Mariah Carey Tear-Out Photo Book UK - 1996

Mariah Carey Tear-Out Photo Book
UK - 1996

'The rush of being new and hot can fade - it will fade - but the music will always be there.'

Not exactly the response you'd expect from a girl still just out of her teens holding a pair of Grammy awards and with a seven million-selling debut album to her credit. But then Mariah is no ordinary girl. And several years later her music is as memorable as it ever was.

Back in 1988, though, the youthful New Yorker with the winning smile had been working as a waitress in a bar where sports events and pop videos were projected onto a giant screen on the wall to entertain the (mostly male) customers. The only dream that sustained this star-in-waiting was the thought that one day she might go back and watch her own video up on the screen. Sadly, she was a less than able waitress. 'The boss felt sorry for me,' she explains, 'because I was so pathetic they thought no-one else would hire me.' Catering's loss was clearly music's gain...

But if anyone can be born with musical genes, then it just had to be Mariah. Her mother, Patricia Hickey, had come from a musical line of Irish immigrants: though she'd never known her father, who died before she was born, he'd been a professional musician who'd emigrated from County Cork to the States. She followed in his footsteps, becoming a mezzo-soprano with the New York City Opera and later a vocal coach.

Mariah took her first bow in Long Island in March 1970, the youngest of three children. Father Alfred was a Venezuelan aeronautical engineer. Her parents divorced when she was just three - and while she stayed in touch with her father for some time afterwards communication between them was far from straightforward. Mariah already had her role model and, even at this tender age, was certain she wanted to be like Mom.

Her unusual name had musical connotations, too: the Oscar-nominated musical Paint Your Wagon by Lerner and Loewe featured the song 'They Call The Wind Mariah'. And fate decreed that another song from that show, 'I Was Born Under A Wandrin' Star' by Lee Marvin was at Number 1 (if only in Britain) on the very day she was born.

She'd follow her long-suffering mother round the house, parroting back the tunes she heard from the radio or even the television commercials. She was soaking up influences like a sponge, and healthy doses of her mother's favourite soul singers like Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder only added to her musical education. Also on the Carey turntable during the early 1970s was Minnie Riperton, a gifted singer who's since succumbed to cancer but whose 1975 hit 'Loving You' demonstrated the kind of coloratura vocal effects Mariah would incorporate into her own distinctive style a decade and a half later.

With sister Alison and brother Morgan ten and nine years older than her, and Patricia working nights as a singer, Mariah knew early on what it was like to be home alone. 'I'd just do whatever I wanted,' she now recalls of these part existing, part frightening times. 'Eat all the icing out of jars by the spoonful, watch whatever I wanted on TV.' Yet she recognises it forced her to grown up quickly, despite those sweet elfin looks. 'I think it made me what I am, in a strange sort of way - because I was independent.' School would prove a problem because as she says, 'I found it hard to accept rules and regulations because I knew how to look after myself already. I've always been a grown up... Mom would say I was six going on 35.'

But underneath that supposedly confident exterior lurked a troubled child. She bore the mental scars of the racial prejudice her family had encountered - but it had been Alison, both the oldest and the darkest-skinned of the three children, who found herself with the heaviest burden. 'They'd shout racial slurs at her and beat her up,' Mariah later recalled. 'Then my brother would go in and fight for her, even though he was handicapped. It was tough.' Poisoned pets and damaged cars were further problems the Careys would encounter in a decade where mixed marriages were not nearly as common as they are now, nor attitudes as enlightened.

As Mariah has mentioned, her brother had faced a physical handicap in the shape of mild cerebral palsy and epilepsy, but had overcome this considerable double blow - along with one leg an inch shorter than the other - to live a relatively normal life. His determination served as a constant inspiration to his younger sister who, until her secret love was revealed, credited him as 'the only man in my life.' He, in turn, was supportive of her single-minded pursuit of singing stardom.

Indeed, it was his contacts which first saw Mariah's voice committed to recording tape. A Manhattan group with access to studio equipment enlisted her as a backing singer as they cut innumerable demos to hawk round the record companies in a vain search for that all-important big break.

That never came...but the arrangement continued for many months as Mariah continued to show up at school bleary-eyed. No-one, either pupils or teachers, would share her dream, so after a while she didn't even bother explaining. No tears were shed on either side when she graduated, though the alternative - waitress work or checking coats - was hardly pleasurable.

Mariah would find herself burning the proverbial candle at both ends by taking the subway crosstown from Long Island, having changed out of her school attire, then travelling back as dawn broke to snatch a few fitful hours of sleep before her long-suffering mother shook her awake once more. This had few long-term benefits, except the fact that, when Patricia woke her sleeping beauty daughter, she was greeted by little more than a squeak, so hard had she worked her vocal cords the night before. This distressed Mariah to the extent that she consciously worked to strengthen those vocal muscles, and this helped give her the seven-octave range she enjoys today. She's enjoyed a warm relationship with her voice over the years. 'I've always sung to myself as a little girl,' she says, 'and it's like a friend.'

You gotta have friends, so the saying goes - and Mariah found two of the best in the shape of Ben Marguiles, seven years her senior, and R&B singer Brenda K Starr. Marguiles was an aspiring session musician who became her regular writing partner, while Starr offered her a place as a backing singer in her band. Both these characters would play their part in a Cinderella story that would leave Mariah on the verge of stardom.

The meeting with Marguiles had come in Manhattan when, for her sixteenth birthday, Mariah was treated by her brother to a session in a 24-track studio. 'We needed someone to play the keyboards for a song I had written with a guy called Gavin Christopher,' she later recalled. 'We called someone and he couldn't come, so by accident we stumbled upon Ben. Ben came to the session and he can't really play keyboards very well - he's really more of a drummer - but after that day we kept in touch, and we just sort of clicked as writers.'

