Mari Wilson

Mari Wilson is an English singer from Neasden, in London, born in 1957. She is known for pop songs influenced by the early 1960s and for her former beehive hairstyle. Under her full name, Mari MacMillan Ramsey Wilson, she records and performs as a solo artist and has worked with jazz bands as well as cabaret acts.

Career

Wilson has six UK chart hits in the early 1980s. She records with backing band The Wilsations, who are first known as The Imaginations for their first two singles before taking the Wilsations name. Her backing singers are called The Marionettes. Occasional featured performers include Michelle Collins, Julia Fordham and bassist Thumbs Cunningham.

She signs to Compact Records with The Wilsations and places six singles in the UK Top 100 between 1982 and 1984. Her biggest hit is Just What I Always Wanted, which reaches number 8 in 1982. In 1983 she has another UK Top 40 entry with a cover of Cry Me a River, which reaches number 27, and she releases her debut album Showpeople, which reaches number 24.

After that period she does not regain the same commercial success, but she continues to perform live. In 1985 she performs Would You Dance with a Stranger, the theme for the film Dance with a Stranger. She later returns to touring with her older material.

Recording and later work

Wilson releases The Rhythm Romance in 1992, combining jazz standards with 1960s songs and original material. She returns to recording in 2005 with Dolled Up, and later releases Emotional Glamour on her own Beehive label in 2008.

She also releases a compilation, The Platinum Collection, marking her 25th anniversary in music. She works on a covers album called Cover Stories, funded by public subscription, and writes a regular blog about it and her life.

Stage, television and collaborations

Wilson sings the theme song Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps for the television sitcom Coupling. She performs with jazz bands, appears in musicals such as Dusty - The Musical, and writes and stars in a one-woman musical called The Love Thing.

She tours with Barb Jungr and Claire Martin in the cabaret act Girl Talk, with Claire Martin later replaced by Gwyneth Herbert. She also appears on a BBC television series about celebrities and their health. Wilson has Type 1 diabetes.

Her version of Cry Me a River is featured in the 1990s crime drama series McCallum.