Mary Love Lay This Burden Down (LP)

(Kent) 14 tracks

As the opening voice on the UK Kent label in 1982, Mary Love has always held a special place in our hearts. This in turn led to her headlining at the first ever Cleethorpes Northern Soul weekender- and appearing at Kent's 25th anniversary celebrations before a thousand plus fans at the Forum in Kentish Town, London. The links and the serendipity have been strong throughout and we were saddened to hear of her death in 2013.

For a singer who only made the R&B charts twice, she punched well above her weight. Her singing only really began at age 17, and then only for fun, but her talent was spotted by influential Los Angeles music men Hal Davis and Marc Gordon. They took her to Modern records in 1965 and cut her on two first-class songs 'You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet' and l'm In Your Hands'.  Mary's opening a capella 'You' on that single heralded a career and life in music, beginning with twenty years of secular recordings and followed by a life devoted to contemporary gospel, including her own inspired compositions.

Modern Records was a well established and organised company which Mary felt had a family feel to it. She hung out at the studios helping with background vocals and using the office phone to set up gigs. The company provided great songs for her from Los Angeles writers Frank Wilson, Chester and Gary Pipkin, Marc Gordon, Maxwell Davis and Fred Hughes. It was the experienced Maxwell Davis who provided her first hit with the blues-infused, sexually-charged 'Move A Little Closer' in 1966. Up to that point Modern had taken a Motown-themed dance path for her and indeed it was the Frank Wilson and Marc Gordon-penned 'Let Me Know' that was the designated A-side.

The local DJs thought otherwise. Even after that success with a slow side, the company stuck to the uptown, uptempo sound; though 'Lay This Burden Down' took the genre to a higher level. Mary's anguished delivery of 'Tearstains On My Pillowcase' and the brooding girl chorus repeating 'It's getting heavy' are epic.

Modern then switched to ballad top sides and picked a great one from New York composers Nick Ashford and Val Simpson called 'Baby I'll Come'. The flip, 'Satisfied Feeling', was Mary's first songwriter credit, not bad for an untrained girl who had only started singing three years previously. Written by Arthur K Adams, the bluesy ballad 'Talking About My Man' was was to be her last release on the label. After that she had a series of one-offs for Hill/Josie, Elco, U Tone, Magic Disc, Inphasion and Mirage, the latter few of which were aimed at the disco market. Of these only the release on Josie charted, the excellent self-penned 'The Hurt Is Just Beginning'. She also had two recordings on the 'Dolemite' film soundtrack and even cut a single in Japan while touring there. An unissued 70s album made with her then-husband, Michael Stevenson. exists but has not been heard since its recording.

The second part of the Mary Love story began when she became a born-again Christian. In the mid-80s, she met and married a Chicago keyboard player named Brad Comer who had moved to Los Angeles and the pair composed and performed their gospel-soul creations in their own church and on their CoLove label. This coincided with a peak in interest in new soul recordings on the UK's modern soul scene. Soul enthusiast Rod Dearlove and his Voices From The Shadows magazine championed the recordings and indeed part-financed the later ones. Mary performed at the Up-North soul festival in Blackpool in 1989 to great acclaim, leading to appearances around Europe throughout the 90s and early 2000s. There were two successful CoLove albums and some 7" and 12" singles. We have chosen the most popular song from that era. 'Come Out Of The Sandbox', and the stunning ballad 'The Price' from the second LP 'His Servant Am I'. Sadly the marriage did not last. Mary passed away in 2013. Her music lives on.