Next stop was bed...er, Bedworks, the carpentry factory Ben's father owned in the Big Apple suburb of Chelsea. The musician had used some of the spare space to set up a simple studio where he could record his songs - and Mariah, who was still at high school, soon found homework taking second place to recording. Much to the duo's delight, their very first session yielded a song - and though the title, 'Here We Go Round Again', hardly reflected a new start, both thought it an auspicious beginning to their new creative partnership. 'It was this real Motown thing,' Ben later remembered. 'She wrote all the verses out. We were very excited because she sounded incredible. That was the beginning of the collaborating.'

Like Mariah, Margulies was pinning all his future hopes on his music. 'It kept us going.' he admitted. 'I didn't have much equipment, but we had a way of making demos sound incredible.'

Not long after she turned 16, Mariah took her future into her own hands by moving out of home and into a Manhattan bedsit where, she recalls, 'there was one woman who used to walk round with a rat on her shoulder. And she'd always be in the kitchen when you wanted something to eat...' It was, she claimed, something she'd dreamed of since the age of ten when her mother drove 'up out of the Midtown Tunnel and me in the back seat saying to myself, I'm going to live in this city.

'Through the day,' she continued, 'I did all kinds of waitressing jobs, hostess, coat-check. I didn't tell anyone there what I wanted to do, though, because every waitress in Manhattan is like, "Really I'm an actress, Really I'm a singer." I didn't want to be that. It (music) was too sacred.'

Money was hard to come by, which if nothing else ensured Mariah kept her svelte figure. 'It was a year of days on one slice of Munster cheese with a bagel or some pasta because that's all I could afford. But it was fun. It was also a year of learning, collaborating. Well, it was also a year of crying yourself to sleep at night because you want to do something so badly. It sounds exaggerated, but a year is a long time, especially in a young person's life.'

Romance didn't figure in the picture much, either, despite her stunning looks. 'I’ve had boyfriends,' she later admitted, 'but I've always been focused to doing music. I've always had this attitude, "Ha ha, I'm leaving. I'm going to sing." So I guess they were a little more serious about it than I was. I wasn't going to get out of High School and get married, know what I mean?'

It was around this time that Mariah first hooked up with Brenda K Starr when a singer's group mentioned there was a vacancy for a backing vocalist. It wasn't something that grabbed her at first: 'I really didn't want to do it, but I said it's gotta be better than what I'm doing now.' Rather than regarding the newcomer as a threat, Brenda palled up with the waif-like Mariah and boosted her confidence. The pair also socialised together, and when Brenda received an invitation to a Friday night party attended by a number of record company executives she insisted her friend came too.

Stardom depends on being in the right place at the right time. For Mariah Carey, this was where all her stars came into conjunction in one heck of a horoscope. She'd brought along her latest demo tape in case she should meet someone with the power and influence to help her on her way to fame and fortune - but partying was hardly a number one priority. Aside from the late nights, the smoke would be sure to affect her voice.

Present at the party was Tommy Mottola, Columbia (CBS) Records president and a man with a track record in music as long as your arm. Now in his early forties, he'd spent many years in artist management before crossing over into the record business, so this was no accountant but a man with the ears of a talent scout. Exactly who handed him the tape - Branded Starr, Mariah or some intermediary - was, for some while, one of the unexplained mysteries of music folklore. Some claimed that Mariah had offered it to Jerry Greenberg, another Columbia executive, only for Mottola to intercept it, a nice picture to paint in view of subsequent events.

Mariah herself has explained the evening like this. 'Brenda says: "Listen, she writes her own songs and sings incredible,' and Tommy takes the tape. He grabbed it - I was standing right there! I figured he would throw it out of the window of his limo...'

At that moment, the bearded, be-suited Mottola put the tape in his pocket and partied on. Only when his chauffeur-driven stretch limo pulled up at the door did his thoughts return to the package - and, with nothing better to do on the drive home, he idly slipped the cassette out of his case and into the car's tape player. He was aware of an intoxication he couldn't put down solely to the wine he'd been drinking, pleasant though it was. A second track sent his head spinning even more, and his reaction was understandable. 'Stop the car!' he commanded...but the next move was not to wind down the window and compose himself, but to return to the party to locate the source of his heady musical brew.

Sadly, he arrived to find that Carey and Starr had opted for an early night, leaving him in possession of the modern equivalent of Cinderella's glass slipper. With no contact number on the tape, Mottola spent the weekend trying to track her down, but Brenda Starr's managers had no address and he had to wait until Monday to make his interest known. 'I got this message that he had called,' a breathless Mariah remembers, 'and they wanted me to come to CBS Studios. I was so excited!'

And who wouldn't have been? After years of struggle on the breadline, it seemed the door had finally opened to allow Mariah Carey a glimpse of the promised land.

Though Tommy Mottola need no telling he'd found the real thing, he was taking no chances, and the tape she'd handed him was subjected to much critical comment from people he respected. One was producer Rhett Lawrence, a man with an enviable track record producing such CBS successes as Earth Wind and Fire and Johnny Kemp. He was asked to fly to New York to hear 'a girl who was 18 with the most incredible voice you've ever heard.' Ever the professional, he was prepared to take this glowing report with a pinch of salt... until he, too, fell under Mariah's spell. 'I literally got goosebumps on my arms when I heard her sing,' he now recalls. 'I couldn't believe the power and maturity in her voice.'

She signed with Randy Hoffman, a long-time associate of Tommy Mottola who once managed white-soul duo Hall and Oates and now managed John Cougar Mellencamp. 'He doesn't have any acts that are purely celebrity,' she explained. 'There's no star-slash-singer-slash-dancers. We're all singer-songwriters.'

