Gigolo

Album: In and Out of Love (1981)
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Songfacts®:

  • Mary Wells' 1981 comeback hit was a far cry from the calypso-style love songs that made her a star decades earlier. Instead, "Gigolo" boasted a funky disco sound that appealed to the club-dancing masses.

    The single reached #2 on the Billboard Disco chart, #13 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart and #69 on the R&B singles chart. Unfortunately, the In and Out of Love album didn't fare as well as its only hit single and was considered a mainstream failure. Allmusic critic Ron Wynn notes: "She was way past her prime on this early-'80s album, and was also hampered by poor material and unimaginative production. Someone who had made such marvelous music for Motown in its formative years shouldn't even have been working at that point, and certainly shouldn't have suffered the humiliation of churning out unrepresentative material to earn a living."

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