You will note from the cover of Summer Gold
that it’s got a few song titles but no artists – which is the kind of thing you
do when you don’t actually have the license to the tracks by the original
artists, isn’t it. Yet here we have the original artists and no real
recognition of the star factor involved. It’s odd.
Relatedly, the 16th and 17th
tracks on Summer Gold have something in common which is most peculiar. Although
both were singles, the first by Precious Wilson and the second by Mona Lisa and
Terry Young, the albums both songs originally appeared on were actually released attributed
to different artists: Precious Wilson’s cover of Sam and Dave’s ‘Hold On I’m
Coming’ appears as a track on Boney M’s fourth album, Oceans of Fantasy and Mona Lisa* and Terry Young’s ‘I Wanna Make it With
You’ is a track on Marcia Hines’ Ooh
Child. Go figure. Go fuckin’ figure.
Precious Wilson – her real name is Precocious** and her middle name is
Pearlina*** – worked her way up through the ranks in the British group Eruption
(from backing singer to front left and centre for a couple of big hits with
sixties covers). Notwithstanding that her 'Hold On I'm Coming' is a cover of a well-known and pretty superior song, it's not a bad piece of disco pop and better than most of the stuff Boney M were generally credited with (btw Wikipedia suggests that Oceans of Fantasy was the only Boney M album which shocked fans by revealing, through some numbskull's accidental track-by-track listing of vocalists, that only two of the four BMers actually sang on the records; and, you know, two of the songs were also sung by Precious Wilson, so... everyone was scratching their head about what actually constituted Boney M, I guess).
Precious Wilson has a big eastern bloc (is it still called that) following as is revealed on her website which is worth a read if only to see what constitutes a blog post in her world. Discogs tells us additionally that she is also known both as Gracious Wilson (really?!) and as Прешъс Уилсън. I think we should forget about the hype, and just enjoy a great rendition of a great song, greatly.
* Or Monalisa, I can't keep track
** Untrue at time of writing
*** Apparently true
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