The year of 1989, Mariah's twentieth on this earth, was mostly spent above it - amassing air miles as she commuted between Tarpan Studios at San Rafael, California, and the Hit Factory in New York, laying down tracks for her first album release. Rhett Lawrence was involved with the West Coast sessions, and was immediately smitten by 'Vision Of Love', a song Mariah and Margulies had written just after she'd signed. She described it as not so much a love song but a celebration of her life at the time, and Lawrence saw promise in it - but not before he'd played a part in revamping it. 'It was a different tempo at the time,' he reveals, 'a 1950s sort of shuffle.' The experienced producer changed the tempo - then, in a stroke of genius, took Mariah's vocal from the original demo and used it as a second voice in the tag of the song. The effect was immediate.

As 1990 dawned, the sense of anticipation was simply too much to bear. Release of 'Mariah Carey' had been scheduled for June but much was still to be done. In April, she performed at an intimate soiree in New York where, with Richard Tee accompanying her on piano, she sang just three songs to an invitation-only audience. This went so well that June saw her repeat the experience in front of the television cameras at two of America's most influential television productions - The Tonight Show and The Arsenio Hall Show.

In-between times, she'd created a big stir when she sang the national anthem at the NBA national basketball finals, an honour usually accorded a showbusiness veteran, not a hitless slip of a blonde. Slowly but surely, the name of Mariah Carey was getting onto the lips of a nation. Columbia Records' strategy was working!

Finally, in June, the wraps came off 'Mariah Carey' - and after months in the making the verdict was almost universally favourable. Columbia were aiming at Whitney Houston and Anita Baker, the two current dominant divas, with no little success. But hang on a moment...wasn't this girl white? It was a confused issue that many would puzzle long and hard over, but in the end music would win out.

'I guess when you’re part Irish and Venezuelan you're not completely connected to any one thing,' she says of herself. 'You're different. Lucky for me I had my music to hold on to as a goal...'

As if to underline the futility of debate on colour and soul, the top single in July was 'She Ain't Worth It', a duet between Hawaiian-born Glenn Medeiros and Boston-born homeboy Bobby Brown (later, of course, Mr Whitney Houston). The song that pushed this off the top after two weeks was of course 'Vision Of Love; which had entered the chart on 2 June and hit the top nine weeks later, staying there throughout the month of August. This was the summer sound of 1990 - and when you consider the song nestling underneath it was Billy Idol's 'Cradle Of Love' maybe it was set to be a romantic season!

Love seemed to be the abiding theme of Mariah's self-penned songs, even though she admitted to having had little experience. 'I use everything I've ever thought about in my songs,' she explained. 'And whatever the melody makes me feel is what I gear the lyric towards.' Yet lend an ear to 'Alone In Love', one of the standout ballads about a failing relationship, and it's hard to credit she's plucked the words from thin air.

The album had entered Billboard listings at Number 80 - a creditably high position for an unknown artist's debut - on the last day of June, and moved slowly upwards, as if pulled along by the momentum of the single. It wouldn't be until March of the following year that it finally sat at the chart summit - but once there it spent a marathon 22 weeks in pole position en route to selling a cool nine million worldwide.

Its domination was undoubtedly due to the string of singles that, extracted at appropriate intervals, were to create musical history. A pattern was soon established, the uptempo vitality of 'Vision Of Love' followed a cool, reflective ballad. And behind this follow-up lay a fascinating story - because Columbia had literally stopped the presses to ensure the song, 'Love Takes Time', was included on Mariah's album - even if it wasn't listed on all the sleeves that had already been printed.

'Mariah Carey' had been at the mastering stage when Mariah and Ben Margulies came up with a song they thought would be the first single off her second long-player. Margulies had come up with the initial idea, an improvised gospel-flavoured piece of music, which the duo then began working on together. 'It was on a work tape that we had...and we recorded a very quick demo. I played live piano and she sang it.'

Mariah was currently making a mini promotional tour with pianist Richard Tee and a backing vocal trio of Bill T Scott, Patrique McMillan and Trey Lorenz. All five were aboard a Columbia private jet with Columbia chief Don Ianner, who was taking a personal interest in Tommy Mottola's protegee. When the subject of the next album came up, Mariah played the tape and was immediately told that this song was, in music industry speak, a 'career-maker'. It simply had to go on the new album!

But how could it be done? It seemed crazy to entrust the task to someone who'd never produced anything on his own at that point - but that's what Columbia did. Brazilian-born Walter Afanasieff had impressed the label when he'd been working on Mariah's album with producer Narada Michael Walden, and had been taken onto the payroll as executive staff producer. It was to be quite a baptism of fire!

'Tommy Mottola called me up,' he explains, 'and said we've got the album done but there's a track she and Ben wrote that is phenomenal. I want to try everything we can to get it on the album...you only have a couple of days.' The only solution was for Afanasieff to cut the backing track, then put the tape in his suitcase and fly to New York to record Mariah's vocals over the top. 'She did all the backgrounds, practically sang all night,' he recalls. Then he leapt back on the plane and retraced his steps to the Sausalito studio to remix it.

'Love Takes Time' was finally debuted on NBC's prestigious Saturday Night Live in late October, and just three weeks later had hit the top. In Britain, the music scene had been slower to catch on, but even we couldn't resist Mariah's musical charms. 'Vision Of Love' reached number 9 in September with its parent album climbing three places higher. 'Love Takes Time', though, was to disappoint in rising no further than Number 37 in December.

Mariah had been invited back to The Tonight Show in November - no surprise, given her combination of vivacity, good looks and a stunning singing voice. Television was to play a major part in her success, and the videos she made were to achieve heavy rotation on MTV, the music television channel that had taken the States by storm and would soon spread its transmissions worldwide.

That visual appeal would be recognised in February 1991 with the release of Mariah Carey: The First Vision, a compilation of video clips she'd made to illustrate the first album's songs: it charted in both Britain and the States, and contained nine tracks. Six were from the album, while a seventh, 'All In Your Mind', was performed as an acappella (voice-only) showcase. The eight, Aretha Franklin's classic 'Don't Play That Song', was also unaccompanied, as was another non-album cut 'Who's Loving You'.

