Album Review

Mari Wilson – Cover Stories

• 28th Mar 2012

Mari Wilson is perhaps best known for her beehive hairdo and several eighties chart hits, most memorably Just What I Always Wanted. Now, after many years of concentrating on live performance and stage work, including playing the lead in Dusty – The Musical and writing her own one woman show, Wilson is back to making records.

Cover Stories was funded through a Pledge Music campaign where Wilson sold off items including original stage dresses and signed posters. The memorabilia she had collected over thirty years provided the funds for something Wilson had long wanted to do – record an album featuring cover versions of some of her favourite songs.

The choice of material is extremely varied, with both older songs and some more contemporary ones included. A Dusty Springfield song was perhaps predictable, but others range from The Beach Boys to Kirsty McColl and The Pretenders to Gillian Welch’s Dear Someone.

It’s difficult to listen to covers of well known songs without comparing them to the originals. But it is clear that Wilson is doing her own thing here, rather than trying to recreate. The opening Don’t Get Me Wrong a much more laid back version than Chrissy Hynde’s. The instrumentation is fairly simple and the vocals slow and soulful. It works well, and Wilson’s voice has lost none of its emotional edge over the years.

Disney Girls, a much covered Beach Boys song is turned into something of a jazz tinged show tune, the vocals again slow and soulful. Another much recorded song, Be My Baby comes next, and is treated in similar vein. The Ronettes 1963 hit is once more slowed down and delivered with soul and feeling.

But, just three songs in, the weakness in the album is already apparent. The song choices are wonderfully varied yet the covers all sound remarkably similar. It is as if Wilson is sticking to a style she is comfortable with rather than taking chances or experiment in other genres. Individually there are some fine sounding songs here. But as a collection of eleven tracks it lacks a spark.

Things follow on for there in a very similar fashion. The best tracks are Springfield’s I Only Want To Be With You and They Don’t Know, which was originally written and recorded by Wilson’s friend Kirsty McColl. Both have real feeling to them.

Mari Wilson is still a fine singer and I hope that an album of original material is next on her to do list. It’s hard to be too critical of Cover Stories as the arrangements and vocal performances are consistently good throughout. But as an album it lacks the variety that a collection like this requires to make it memorable.