My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
Hosted by Georgia Hardstark
This week, Karen and Georgia cover the story of singer Mary Jones.
10,063 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
This is exactly right.
In New Orleans, truckers kept getting sideswiped the exact same way.
When a man is found murdered under questionable circumstances related to these accidents, that's when the rubber hits the road.
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Hello.
And welcome.
To my favorite murder.
That's Georgia Hardstark.
That's Karen Kilgariff.
That's Christmas.
It's officially not Christmas anymore while you're listening, but it's the-
But it's definitely Hanukkah.
It's definitely the first night of Hanukkah.
Get ready.
Congratulations.
Hey, all you half-Catholic, half-Jews out there. What's up?
Oh, man. I love that idea, those couples together, the half-Catholic, half-Jewish, because like, they're both families. We're like, what are you fucking talking about? You know? It's like, both families were like, no.
Those people?
Yeah, we have some adorable holiday decorations. Thank you to Asia again. She's like our, she's like our stylist.
Yeah, but also the first one, I just credit where credits do. Alejandra did the autumnal Halloween show.
That's right.
She had ran her ass down to Target like last second.
Okay, I thought it was Asia.
This time Asia went and really did it up nicely.
I'm definitely stealing the Hanukkah decorations when we leave tonight.
I think you should.
And I have my faux Christmas sweater on. Oh, those look great on you.
Are these, are these really me?
Christmas glasses are you. Who knew?
I can see so much better now.
Can you see the spirit of Christmas?
I can see Jesus's soul. I was gonna say, just as a fun factoid, turns out it's a very rare event when Christmas and the beginning of Hanukkah land on the same day. It's something to mark your calendar over.
Yeah.
And that's why we've done this.
It's fun for us because when Hanukkah is like, sometimes it's in like, it starts in November and it's over by Christmas break for everyone else. And it's kind of a bummer every year where it's like, the spirit of a holiday is already over or it's like, hasn't started even, you know, like, it's just like, doesn't matter to us anymore.
It's almost like the majority, or at least like the cultural people that are taking up the most space.
Are doing it over there and you're like, right, but we have a thing too.
Totally, and it's like done by, you know, after Thanksgiving. It's not as fun for, for me personally as a Jewish person, but I love it that it's around the same time this year.
Yeah, this time it's like, there's just a lot of potential to do some nice combinations.
Yeah, you can't help but being a little resentful when you have someone else's holiday off when you've already celebrated your holiday. You know what I mean?
Yes.
It's a little like, well, this is sitting in front of the TV. This isn't like warming my soul in any way.
Right.
You know?
What does, I was told by several Jewish friends that Hanukkah isn't the major holiday.
Oh, no.
It's like, it's just kind of thrown in there where it's like, yeah, we get one too.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't mean to say like, I shouldn't say it like that. But it's just not the, it's not the, it's not the Christmas of...
We get one too, even though we had ours first.
Right. First book.
And it has, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there's other big ones. So, but it's fun.
What are they?
Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Purim.
Nice.
There we go.
I was really calling you onto the mat right there.
You really were.
That was the big test you passed.
My bat mitzvah was the biggest of them all.
Is that true?
No.
Did you get one?
Oh, I had a bat mitzvah, yeah.
Oh, nice. Was it at like the local, you know, women's club or something?
No, my mom was a property manager at the time for this like really nice apartment building in Venice Beach. And so they let her use the clubhouse for that.
Perfect.
I know. It was great.
That's great.
No alcohol was allowed, which was like now I'd be like, well, we can't have it there then.
Yeah. You mean, if you were your mom, you would have been like, yeah.
I'm surprised she was cool with that.
Not having that.
Should we do our latest December donation?
Sure.
Announcement? So as you guys know, we've been making donations to these incredible charities all month long. We do it every December and we are so grateful to be able to do so.
And that's because of you guys, our listeners. So for this, our final donation on Christmas Day, we're going to give $10,000 to an organization called Girls, Inc. They're a nonprofit that empowers girls to be strong, smart, and bold.
And since 1864, they've supported girls through mentorship and programs designed to help them overcome barriers and become confident leaders. Girls, Inc. also advocates for policies that promote equity, giving every girl the opportunity to succeed.
It feels like the time is now to be supporting things like Girls, Inc.
And really telling women, they are not second-class citizens. In fact, they're very important.
Yeah, you can do anything.