It was an interesting release which gave new insights into Mariah's vocal talents. Yet February would be memorable for more than just that one reason. The 33rd annual Grammy Awards, held at New York's Radio City Music Hall, were to turn into something of a Mariahfest: from five nominations, she took home Grammies in two categories - Best New Artist and, for 'Vision Of Love', Best Pop Vocal Performance.

Just ten days later, 'Mariah Carey' finally made it to Number 1, underlining her continuing success: it would rack up six platinum disc awards from America's RIAA certification agency, while readers of Rolling Stone - America's hippest music publication - voted her Best New Female Singer. Lastly but by no means least, she came away from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles with three more honours in the R&B/Urban Contemporary category courtesy of the Soul Train Awards. At this rate, she'd need more wall and shelf space to house her discs and statuettes!

She took time to reflect on her new-found fame. 'For me,' she revealed, 'it's always been a dream just to have my name on an album and hear those songs on the radio. The biggest obstacle was just getting a record deal in the first place.' The Soul Train awards meant a lot, since they came from the black record-buying public, and it ended any debate as to whether Carey's appeal crossed the racial divide. Mariah's answer, to follow her heart, had borne fruit. 'My (demo) tapes would be returned with comments like "You're too black for the market" or "You're too white". Everyone had their opinion. It's very confusing unless you really stick to your guns and do what you believe in.'

The success of Mariah Carey's third single, 'Someday', was all the more satisfying since it knocked Whitney Houston off the top of the US charts. When Mariah and Ben Margulies had been pitching their songs at record publishers in the pre-fame days, one had suggested they submit them as possibles for Whitney to record. Mariah, ever protective of her 'babies', had vetoed the possibility straight away!

'Someday' had been remixed for the UK market and made the Top 40 here, but in the States it went all the way. Interestingly, it had been one of the four songs on that legendary first demo tape - and the final arrangement wasn't a million miles from what the writers had come up with themselves. 'The original arrangement and production was very simple and funky' Ben Margulies reveals. 'It had a simplicity to it that kind of drew you into it. To take it and make it too much of a production would have ruined the vibe of the song.'

It had evolved from a typically improvised Mariah melody over a drum machine and bass line. By the time Margulies had come up with a new twist to the arrangement, she'd finished the lyric and it was ready to record. And true to that spirit, Ric Wake's production was completed in a matter of two to three hours. Mariah, who'd warned Rolling Stone she 'hadn't been open to working with a superstar producer,' approved wholeheartedly.

The result was a new jack swing-flavoured workout, so there was no surprise that the next US-only single to be released, 'I Don't Want To Cry', was a ballad. It also reinforced those Whitney Houston comparisons, teaming her as it did with producer Narada Michael Walden. The pair had first met at a writing session in the Hit Factory studios, and the producer found her quite withdrawn. 'I asked her what she liked. She said she liked George Michael, so I got an idea of where she was coming from.' (Coincidentally or not, Walden had produced the ex-Wham! star's duet with Aretha Franklin, 'I Knew You Were Waiting For Me' - something Mariah must surely have known.)

Their initial collaborations had all been dance tracks. 'I wanted us to slow the tempo down,' Walden said, explaining that he was after the feel of a song like Percy Sledge's 'When A Man Loves A Woman', 'those kind of dramatic ballads. I kind of pulled it down from the sky and started singing this thing to her and she got into it.'

The pair didn't totally hit it off, and Walden's comments on how 'I Don't Want To Cry' came together highlight Mariah's perfectionist attitude. 'She's very astute in the studio, very picky: she knows she wants to hear herself sound a certain way.' And when she wanted to re-do a vocal line, Walden had to fly the master tape to New York for her to make the change. AZs he remarks, though, 'Mariah was 19, 20 years old, making her first album. She really wanted it to be special.'

And special it was, no question about it. More uncertain by far was the form her follow-up would take. So many artists impress with a first album, only to find that the demands on their time and energy made by touring and promoting it leave them creatively drained when it comes to consolidating their newly-won reputation.

Mariah had fought notoriously shy of touring on any more than a modest, acoustic scale, so had few problems on that score. Besides, as the success of 'Love Takes Time' had already proved, her creative wellspring of ideas had yet to dry up. One thing that would change, though, was her relationship with Ben Margulies. Their profound and prolific partnership ended as the new album started: Carey had never been straightforward as to the reason. 'Be careful what you sign,' she hinted darkly to Q magazine, adding: 'You hear it a thousand times and I heard it a thousand times. When you're struggling you still do it. I blindly signed. Later, I tried to make it right so we could continue our professional, our artistic relationship, but he wouldn't accept it. What can you do?'

Whether she elaborated 'off the record' is not known, but her interviews understanding was that before they signed with Columbia the pair had entered into a contract that gave Ben Margulies nearly half the millions of dollars she earned from her debut album rather than just the music publishing to which he was clearly entitled. Whatever the truth, the next album was going to see different credits follow the song titles...something that must have worried all concerned. All, that is, except Mariah.

The song styles were the same, but the changes that had taken place behind the scenes meant that in place of the huge number of producers and collaborators the first album had entailed, just two teams of producers/co-writers took the lion's share of the credits, one for the ballads and the other for the uptempo dance tunes. Assisting on the dance side was David Cole and Robert Clivilles, better known as C+C Music Factory, who'd have hits of their own with 'Gonna Make You Sweat' and 'Things That Make You Go Hmmm', while the tried and trusted Walter Afanasieff proved the ideal partner on the ballad production line.

Not that Mariah was any slouch when it came to know-twiddling and fader-fiddling. She'd already established her own credentials on the first album with the track 'Vanishing' not a hit single, but probably the most artistically successful song in terms of R&B content. 'Provided that she is allowed to choose her own material and take an active role in the production chores,' noted one industry observer, 'she had the ability to knock most of the competition out of the window. And so it proved.

