Wanda Rogers of The Marvelettes - Don't Mess With Bill

This video is a truly historic moment in the history of soul music and particularly Motown. When I formed Motorcity, in 1987, and recorded The Velvelettes, my dream was to also record The Marvelettes, but whereas the Velvelettes had its original lineup and were totally professional and performing as successfully as they had in the Sixties, The Marvelettes was a very sad story indeed., Gladys Horton had become somewhat embittered after years of fake Marvelettes doing the rounds, and giving her no chance of credibility, and the silky golden voice of Wanda Rogers had been stilled for eighteen years, by 1989, of mental health problems, nervous breakdowns, and heavy drink abuse to the extent that she was rumoured to be an alcoholic bag lady. Everyone but everyone said leave her alone, and she would never sing again, but I refused to give in. Marv Johnson found her finally, and brought her to me in Detroit. She looked embarrassing, and was stone drunk, and everyone wanted to steer clear of her. But Kim Weston sobered her up, and got her to the Hitsville Reunion on March 14th 1989. But they still all said I'd never get a vocal out of her, but we persevered for hours and hours, line by line and word by word, till she sounded like her old self, on "Holding On With Both Hands". We recorded this in March 1989 with the same Wanda who they said would never sing again - too many years of rehab clinics. But we persevered and got a vocal that sounded like the old Marvelettes that we knew and loved. Then the song had to be performed on TV, and no way was Wanda up to it, so her fellow Marvelette, Gladys Horton, decided to do it in her place. We had been recording Gladys anyway, and did several songs using both Gladys and Wanda together, but the video of that song is the only time you'll ever hear Gladys doing the lead vocal on "Holding On With Both Hands", and that video is on my personal MySpace page. But when we next returned to Detroit, Wanda had a little more confidence back, especially when we brought Gladys in to work together with her again. "Don't Mess With Bill" has Wanda back again on lead and Gladys and her girls on backing vocals - the first REAL Marvelettes record for a full nineteen years, and the first one with Wanda and Gladys together since 1966. Later in 1990 we had the big concert at the Pontchartrain and against everyone's advice, I was determined to give Wanda a chance to appear live for the first time since 1971. Well her sister Beatrice made her look stunning, and the rehearsals were fabulous, but once the crowd was there, she lost her bottle and hit the whisky, and somehow muddled through the song, and by some miracle, we have here the only Wanda Rogers performance for the last thirty six years. It's seventeen years since I saw her, so I guess it'll never happen again, but her tragic story, much like Billie Holiday, deserves to be told, and she deserves Motown fans to see her one performance where, for one more time, she shone again.