Yes, you can. So if you would like to join us in giving to Girls, Inc., please go to their website at girlsinc.org. It's only the future of women in your hands.
NBD. And there are other ways to give. You can volunteer to become an advocate, start a fundraiser, or enroll with a local affiliate. It's all on their website, girlsinc.org.
So let's keep showing up for each other in 2025. This is how we're going to do it.
Yes, let's.
Yeah. Oh, speaking of, I have a little email I think you will enjoy. The subject line is, Goth Cloth Co. on my favorite murder. Is this a dream? Did I die? Am I a ghost? And it says, hello, MFM ladies, critters, creepers, ghosts and ghouls. Wowza. What a morning. Jordan Cahill here, owner, founder and designer for the brand Goth Cloth Co.
Yay.
When I heard Karen not only say my brand's name this morning, but also my name on the podcast, I thought for a moment that I was dead. This can't possibly be real, can it? First and foremost, I just want to express my insane gratitude that MFM would take the time to check out my company and my personal statement. Long story short, I've been designing and making my own clothes since I was a kid.
Oh, my God.
And when I got laid off as a creative director for a dog toy company that got bought out back in 2023, it was finally time to make my dream of having my own Goth brand a reality.
What a dream. To go from designing dog toys, which is awesome to begin with, and then being like, you know what I really want to do? Can we get a line of Goth dog clothes?
I was just thinking, do you think Jordan may have been doing a little bit of that while she was at the dog toy company?
Definitely. I mean, dogs see black and white, right? So like, give them black toys.
And they also love 808 State, right? I mean, that's a band from when I was 20. I'm not sure.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm guessing.
If they count. Alejandro, will you see if I'm hip? And look that up. The rest is never in a million years, but I think my favorite podcast would be sharing my brand with their community. I am floored, honored, blessed and actually deceased. I started listening to MFM way back in 2016. Not quite a day one listener, but close. I don't, day one listener, I think people literally think they had to be there for the first episode.
It's like the same thing as hometowns. It's not hometowns anymore. We want to hear any story. And day one listener means like, you know.
Early days.
Early, yeah, earlyish days.
Although, to be there on day one.
To be an actual day one is something else.
So I think that's what Jordan's talking about, but close. As I started my work from home freelance journey after grad school, almost nine years later, I continue to have so much love for Karen and Georgia. They're the cool enlightened aunties that this southern Goth always wished she had. When I heard the minisode story "Find a Goth," I thought, "We have to repost this on the Goth Cloth page because, one, it was so on-brand for the community I've built, and the alternative community as a whole, they really are the best folks. And, two, and more importantly, lol, it'll help me find other murderinos."
Yay!
I love, love, love that it could help bring exposure to the show and Nick Terry's work. And honestly, I just thought it was so cool that the story and message resonated with so many people. Goth's rock. It's so sweet. From the bottom of my spooky heart, thank you, MFM Jordan.
Isn't that the sweetest?
I love that.
I do, too.
I was talking to Nick Terry at our holiday party just last week about them reposting it, and he was so excited. And I was like, "I knew that one would be a good one. Sometimes we'll start talking, and I'll be like, 'This is gonna be, this needs to be a Nick Terry.'" And then I'll go, "Like, what should I do to make it easier for you?"
And he was like, "Make things have voices. Give voices to an animate or, you know, random objects." That's our cue, is like, when you were talking about like, a lockbox or a fucking money tunnel, we need to like, give those voices. I love being a lockbox, or whatever. But...
I'm not performing for Nick Terry. He's not my director. I love Nick Terry and his face so much.
I got you. So cute.
He's a great man and a true artist.
Truly. Do you want to do some ERM highlights real quick?
Let's chew it.
Okay. We still, even on the first night of Hanukkah, we still have a podcast network called Exactly Right Media.
Even now.
Even now, in today's day and age. So here are some highlights.
We have new videos. Have you seen them? And would you like to see more? Well then, join the Fan Cult, and you will never miss anything ever again, ever in life. Visit FanCult.supercast.com and get in on the action.
And you can follow us, please. We really appreciate it. Our handle is ExactlyRight on all social media. And there you'll get updates for shows like this podcast will kill you and Ghosted by Roz Hernandez. Just give us a follow. It helps us out.
Yeah. It helps everyone in the podcast. Test world.
Yeah. If we follow us.