Her lifestyle was hardly that of a normal girl in her early twenties. 'I've done this album in four months, literally staying in the studio every night until around five in the morning. I go home to sleep, and wake up around 2:30, three, go back to the studio and repeat the same thing, so it's not as though I have so much time to go out and meet people and do the normal, everyday things.'

The second album, originally to be titled 'The Wind' after one of the tracks it contained, had taken on the name of the proposed lead single 'Emotions' when it was released in September 1991. The album saw her gain a co-writing credit for each and every track. As mentioned, first out of the box as a single was 'Emotions', which made it five Number 1s in a row on its release in mid October. Penned by the Carey-Clivilles-Cole team, it was premiered by Mariah at the eighth annual MTV Awards ceremony in September and its rapturous reception must have been music to the ears of anyone in Columbia fretting about Carey's ability to manage without her usual co-writer.

This, of course, was the song that beat the Jackson Five's 21 year old record of four US chart-toppers in their first four releases - a fact that was much a thrill for the two former DJs as it was for the girl who sang the song. 'Working with Mariah was fun,' Cole revealed. 'Robert and I came up with a whole bunch of grooves. If this worked, cool, if this doesn't work, next. We would all come together and decide...'

Both Carey and Clivilles came up with separate ideas for 'Emotions'. the title of which paid homage to the 1970s girl group best known for their collaboration with Earth Wind and Fire for 'Best Of My Love' and 'Boogie Wonderland'. They borrowed the celebratory feel of those records, but stopped short as Mariah put it of 'stealing the damn record...we're not dumb.'

Indeed, 'Emotions' debuted highest of all her hits to date, entering the US listings at Number 35 on the last day of August 1991 and taking just six weeks to reach the top where it would stay for another three before being ousted by Karyn White. But by that time chart history had been rewritten.

Clivilles and Cole were also behind 'You're So Cold', a track originally slated as the first single before 'Emotions' overtook it on the priority list, and the house-styled 'Make It Happen' which eventually became the third single from the album. This was clearly a song close to Mariah's heart, with its autobiographical slant and the message that anything was possible if you believed in yourself and worked hard enough. The original title track, 'The Wind', belied her critics' claims of lightweight lyrics by addressing a frie3nd who dies in a drunk-driving accident.

In-between 'Emotions' and 'Make It Happen' came the first ballad out of the box...and the first disappointment. It was inevitable the record-breaking run of chart-toppers would come to an end someday, and 'Can't Let Go' was the first 'failure'. It only managed to make Number 2, thanks to the dominance of vocal quartet Color Me Bad. But it was produced by co-writer Walter Afanasieff who, a victim of his own success, was having a difficult time dividing his attentions between Mariah and his other project Michael Bolton.

'Mariah and I started writing together for the album a few months before starting to record. I was doing Michael's album, and during the time he would do a small tour or take a break over the holidays I'd have the opportunity to write with her. 'Can't Let Go' was one of the first results.

The most interesting collaboration on 'Emotions' was 'If It's Over' which paired Mariah with Carole King. After penning a string of pop hits for other with then-husband Gerry Goffin in the 1960s, King had reinvented herself for the following decade as one of the world's top singer-songwriters, and though she wasn't operating specifically in the soul field had been covered by artists from Aretha Franklin to Celine Dion. Mariah clearly admired her craft, and was delighted to have the opportunity to work with such a self-contained legend.

The album saw Mariah using the full extent to her amazing multi-octave vocal range - and that's something she can thank Clivilles and Cole for encouraging. 'The high stuff is what she's known for.' Cole admitted not long after the session, 'and we had to include it. But as we started working, we decided we didn't want to use it as much as we could have. We didn't want it to become a gimmick. But it's amazing. Listen to the very end of this song ('Emotions')...she's hitting this very low note and you compare that to the high notes that she hits. She's got an incredible range.'

Mariah's continuing relationship with Tommy Mottola was causing not only gossip but resentment in record-company circles. Any hint of romance would, it was felt, give her an unfair advantage over her label mates, sullying her success with accusations of favouritism. What was more, the generation gap between a man in his forties and a girl barely out of her teens was even more of an eyebrow-raiser. Such talk, in public and behind her back, can't fail to have hurt Mariah - but she did a creditable job of not showing it.

'You have to expect people to talk about you,' she responded. 'You can't think you're just going to put a record out and be really successful and people are not going to gossip about you. And there are a lot worse things they could say. When you work with someone on such an intense level as we do, people are going to say things when it's a girl and a guy. If I was a man or working with another woman, they wouldn't say it. I can't worry about what people think.'

As for fame itself, she remained remarkably level-headed. 'When you start believing the hype that's when you go downhill. I definitely feel the same person I was two years ago when no-one wanted to listen to my tape. That's what keeps me grounded. Maybe because I'm doing the same thing, music - that's what gives me the most pleasure.' And it was her great pleasure to accept an invitation to sing 'Won't You Talk To Me' at the 34th annual Grammy Awards in February 1992.

For some people, though, Mariah's success was simply not enough. She had yet to prove herself in the live arena, and critics claimed she was a 'studio creation', so delicate that should she subject herself to the stage she'd simply blow away like candyfloss. The project that was next on the agenda would dispel such doubts once and for all, as well as repaying a debt to MTV for helping her make her mark.

The Unplugged series of shows had featured artists from all corners of the music world, the idea being to strip them of their glossy veneer and showcase them in an intimate setting in front of an invited audience away from arenas and big theatres. The result would often be a new perspective on even the most established stars, and Eric Clapton, Neil Young and Nirvana were among those4 to the take the plunge. For Mariah, who'd never ventured into the big 'aircraft-hangar' style venues, it was a natural move.

And it would prove nothing less than a turning point in her career as far as live performance went. 'It was the first time I did that many songs in front of an audience,' she'd later reveal. 'I had to learn in the public eye, and I'm still learning.' The video would be released commercially at a later date with three extra clips from the 'Emotions' singles added.

