The Marvelettes 1961 in Color - Please Mr Postman & Mary Wells live 1965 - My Guy (Stereo Mixed)

"Please Mr. Postman" is a song written by Georgia Dobbins, William Garrett, Freddie Gorman, Brian Holland and Robert Bateman. It was the debut single by girl group the Marvelettes for the Tamla (Motown) label and is famous for being the first Motown song to reach the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The single achieved this position in late 1961; it hit number one on the R&B chart as well.
The song has been covered several times, including a version by the Beatles in 1963. It became a number-one hit again in early 1975 when The Carpenters' cover of the song reached the top position of the Billboard Hot 100. The 2017 song "Feel It Still" by Portugal. The Man has significant similarities to "Please Mr. Postman" and includes a credit for Brian Holland.
BackgroundIn April 1961, the Marvelettes (then known as the Marvels) arranged an audition for Berry Gordy's Tamla label. Marvels' original lead singer Georgia Dobbins needed an original song for their audition and got a blues song from her friend William Garrett, which she then reworked for the group. Dobbins left the group after the audition and was replaced.Gordy renamed the group and hired "Brianbert" – Brian Holland and Robert Bateman's songwriting partnership – to rework the song yet again. Freddie Gorman, himself a Detroit postman and another songwriting partner of Holland (before Holland became part of the Holland–Dozier–Holland team) was also involved in the final reworking.

"My Guy" is a 1964 hit single by American singer Mary Wells for the Motown label. Written and produced by Smokey Robinson of The Miracles, the song is a woman's rejection of a sexual advance and affirmation of her fidelity to her boyfriend, who is her ideal and with whom she is happy, despite his ordinary physique and looks.
At the session for the "My Guy" backing track, the studio musicians were having issues completing the intro. They had been playing all day and only a half-hour scheduled studio time was left. Trombonist George Bohanon said to keyboardist Earl Van Dyke that the opening measure of "Canadian Sunset" could be perfectly juxtaposed on the intro's chord changes, and Van Dyke, the session bandleader, expediently constructed an intro incorporating the opening of "Canadian Sunset" and also the "left hand notes" from "Canadian Sunset" composer Eddie Heywood's rendition of "Begin the Beguine". Van Dyke would recall: "We were doing anything to get the hell out of that studio. We knew that the producers didn't know nothing 'bout no 'Canadian Sunset' or 'Begin the Beguine'. We figured the song would wind up in the trash can anyway".
When Wells recorded her vocal she sang over the song's outro with a huskiness evoking the line delivery of Mae West: Wells would recall: "I was only joking but the producers said 'Keep it going, keep it going'."
Cash Box described it as "a tantalizing shuffle-twist hand-clapper that the lark and her combo-choral support serve up in most attractive fashion."
"My Guy" became the biggest hit ever for Wells, Motown's first female star, and reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart on 16 May 1964.The song led the Cashbox magazine R&B chart for seven weeks. "My Guy" was also Wells' last hit single for Motown, except for duets she recorded with label mate Marvin Gaye. An option in her recording contract let Wells terminate the contract at her discretion after she reached her twenty-first birthday on May 13, 1964. Encouraged by her ex-husband, Wells broke her Motown contract and signed with 20th Century Fox in hopes of higher royalties and possible movie roles. However, Wells' career never again reached the heights it had at Motown, and she never again had a hit single as big as "My Guy".
Her version of the song was used in the film More American Graffiti (1979) and in a season one episode of Friends ("The One with Mrs. Bing").
In the United Kingdom, "My Guy" peaked at No.5 in June 1964.
In 1999, the 1964 recording of "My Guy" by Mary Wells on Motown Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.