Yes, we can't follow you. It's too, it would be too hard. Also, please rate, review and follow all of our shows wherever you like to listen. Just if you listen on the like iTunes app, when you're listening, it's there. You just don't pay attention to things like that. I don't for sure. But if you just look, it'll give you the opportunity to just hit five stars as you're listening.
Or there's like a little heart, if you could heart that.
It just, that just helps us out a lot.
Add to show, follow show.
Yeah, follow, subscribe, something along those lines.
Get in there, you know? Learn what your phone does.
Please, please. Wow. That's weird. The holidays are coming, which means we'll all be spending more time away from home.
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SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time. Goodbye.
Nothing makes you take a good, hard look at your furniture like inviting people over for the holidays.
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And for every Bombas item purchased, they donated an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity, with more than 200 million items donated so far. Okay, so when fall comes around, I have a pair of the Bombas booties pretty much in every room, so I can grab them when my feet inevitably become freezing, which they are constantly. And they're so comfy, you can wear them around the house, I wear them to bed, and they just make everything feel a little cozier.
Head over to bombas.com/mfm and use code MFM for 20% off your first purchase.
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Goodbye.
Well, do you want me to tell you a story?
I'm eating the Christmas candy that's on the table.
You get to.
Okay, good.
Yes, it's my day. This is a short, a short one, even though Asia decorated, we went all out, we're themed out, but it's just gonna be me telling a story on this one.
Karen Solo, I'm so excited about it. I can just chill out and eat fucking candy.
Throw your feet as high up in the air as you can.
And wave them around?
Yeah. Like you just think it's Christmas and Hanukkah at the same time. I'm very, very excited about this story.
Okay.
Because, I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm a real big fan of Aretha Franklin. When I was in college is kind of when her greatest hits album came into my life and never left. And I really, my favorite thing that I started doing, which I now have learned is a coping mechanism and a way to self-soothe your nervous system, is sing along with her album.
Oh.
Singing is a, is a kind of like a somatic healing practice.
Which I never did. Personally, I think she's the greatest singer of all time.
She's really done it. If you've, if you've never done it, go onto YouTube and go into a Aretha Franklin video wormhole, you will not regret it. There's some unbelievable stuff, especially from like the 60s and 70s that she did. There's one thing where she made a video walking, it's like a live shot of her from a TV show, but she's walking down like side streets in Manhattan, singing a song to camera, basically like, ugh, it's one of the, my favorite things of all time. And it's like, she's got like a 70s plaid coat on and it's like 70s New York around her.
Wow.
It's the best. She also did the thing where she stood in for Pavarotti when he got sick like last minute. She sang the song Nessun Dorma with a full orchestra.
Opera?
She sang opera.
Holy shit.
Like she is a true insane talent.
And so. I'm gonna tell you a little story related to that. I'll set the scene. It's 1969 in a packed club in Fort Myers, Florida, and the show tonight is guaranteed to be unforgettable. There's a sold-out crowd of 1,400 people buzzing with anticipation to see the one and only Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. The lights go down and Aretha's introduced, but as she steps onto the stage, something feels a little bit off. For a split second, this legendary performer actually looks nervous. Then she starts to sing, and that voice is unmistakable. Everyone knows they're in the presence of a legend,
except they're not. What this packed crowd doesn't know is that it's not Aretha Franklin that they're listening to and watching. The woman onstage is an impostor, and she is here under duress. She's being forced to impersonate Aretha Franklin, and if she doesn't comply, it could cost her her life.
The fuck?
This is the story of singer Mary Jones.
Oh my god. Twisty, turny, wow.
I was, this is my researcher, Mary McGlashan's suggestion, and I was just like, I feel really seen right now. I feel really cared for right now.
For sure. Wow, okay.
Right? So the main source of today's research is reporting by a journalist named Jeff Mase, and that includes a Smithsonian magazine article that he wrote called "The Counterfeit Queen of Soul," which is heavily cited throughout what I'm about to read you. He also did an episode of our friend Phoebe Judge's podcast Criminal in 2023, and that episode is called "The Impersonator." And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. Okay, so it all starts in the early 40s, when Mary Jones is born in West Petersburg, Virginia. It's a small town about 30 miles south of the state capital of Richmond. And like so many incredible vocalists, Mary gets her start singing in the choir of her Baptist
church. It's here that her reverend, a man named Billy Lee, takes note of her incredible talent. Mary has enough Phenomenal, soulful voice, and she's undeniably gifted. So Reverend Lee forms an all-black gospel group called The Great Gate, and they perform at churches around the region. And the Reverend will later say, quote, "I had to teach most of the folk in my groups, but there was one young lady I did not have to teach soul." End quote. And that young lady is Mary Jones. Mary spends six years performing with The Great Gate, and as she does, she sharpens her vocal skills by listening to Aretha Franklin records. Just like me. Oh, my God. Except for I didn't get better.
