns the same colours as me but she don't call it that but she like this time of the year too.
The best thing about being a bear is the hugs, honest, as it makes us feel wanted and special.
Bye for now and be good.
Love, Bertie"