In the mid 1980s, Mari Wilson turned her back on pop stardom. The Neasden Queen of Soul, the beehived voice behind “Just What I Always Wanted,” could see where the road was heading: doing cabaret focused on a medley of her hits. So she walked away. Into jazz clubs, into Ronnie Scott’s, onto the West End stage, and eventually into a solo career that has outlasted the pop machine she left behind.
Four decades on, Mari joins Jason Barnard to talk about Girl About Town, her first full album of original songs since 2008, written with longtime collaborator Adrian York. They discuss the Wilsations, supporting Roxy Music, the stalled second album, and the career reinvention that took her from Top of the Pops to Ronnie Scott’s. Mari talks openly about being pigeonholed by the beehive, why she still believes leaving pop was the right call, and what she makes of the music industry today.
