Talk:Mary Jane Girls

Why doesn’t the article mention anything about "Sweet Conversations"? Didn’t they record this with Rick James but it was not released by 1986? It is on Spotify. TheGreatestLuvofAll (talk) 00:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

NPOV
This whole article reads as if it was written by a gushing fanboy/girl rather than a Wikipedian. - DrachenFyre &gt; YOU! 22:50, 29 November 2006 (UT

Current lineup
As far this goes, Candice "Candi" Ghant, Val Young, and Farah Melanson are billed as the current lineup of The Mary Jane Girls. As long as they have one original member [which they do] in the current lineup, legally they can go by that name. So please do not remove that. They is accurate information. Horizonlove (talk) 04:07, 18 April 2017 (UTC)


 * No, there is a legal battle over their use of the name, with Jojo McDuffie fighting it. Several different lineups have been billed as the Mary Jane Girls since the breakup in 1987, but none of them have been sanctioned by Rick James. After James' death in 2004, his estate has put several lineups out into the field to make them more money. The one with Ghant, Young and Melanson has no more legitimacy than the others. Binksternet (talk) 02:54, 23 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately since these groups have at least one original member, Wikipedia has to update it with this information. An example is when Diana Ross went on tour with two new Supremes (Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne) and billed themselves as The Supremes. However, I was unaware that there were two current-touring Mary Jane Girls group, but each has an original member. So as far as Wikipedia is concerned, this is legitimate information to add to Wikipedia. Horizonlove (talk) 18:42, 23 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Your notional rule about having one original member is not legal precedent. Even if there is one original member, the band name may be owned by someone else. For instance, the band Great White was co-founded by singer Jack Russell, but his 2012 touring version of the band was billed as "Jack Russell's Great White" because he did not own the name Great White. Another example from this year is three veteran members of Yes – Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman – wishing to tour as Yes, but they don't own the name, which is why they are touring as "Yes featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman." The Yes band name is controlled by guitarist Steve Howe who also plans to tour this year as Yes, the tour called Yestival.
 * More to the point, several different versions of the Mary Jane Girls have been put together for shows or tours, but none of them have been given the right to use the name after the group disbanded in 1987. In the 2000s, Kimberley and Cheri tried to get together as the Mary Jane Girls but legal pressure limited them to the name "MJB". Kimberley owns the name "MJB Starring Maxi and Cheri of the Original Mary Jane Girls", the trademark filed in June 2010. In 2011 Kimberley and Cheri said they wanted to use the name Mary Jane Girls. In 2013 they started to use the name in their tour but the Rick James estate sued them to stop. After that, Kimberley and Cheri stuck with "MJG" to avoid the legal hassles.
 * So who owns the name "Mary Jane Girls"? Mary J. Blige said in 2001 that Rick James sold her the name so that she could form a girl group quartet, with one Asian heritage, one black, one Latina and one white member. We know now that nothing came of the proposed Blige project, so did the Mary Jane Girls brand revert to Rick James after a certain time? In March 2009, Robert Funderburg, the husband of Joanne McDuffie, filed for the right to use the name "Mary Jane Girls". The status of the trademark application was changed in January 2010 to "Abandoned – Failure to Respond, or Late Response." So it appears there is no owner of the trademark (but I'm not an entertainment attorney.)
 * A very interesting point is that Motown and Rick James both considered Jojo to be the "key member" of the group, which was restated in the 1986 lawsuit by Motown against the Mary Jane Girls. So if Jojo isn't in the group then it's not the Mary Jane Girls. Binksternet (talk) 20:28, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * One possible explanation for why Funderburg abandoned the 2009 application was that he discovered the trademark was owned by someone else, most likely the Rick James estate. Binksternet (talk) 20:38, 23 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I think you are missing the point of what I'm saying. What I'm saying is as long as the touring group(s) known as The Mary Jane Girls have an original member, they are notable to being added in the article. It's not about who owns the name "The Mary Jane Girls". Horizonlove (talk) 04:52, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Adding a bit of text about each of the various lineups is appropriate. But I will challenge you if you say that the recent Ghant/Young/Melanson trio is officially the Mary Jane Girls. Let's see a reliable source talking about the legal aspects. Binksternet (talk) 04:55, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


 * First off, this isn't a fan base forum. Second, the only reason why this doesn't more sources is because neither one of the groups have done any press. And third, if they are going by "The Mary Jane Girls" name, then that is what they are as long as they have one original member. The only reason I didn't leave at that is because I was unaware that there were two different lineups of the MJGs who are touring at the same time. Horizonlove (talk) 06:18, 24 April 2017 (UTC)


 * What forum are you talking about?
 * If a particular group has not "done any press", that is, if there are no reliable publications about the group, then we don't tell the reader about it.
 * I don't accept your notional rule about a group having legitimacy if there is one original member. I can't find anything in our guidelines about that, and there is nothing in legal caselaw about it. Binksternet (talk) 10:09, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

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Adding a new source
You state that the link is a primary source and can not used. However according to WP:PRIMARY, "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." Since this article isn't relying heavily on that link, it should be okay to use. You need to stop removing information when people are trying to help the page progress. Horizonlove (talk) 16:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)