I just kept singing the same way. She just got louder. Kind of like Annie sings Aretha Franklin. Anyway, for context, this is the mid-1960s now. Aretha is, she's huge, of course. In 1967 alone, Aretha Franklin released "Respect," "Natural Woman," and "Chain of Fools," just to name a few of the string of her mega hits. Wow. Incredible songs, one after the other. So, of course, Mary Jones really admires Aretha. And as Jeff Mase notes, quote, "Aretha Franklin was a role model for so many women in that culture because she made it. She was scouted in a church. She'd been spotted singing gospel and had gone on to become an incredible success.
Gold, platinum records, Grammys. She had all the trappings of success. The limousines, the fancy frocks. She was a superstar on the front cover of magazines." End quote. There's also an amazing clip where she walks onstage and drops her fur. Like, she's wearing this insane fur coat, and then she just kind of like drops it like it's an old robe. And you're just like, you're, like, you're the queen. You are a queen. Yeah. So Aretha's music injects so much joy and soul into Mary Jones' life that she actually likes to run a speaker out of her house and into her yard so that the people who live nearby can listen with her as she sings along and belts out Aretha tunes.
And if you know Aretha's music, there's real heartache at the core of a lot of it, and Mary's life was no different. By 1969, 27-year-old Mary has been widowed once, then divorced from her second husband, who was an abusive alcoholic. So now she's raising four young sons as a single mom.
Oh, my God. Like, not even 30.
Four young sons.
Sing, sing, sing.
Self-sustained.
Sing for your supper.
Get it out. Yeah, exactly.
Maybe.
As you're saying, so to earn some extra money, Mary starts taking gigs at local nightclubs. But because she's a very deeply committed member of her church, she has to keep that part of her life a secret. People drink, dance, listen to blues music at these clubs. Who knows what they get up to?
Yeah. Jazz cigarettes?
Jazz cigarettes. Hugs. It's all the things the Baptist church does not approve of for people's lifestyles. So when Reverend Lee finds out about Mary's double life, he sneaks into a venue called The Mousetrap to watch her sing a set.
Oh, dear.
The reverend sits in the dark corner, stone-cold sober, of course, and he prays that what he watches Mary do, what she's about to do, will not disappoint him. He tells himself, quote, "Don't lecture her, don't preach to her, she'll be all right," end quote. Mary has no idea he's there. And what Reverend Lee sees that night is a shock. She's introduced as Vicky Jane. Sometimes she goes as Vicky Jones, also. She walks onstage, wearing a wig and a costume that all but completely disguise church-going Mary Jones. And she has morphed into an absolute diva.
With a backing band, Mary begins to perform all of the great Aretha Franklin hits, and she sounds exactly like her.
Oh, wow.
The crowd goes nuts, and we can only assume the reverend did, too.
So then in January of 1969, Mary performs at a club in Richmond called The Pink Garter.
These names are great.
I mean, you know the Reverend didn't go to The Pink Garter.
No, he would never.
The mousetrap, he can justify.
Mousetrap's okay.
Right? And that show changes the course of her life because there she has a chance encounter with a singer named Lavelle Hardy. So Lavelle is a 24-year-old singer from New York City. He's a hairdresser by trade, but he's trying to break into the music business and he has had some success. In 1968, he released a record that Jeff Mase describes as, quote, "a minor hit in the UK," end quote. But the act that really gets him booked the most is the one where he sports a six-inch pompadour and impersonates James Brown.
So Lavelle's situation is very similar to Mary's in that they're both making money covering the hit songs of famous vocalists. But there's a key difference. Jet Magazine later estimates that where Mary earns around $10 or $20 on a good night, which is worth around...
Sixty, in the 60s, 10 to 20, 150.
Close, 85 to 170.
You're in the pocket.
So that's how much she would be getting. Lavelle makes 200 a night.
Which is $1,700 in today's money.