A spin-off from such shows was often a best-selling album, and so it proved in Mariah's case. A seven-song selection from the set, entitled the 'MTV Unplugged EP', was released in July 1992. It included her five biggest hits to date, while the sixth track was 'If It's Over', her collaboration with Carole King which she sang the heart and soul out of. But it was the one song she'd yet to commit to recording tape that, extracted as a single, would prove the most memorable. And suitably, given the group whose long standing record she'd eclipsed, it was taken from the repertoire of the Jackson 5.

'I'll Be There' had been the Motown legends' fourth and history-making Number 1 single back in 1970, following 'I Want You Back', 'ABC' and 'The Love You Save' to the top of both the pop and the R&B listings. And just as Michael had shared the spotlight with his siblings, so Mariah had a companion in backing singer Trey Lorenz.

As if to prove that one good turn deserves another, she helped Lorenz cut his own album in 1992 for Epic Records, which produced a Top 20 hit single in 'Something To Hold'. The track was co-written by Lorenz, Carey and Afanasieff and produced by the last-named duo. Walter had also played keyboards in the Unplugged band along with David Cole and Dan Shea, other members being Randy Jackson (bass), Gigi Gonaway (drums), Ren Klyce (celeste, timpanis) and Sammy Figueroa (percussion).

'I'll Be There' would re-establish her chart-topping touch - and, in a nice gesture, its profits went to benefit four charities: AmFAR (the American Foundation for AIDS Research), the United Negro College Fund, Hale House and the TJ Martell Foundation. In Britain, where the original had reached Number 4, familiarity bred content as Mariah's version hit Number 2 behind Erasure's 'Abba-esque'. It was her best showing there to date, paving the way for further successes to come, while both British and American record-buyers dug deep to send the 'MTV Unplugged EP' to Number 3.

In December, the release would pioneer what was publicised as a technological breakthrough as Sony, the Japanese giant who owned Mariah’s record label, chose her latest recording to start production of the MiniDisc. It would sell respectably on that format, but MiniDisc failed to emulate her remarkable surge to recognition.

Mariah's fourth year of stardom, 1993, began with the usual clutch of awards - this time Favourite Female Pop/Rock Artist and Favourite Adult Contemporary Album at the American Music Awards at the Shrine Auditorium. But better was to follow in April when a New York court threw out a lawsuit by one Joseph Vian which had hung over her for more than a year.

No-one had been more delighted than Mariah when mother Patricia had announced her intention to marry again. But neither of them could have realised that, when Pat's marriage to Vian broke up, Mariah's short-time stepfather would attempt to claim a share of her success. The papers he filed at Manhattan Federal Court made accusations that were both wide-ranging and specific. He claimed that he supported her emotionally, paid for her Manhattan apartment, a car and dental work on the understanding that he would be repaid when she found success. He also claimed that Mariah had 'actively sought to break up the marriage' between him and Patricia.

Federal District Court Judge Michael B Mukasey dismissed the charges on 26 April, bringing to a close an uncertain period in Mariah's life. It wasn't her first brush with legal action: a songwriter had claimed authorship of 'Hero' after that song had hit, and only by producing rough versions of the song in her 'work in progress' notebooks did Carey successfully contest the claim.

Mariah's combination of winning looks and tremendous talent had made her one of pop's pin-up girls. So thousands of hearts were broken when her romantic relationship with Tommy Mottola came out into the open in the most dramatic way possible - their June 1993 marriage. 'We have a very, very special relationship,' she'd said of the man who discovered her. 'I admire him and respect him enormously.' That there was more to it than that became public knowledge only after the service at St Thomas Episcopal Church in Manhattan. The pop and showbiz worlds were well represented by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Robert de Niro and, bizarrely, bat-biting heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne.

All had been sworn to secrecy, as had those helping make the day a special one. One role model had, in fact, not been invited - Princess Diana, whose wedding video had been replayed again and again as Mariah looked for style hints. 'I never, ever thought I'd get married,' she'd later reveal, 'because I always had such a bad outlook on the whole thing. My parents' divorce made me very independent from an early age.' But she was clearly happy not to have to conceal the truth. 'Now it's out in the open I don't care what people say. Tommy is my best friend, and I'll never be able to thank him enough for what he's done for me.'

Typically, the pair cut short their Hawaiian honeymoon after just a week to get back to the business of making music. MTV Unplugged had proved a profitable diversion, both commercially and artistically, but the time was now right for Mariah to re-enter the mainstream. The chosen vehicle was 'Music Box', her third full-length release in four years and the one which took her back to the top of the album listings. Its predecessors had stalled at four and three respectively. But why the title? 'The beautiful tinkling sound that comes out of a music box is so pretty and so delicate. I love it.'

The choice of the lead single was as ever of the highest importance: just as the runaway success of 'Vision Of Love' had pulled the debut album to pole position in its wake, so it was crucial to choose the right cut. After the 'revivalist' nature of her last hit the choice was made to kick off with something highly contemporary - 'Dreamlover', penned by Mariah and Dave Hall, with Afanasieff joining them on the production front. It was a medium tempo new jack swing-styled song and proved good enough to go all the way. The follow-up, as ever, was a Carey-Afanasieff ballad, 'Hero', which emulated its predecessor.

Emboldened by her new sequence of Number 1 singles, Mariah laid the foundations for something the world had long been waiting for - her first real tour. Sadly for those based far and wide, it would be a short, six-city affair in November 1993, and anyone who stopped to think about buying a ticket would have been out of luck. Her hometown concert at New York Madison Square Garden sold out in less than an hour.

The day came when she had to make her full-scale concert debut at the Miami Arena in front of 15,000 people. 'I was okay until I had to walk up this ramp to the stage and I heard this deafening scream,' she admitted. 'It was kinda like everything in my life, this whole incredible whirlwind I'd been going through, it had all been leading up to that insane moment - and there I was.

