CLEVELAND, Ohio - Laughs and memories are pretty much equal parts of any conversation with Mary Wilson, the longest-serving member of the legendary Motown supergroup the Supremes.

Turns out the lady who will be in town on Thursday, Sept. 13, for a program at Cleveland's Museum of Contemporary Art has a sense of humor that's just about as big as the talent that saw her, Diana Ross and Florence Ballard inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

And she's just as audacious now as she was then, when she and her fellow Supremes became Motown's "first and most commercially successful girl group,'' according to their Rock Hall bio.

Consider just where she was during a phone interview to discuss her trip to Cleveland to discuss Motown's etiquette maven, the late Maxine Powell, who is relative to a MOCA exhibit by video artist Martine Syms that's currently on view.

"In the nude,'' she said, laughing. "I'm standing just outside one of my favorite spots in Hollywood, the Beverly Hills Hot Springs.

"I'm not totally nude,'' Wilson chortled. "I'm wrapped up in towels. I just had a massage.''

It's possible that "Miss Powell'' - even after 60 years, she still refers to the lady who helped mold the Motown artists as part of the label's "Artist Development Department'' with respect and the proper honorific - would be mortified by her state of dress in public.

Possible, but not likely. And that's because what Powell did best was build on the pride and class the girls already had, and impart on the Supremes and others at the storied label with a sense of self-worth that could help rise above anything. Emphasis on anything.

"The first meeting wasn't scary,'' said Wilson, who with Ross and Ballard came from the Detroit projects. And who, by the way, learned a bit of their own dress standards by attending the church pastored by the father of the late Aretha Franklin.

"The thing about Miss Powell is that she was a model in her day, so when she came to work at Motown . . . she had already had a career of her own,'' Wilson said. "She also owned a modeling school and was a purely professional person.''

At Motown founder Berry Gordy's request, Powell set up a "finishing school'' for the young musicians.

"Miss Powell was asked to come in and pass on her knowledge,'' Wilson said. "School was set up very much like Hollywood, where they gave the actors and actresses a finishing type of thing.

"You'd go in raw and come out this well-designed person,'' said Wilson, who said she believes her first sessions with Powell were around 1963, before the Supremes had become the superstars they were destined to be.

Wilson's own upbringing gave Powell a solid foundation to build on.

"We had come from families where our moms and our aunts were well-dressed women,'' Wilson said. "We knew who she was because she reminded me of those people.

"Aretha's father was the minster,'' Wilson said. "We had a wonderful community. We were very well-groomed. My mother worked as a domestic worker and a lot of my clothes came from the white families she worked for. We didn't shop at Saks, but we were very well-dressed.''

Of course, not all the Motown roster was as amenable to Powell's ministrations. There was sometimes a little mini-rebellion, a sense of "This is who I am and if you don't like it, lump it.''

"That kind of happened a lot of time,'' she acknowledged. "Especially some of the male groups - maybe that they thought it was too girlish to be taught like that.

"I'm not going to name names'' - and here again, she interrupted herself with a laugh - "but some of that might have come up.''

Powell, though, was only half of the team. The other half was dancer and choreographer Cholly Atkins, who created the signature moves for groups like the Temptations.

"Everywhere I go in the world - and I've traveled all over the world - they always ask about the music and the producers, but they always ask about Miss Powell and Cholly Atkins,'' Wilson said.

"They worked hand-in-hand,'' she said. "Cholly came from a background in the arts as one of the stars of vaudeville act Coales & Atkins. They were really famous in the black community. So Cholly taught us the choreography to go along with Miss Powell and the grace.''

But the foundation was already there - "We were classy young ladies even if we bought our first pearls from Woolworths five-and-dime store'' - and it remains today. Yet the influence remains.

"This is where the inner beauty is so important,'' Wilson said. "This is something she would show us: We had to think of ourselves in a higher way. I still use that today.''

It's how to exude class even if you're swaddled in post-massage towels standing outside in Hollywood.



Mary Wilson

What: Points of View: Mary Wilson on Motown, Cleveland and Creating Identity.

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13.

Where: Museum of Contemporary Art, 11400 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland.

Tickets: $15 (free for MOCA members) at the door, mocacleveland.org and Eventbrite.com.

Call: 216-421-8671.