Damn, that's pay-your-bills money.
That's super pay-your-bills money and it's like, was he a better singer than her?
I wonder why he's making so much more than her.
That's weird.
So tonight at The Pink Garter Club in Richmond, Virginia, Lavelle watches Mary absolutely crush it onstage. He is blown away by her ability to channel Aretha both vocally and visually. Lavelle will later say, quote, "She's identical from head to toe. She's got the complexion. She's got the look. She's got the height. She's got the tears. She's got everything."
As Lavelle witnesses the incredible talent that is Mary Jones, he senses an opportunity. He wants to take Mary on tour, but not as Vicky Jane or Vicky Jones. He knows that he can make way more money way faster. So for context and just for the young people who forget, the years before the internet, they did exist. There was a time where you couldn't just look someone up with a click of a button. For most fans, back then in like the 50s and 60s, knowing what your favorite musical artist looks like would basically be based on their album covers.
Maybe a three-minute set on TV, maybe pictures in magazines. If they're lucky enough to be able to afford a ticket, they might be able to go see them in person.
But for the most part, fans recognize their favorite performers by their voices.
So if someone's voice sounds like a well-known artist and they even slightly resemble them, it's not hard to pass them off as that famous performer back then. And for what it's worth, Mary didn't think she looked like Aretha Franklin. Jeff Meish couches that she looked enough like Aretha for the scheme to work, but Mary was not like a dead ringer for Aretha. It wasn't like, it wasn't a full impersonation in that way.
Like you had to have not known exactly what she looks like to believe it.
Yes. And the kind of, I think it's a testament to the power of her voice, because it would be like, is that? And then she'd start singing and then they wouldn't even worry about it. Not only that, but as the 50s and 60s is a time when many performers, especially black artists, do not have enough legal power or protection. So impersonators start popping up all around the black music scene, billing themselves as the real deal to unsuspecting audiences. So that, I guess, is like a common thing that happened back then. And because you can make a lot of money off of a good impersonator, some of them even eventually have connections to organized crime. Like, a system starts being put in place
of how to find these people and how to like exploit and put these people on tour
Yeah, like managing, but it's shady.
Yeah. So, in his Smithsonian magazine article, Jeff Mache mentions a guy named Roy Tempest, a London-based promoter who collaborated with the New York mafia to employ, quote, "the world's greatest singing postmen, window cleaners, bus drivers, shop assistants, bank robbers, and even a stripper," unquote.
I want to go to that party!
Well, they were to pose as bands like The Temptations during European tours.
Okay, yeah.
So they're maybe even a step further away.
And so it's just like all these wildly talented people that are like, "Okay, we'll send you over there, and you'll be The Temptations."
Amazing.
Crazy. In other cases, the dupes are actually sanctioned by the industry itself. One famous example of that is in 1955 in Alabama, when James Brown is sent to fill in for a double-booked Little Richard. At the time, both artists share the same booking agent, so it basically became James Brown's job to impersonate the more famous Little Richard when he couldn't be there. But there was one show where the audience caught on and they got really angry, and James Brown was literally performing backflips to appease them. Like, "I'll just entertain you in another way."
Can you imagine going to a show and like, you're mad that James Brown is the fucking, like, stand-in? Are you kidding me?
Yes. It's the, it's like the kind of people who, there's a lot of people who, they go to a concert and they're only there for the band that they want to see. But there are the people who are, love music and they're like, "I could be there the first night that the next James Brown," you know?
Exactly.
Yeah. You want to see that, you want to be there for that.
You need to not talk over the opener, is what we're saying.
Yes. Okay, so, Lavelle Hardy seems convinced that when it comes to impersonators, Mary Jones is the best of the best. But the night he sees her, that first night at the Pink Garter, he lays low, and he comes to her next show the following weekend at a Richmond venue called The Executive Motor Inn. So sexy.
So sexy. Oh, wow. Did they have a T-bone steak night and everything?
You can kind of have steak and then Aretha Franklin's there. So after Mary set that night, Lavelle approaches her and asks if she'd be interested in touring Florida with him. But Mary turns him down. She has hardly enough money to feed her family, let alone buy a bus ticket out of state. It just doesn't seem worth it to her. So Lavelle won't take no for an answer. He then calls Mary at her house impersonating a booking agent for the real Aretha Franklin. And he offers Mary a thousand dollars to perform six shows in Florida as Aretha's opening act.