It was so intense. And then that killed me. Not the audience - they knew it was my first show, they were very supportive. I got really bad reviews, though.'

There were, she explained with more than a touch of paranoia, 'a lot of critic out to get me. This girl's sold all these albums, she's never toured, let's get her. So they did.' She turned on her television that night to hear the CNN newscaster spell out the first negative reactions she'd ever encountered. 'It really hurt me a lot.'

The people to benefit were the audience at her next performance, at Worcester, Massachusetts. 'I put all my anger into it, let go all my inhibitions and just lost myself in performing,' she recalls. 'Not that it matters to me, but the reviews were raves...'

It did matter, of course. And for a star who'd grown used to universal rave reviews, it was probably a timely reminder that she had to continue to work to keep up amazingly high standards. And by her own reckoning she still had a long way to go. 'Anybody can be famous - you don't really have to be talented. The people I really respect are Barbra Streisand and Aretha Franklin. Divas forever, they're untouchables...'

Thanksgiving Day, America's biggest public holiday, saw the NBC television channel confirm Mariah's own ascent to diva status by airing a television special entirely devoted to her rather than the traditional blockbuster movie. She'd spent the summer filming it, and included among the footage was a version of 'I'll Be There' filmed in Schenectady, New York State, with members of the Albany Police Athletic League band.

'Dreamlover' had reached the UK Top 10, a not unreasonable achievement - but September had seen her greatest success to date when 'Music Box' entered the album chart at the top...a full, six weeks before it did the same in the States! There'd been talk of her 1993 release being a gospel album, but in terms of breaking big in Europe her prayers had already been answered.

And even better was to come when, in February 1994, 'Without You' gave Mariah Carey her first ever UK Number 1. The song had already topped the British charts two decades earlier in the hands of the late, great crooner Harry Nilsson - who, ironically, had died just five weeks before its return. And just as 'I'll Be There' had struck a chord of recognition, so the British public warmed to an old favourite given an exciting new slant. The song gave her full rein to let her top notes fly, and Walter Afanasieff's co-production as ever added the now-expected gloss to the proceedings. Despite staying atop the British charts for a full month, this would be her first single back home not to reach either the top two positions, peaking at Number 3.

This blockbuster was followed in June by 'Anytime You Need A Friend; (Number 8 in Britain, 12 in the States) and then, in September, her first 'official' duet. Labelmate Luther Vandross had clearly lent an ear to Mariah's earlier harmonising with Trey Lorenz, and requested her presence as he re-cut the Diana Ross-Lionel Richie classic 'Endless Love'. The two voices made a spectacular combination, Luther's rich chocolate tones contrasting vividly with Mariah's swooping soprano, and the result went all the way to the UK Top 3.

There seemed no limits to what Mariah could achieve, given the opportunity. Yet certain critics still wanted to shoot her down in flames, especially on her lyrics which even she would admit were not her strongest point.

'I tell my stories in my own way,' she explained, adding, 'I'm still a young person writing about what I've experienced in my life. Once you've achieved a certain amount of success people expect you to dance like Janet Jackson, sing like Aretha Franklin, write lyrics like Bob Dylan and music like Stevie Wonder. Everybody can't be everything. I'm writing about what I can relate to, and a lot of people my age can relate to it too.'

Something else she'd have to relate to was the sadness brought into the family circle by sister Alison. She'd contracted the HIV virus after the birth of a child, when she was apparently given contaminated blood, and the tabloid press - thwarted in attempts to find a darker side of Mariah - inevitably turned their attention to her sister. 'It's difficult to have public family dramas,' Mariah commented, 'especially when someone has real problems and it's treated like gossip item. We are talking about something that affects little children's lives.'

It couldn't have been a bigger contrast to Mariah's own domestic bliss, she and Tommy having moved onto a £12 million home containing 12 bedrooms, six bathrooms, a ballroom, rifle range, two swimming pools and a separate servants' wing - not forgetting the obligatory recording studio if the pair wanted to bring their work home with them. As a final touch, 'his' and 'hers' jacuzzis had been specially positioned to give an uninterrupted view over the nearby Catskill Mountains.

Having maintained a schedule of an album release in every year since she won her recording contract, Mariah took a different slant in 1994 and made her release a festive one. 'Merry Christmas' was very reminiscent of the early-1960s girl groups who made Phil Spector's legendary Christmas album 'A Christmas Gift To You'/ Indeed, it featured Darlene Love's 'Christmas (Baby Come Home)' among a selection of tracks weighted towards the traditional: 'Hark The Herald Angels Sing', 'Silent Night', 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' and more.

The result was a collection that maybe more than any other showed her gospel roots. 'Sometimes, when I'm singing gospel,' she's said, 'everything seems to be right. I'm not thinking I don't know how I'm going to sing the next line because I'm letting go...there's an uplifting spiritual moment where the voices connect with the music and what I'm feeling...it comes from somewhere else.' And, though the album itself wasn't a UK Top 10 item, the single 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' - fuelled by the sight of Mariah in a shorter than short Santa outfit cavorting in the snow, an image immortalised on the album cover - fetched up behind East 17 at Number 2 in the chart.

The following year was spent hard at work on a sixth album, to be entitled 'Daydream'. Released in October 1995, it took worldwide sales of Mariah's long-playing releases to over 60 million and followed the example of 'Music Box' by topping the UK chart. Her creative relationship with Walter Afanasieff had now long outlasted the original Carey-Margulies link-up that won her first contract. And the writer-producer was undoubtedly grateful as he explained how they wrote together. 'Mariah stands next to me, I'm on the keyboard. I start playing a chord progression and she starts singing ideas, melodic ideas and lyrical ideas. We start feeding off each other: she starts singing to what I'm playing and I start playing to what she's singing. She'll either come up with a few lyrical ideas right there and then go home and write a complete lyric or she'll use the melody and write the lyric.'