 * No. It's a booking agency with the purpose of furthering the career of Farah Malanson. The claim put forward is not something minor such as the city where she was born but something major – the redefinition of the Mary Jane Girls. Binksternet (talk) 02:47, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This page needs to be updated with the new information. In 2011, the Mary Jane Girls began touring again with original member Candice Grant; along with new members Val Young and Farah Melanson. This lineup also received a honorary HAL Award. However when I try to update this page with that information, User:Binksternet keeps reverting it off the page. There are several websites (,, as well as their official facebook ) all acknowledge the new Mary Jane Girls lineup. Another group consisting of Kimberly 'Maxi' Wuletich and Cheri Wells are touring as "MJG feat. Original Mary Jane Girls Maxi & Cheri".,, I have also added this information to the page, but to no avail because Binksternet has also reverted that. Horizonlove (talk) 07:39, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It isn't clear what you're looking for comments about. Where is the "brief, neutral statement of or question about the issue" required by WP:RfC? — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 12:14, 6 July 2017 (UTC)


 * This RfC is not written very clearly. The question should probably be presented as "should this article tell the reader that the group is reformed in an official capacity, without Joanne 'Jojo' McDuffie?" Binksternet (talk) 15:45, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The answer to that is no, the group has not been reformed in an official capacity. Rather, various people who have been in the group are taking advantage of the past association by promoting themselves as the Mary Jane Girls, even though they don't own the trademark. (See this gossip piece and their source from November 2013.) Joanne 'Jojo' McDuffie was named in 1983 as the "key member" of the group, designated so in the contract between the Mary Jane Girls and Motown. This designation was repeated in the December 1986 court finding. So if McDuffie's not in a particular grouping of past singers, then that grouping cannot be the official Mary Jane Girls. Binksternet (talk) 16:14, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Without any special knowledge about the Mary Jane Girls, that sounds a lot like Dennis Edwards and the Temptations Review, or the various groups who have toured as the Drifters or the Coasters. That is to say, it's a legal matter best left to the courts, not Wikipedia editors, to decide. We should simply summarize what reliable sources say (if they say anything at all about the road-shows). — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 16:53, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The answer is "yes", the Mary Jane Girls have reformed; but that's partly the point. What I'm asking is if it is okay to update the page with the information above? Because when I do add it to the page, it is removed even with the sources that support the new information. Currently, Candi Grant holds the rights to the group and chose two new members to join her on a tour. Considering that they have at least "one" original members, the Truth in Music Act allows them to tour under that name. Considering that two other originals members are touring as "MJG feat. Original Mary Jane Girls Maxi & Cheri", I think that should also be mentioned. That group has also been touring with two original members and two new 'touring' members. I actually added that layout to the page in history link. I'm not trying avoid being neutral, but User:Binksternet seems to be acting as a fan and not as an editor. Horizonlove (talk) 22:48, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The "Truth in Music" legislation which is on the books in some states is in contradiction with the federal Lanham Act of 1946, according to William L. Charron, trademark lawyer and adjunct professor at Columbia Law School. He emphasizes that a trademark owner can be anybody, not just someone who was a performer in a musical group. The apparently fatal contradiction in the legislation has not yet been tested at the federal level. In any case, the law as passed in California in 2007 requires that "One member of the performing group was previously a member of the recording group and has a legal right to use the name" (emphasis added by me.) I don't see any evidence that Ghant holds the rights to the group name. Binksternet (talk) 00:04, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what law applies, or who holds the trademark, and it would probably be original research for us, as Wikipedia editors, to decide and apply it ourselves. Horizonlove, where are the reliable sources about the reunion? Not the webpages of publicists, or venues, or the group themselves, but honest-to-god reliable sources that satisfy WP:IRS: "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"? You haven't cited any, at least that I can find. For example, has any newspaper or magazine written about the Mary Jane Girls reunion? If reliable sources haven't covered the reunion, we shouldn't write about it. It's that simple. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:24, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
 * (Summoned by bot). My thoughts here converge completely with Malik's, regarding both of the broad observations he has made.  Horizonlove, these reunion / alternative acts seems like they are likely to be WP:DUE and worth mention here, provided you can find a handful of WP:Secondary WP:reliable sources which are independent of the subject (i.e. press coverage or something of that like, not the bands' own promotional material).  Because we're not talking about WP:notability per se, but rather just WP:verifying a particular detail relating to the parent group, primary sources may be viable, if you get enough support, but I can't say as I am comfortable saying this is not WP:UNDUE unless you get at least one secondary source.  Meanwhile, Binksternet, you're an experienced editor--I'm really surprised that you don't recognize just how WP:OR your entire stance is here.  We're not a court here and your effort at digging into the copyright issues to try to determine (to your own satisfaction) who the legal owner of the trademark is, suggests that you're missing the point. A) We're not empowered as editors to make a call on the answer to that question, B) we're going to go with secondary sources say on the matter, regardless, and C) even if these newer acts ultimately do not use the exact title "Mary Jane Girls", we'd still mention them (provided WEIGHT can be satisfied--and it would only take a handful of sources to do that, I believe), sharing the details demonstrated above with the reader, attributing carefully and presenting the whole story.  Readers can decide for themselves whether these are "real" Mary Jane Girls or not using their own idiosyncratic opinion, after we give them the factual details (legal, press, expressed opinions from involved parties and secondary sources, whatever proves DUE and not excessive).  It's not our role to decide that for them.


 * So in short, let's see what the sourcing says?  S n o w  let's rap 05:01, 31 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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