The classic Carey-Afanasieff stamp was all over 'One Sweet Day', her summer 1996 hit sung with boy group Boyz II Men over whose close harmonies Mariah soared and warbled in trademark style. Then came the inevitable dance track in 'Always Be My Baby', co-written with Jermaine Dupri, which set the charts and dancefloors alight with its various different remixes.

June 1996 saw Mariah take her show worldwide, a brief yet wide-ranging jaunt that included a single UK date at London's Wembley Arena - inevitably a 10,000-seat sellout within 24 hours. She made her entrance in grand style, emerging like a songbird from a giant cage suspended above the stage to belt out an opening 'Emotions'. With so many hits to showcase, it was inevitable that she couldn't please everyone, but her UK chart-topper 'Without You' was unwrapped not long into the show to a predictably rapturous reception.

Another highlight was soon forthcoming in the shape of 'One Sweet Day' - and while Boyz II Men could not be there in person, they obligingly popped up on a large video screen to contribute their part to the sugar-coated confection. With her ever-present quartet of backing singers occasionally augmented by a gospel choir, this was a revivalist show that preached to the converted.

Away from the spotlight, Mariah had been increasing her work with charities - and not being someone to do things by halves, she did more than just donate royalties to the causes she cared for. One of those she backed was the Fresh Air Fund, an organisation dedicated to helping inner-city children to enjoy a taste of the country life. That was something Mariah could identify with only too well, and having appeared at fund-raising concerts she committed herself to going further.

The result was Camp Mariah, established at Fishkill in New York to accommodate a number of urban kids with a thirst for fresh air and fellowship. While there, they had the opportunity to take in anti-drug messages, learn about safe sex and take time out for some careers advice - often from the young lady who lent her name to the camp.

Mariah herself knew how close she could have been to drifting into the drugs scene, had she been less than totally focused on her goal. 'If I had not had the experience of seeing other kids with drugs and things like that,' she admits, 'I might have done that.' And if I had screwed up, I wouldn't have made it.'

But make it she undoubtedly had. And if she took the opportunity to look back, Mariah would surely have been shocked to see how far she'd come. Launched in the heyday of Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Madonna and Whitney Houston, Mariah had outlasted the first two and outsold the second two, eclipsing them all to become the best-selling female of the decade. Even as far back as 1991, four Billboard Awards had given her parity with Whitney. And though she was still very much around, combining singing stardom with acting in The Bodyguard, Ms Houston was now very much the second string to her younger rival.

'Both Mariah and Whitney are tremendous singers,' explained Narada Michael Walden when asked to compare the two. 'Whitney comes from being raised and singing in the church - I mean, first-hand experience from Aretha as a little kid, from Dionne Warwick and her mother, the great Cissy Houston. She had all that to draw on. On Mariah's side, I know she's a great listener. She took Aretha and a lot of the great singers, from Gladys Knight on down.

'It's like the difference between, say, Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson, or Tommy Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard. Both are great track stars, both great boxers - and I'm honoured to be able to work with both of them.' A diplomatic answer indeed...

Something Whitney Houston undoubtedly did not do was follow Mariah's chosen leisure pursuit - disguising herself for a turn on the funfair's white-knuckle rides. Leaving her bodyguards behind, she'd tie her fair hair in a braid, pull a baseball cap down over her eyes, slip into some blue jeans and head to Disney World. Another favourite is the Six Flags amusement park in unfashionable New Jersey. 'You know the Tower of Terror,' she asks, 'It's incredible, really cool. You drop 13 storeys, just like that!'

Sinking like a stone is an experience Mariah Carey's unlikely to experience anywhere else. Because far from being a flash in the pan, she's stayed at the top since her rollercoaster ride to fame - and clearly has the talent to stay right there. Her mix of collaboration has helped keep the music fresh, while marriage to the boss of her record label is the best possible insurance against any company infighting intended to put obstacles in her way from within.

It is not possible that Mrs Mottola's future plans will include raising a family - and as she approaches her late twenties that thought will doubtless be not far from her mind. Yet with eleven bedrooms in her mansion still vacant, she's got plenty of options as to the size of family she wants. And, as ever, you can be sure that 'infanticipating' will be dovetailed perfectly with her recording career.

It would be interesting indeed to see what kind of a mother she'd make, after her own fiercely independent upbringing: celebrities' children are rarely permitted similar leeway. Even so, in 1996 she was still praising her own mother for 'treating me as an equal, a friend.' But the kid who 'had the most freedom of anyone I grew up with' would have to adjust to what she could allow her own. At least they wouldn't endure the constant location-shifting Mariah herself had suffered, having called ten rented houses home as she grew up.

The saga of sister Alison hit the headlines again in 1996, as press reports that Mariah and her mother had taken her child into their care against her wishes. In retaliation, it was suggested, she would be publishing a 'tell-all-shocker' of a book to trade on Mariah's celebrity. If so, it would be something the singer would simply have to grin and bear. Happily Morgan had found a higher calling, overcoming his childhood handicaps to become a champion kick-boxer and a fitness coach. Like his little sister, he'd successfully followed a dream.

Despite the rapturous reception accorded her 1996 world tour, it's unlikely Mariah turn into one of those stars who spends half their life on the road. She's proved she simply doesn't need to - and with such a photogenic face and figure can afford to let videos promote her music instead. The camera still loves Mariah, and she sells particularly well in Japan where they like their stars to look as good as they sound.

Alanis Morisette may be wilder, Courtney Love may be rockier, Mary J Blige may be funkier - but none of them can Mariah better than Mariah herself. If there's a secret of her success, then that's surely it. And her ability to avoid classification, combined with her self-affirming songs, has made her a role model for millions.










Many thanks to Kerry from Mariah Carey Collection for the scans.