Okay, six, a thousand dollars. We're gonna go, do you know?
Are you asking me to do long division?
No, I'm asking you if you have the number, if I guess it.
Oh, yes, I do have it.
Great.
I thought you were saying like, how much would that be a night where I'm like, oh, my God.
No, no, no, I would never. I would never and I won't ever. Even though you asked me about Jewish holidays earlier, I would never.
You're right. You could have really countered right there and gotten your revenge.
Thousand, I'm gonna go seven thousand?
Eight thousand.
Really close. Which is great money. It's like
Such great money.
Doing what you love, singing the songs of a person you adore. That's, that's like a dream.
And when I, I hear four, four sons, I just, I can't help but think about how much my one brother, my one skinny ass brother ate when he was a kid. That would put like, the groceries would be gone the first night because of my brother's
Appetite.
So to have four, that times four is fucking expensive.
So expensive.
So it's good money. It's Mary's dream come true. Singing on the same bill as her idol. You know, it's a payday. It's everything. My thing is this, and it's like, when stuff like this happens, it's hard to be kind of a critical thinker. But why would anybody hire you to sing Aretha Franklin songs before Aretha Franklin comes out and sings her songs?
I wonder if that was like a thing then, no?
Be like, one more time? And now one more time, the real one?
Fair enough, fair enough.
I don't know. I think it steps on it a little bit.
It's a question that, that one would ask. It's like if you had two comics and like, one was more famous and the first one did the exact same set and they're like, okay, here it is again, but like, better.
Yeah, exactly.
It doesn't make sense.
You'd just be like, um, I think I actually like the first guy better.
Like So as Jeff Mase notes, quote, she'd never seen, Mary'd never seen that amount of money in her life. So she went for it. She decided to take a risk and go open for the real Aretha.
Incredible.
So Mary leaves her kids with her mother and goes to a local lending company to borrow the bus fare.
I know.
Yeah. And she makes her way down to Melbourne, Florida. I wonder if they pronounce it Melbourne.
Yeah, I wonder.
I wonder. I wonder. But when she arrives, she learns that Lavelle does not work for Aretha Franklin. Mary's not going to be opening for Aretha Franklin. Instead, she'll be impersonating the Queen of Soul for oblivious audiences.
Hmm.
Mary refuses to comply. She would later say, quote, "That Lavelle threatened to throw me in the bay."
She doesn't know how to swim. And he said to her, quote, "Your body can easily be disposed of in the water."
Yeah. So she has no choice.
Oh, how terrifying.
Yeah. Not only that, but she does not have the money for the bus fare home.
I was just thinking that, like, she got enough. She thought she was going to get paid, so she'd pay for the bus ride. Oh, my God.
Horrible.
And the trick of, I'm going to live my dreams. You're not really focusing on, like, what if something bad happens? You're like, here I go.
Totally.
Ugh.
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So now she's in an unfamiliar southern state as a black woman in the 60s.
Right. You're not gonna fucking hitchhike home.
No. It's logistics, it's personal safety. Mary has no recourse. She's forced to go along with Lavelle's scam. And it works. It works so well that Lavelle starts shopping quote unquote Ms. Franklin around venues in small Florida towns, claiming to be her agent. He offers to book Aretha Franklin for just $7,000 a night, which would be worth about?
Twenty-two hundred.
$60,000.
That's what I meant.
I know. In today's money.
Thousand. I meant 22,000.
Yeah, 22,000. But it's 60 and even then it's a steep discount from what the real Aretha is charging a night, which is more around 20 grand a night, which would be how much today?
360.
170.
Damn it.
$170,000. She was making.
Bank. So there's a guy that's like, do you want to come to a small intimate show?
Right. You think that they would question it too, right?
But they didn't.
But I think it's a thing of like, suddenly someone's going, do you, do you want to go do the thing that you really want to do? And would love to do? It's real cheap. And you're like, yeah, I'd love to.
But maybe the, um, the owners like knew also, were in on it also, and then just didn't tell the patrons.
Right. Absolutely. Could, could be. I mean, they're gonna make bank.
Cause there's probably a lot of mob business going around.
There, right, where it's like,
Yeah, could be.
Fucking lie to me.
Right. I was just like, hey, it's nice to have a sellout night. It's nice to get some consistent money and sell all your drinks.
You know.
Tip, tip your waitress.
Yeah, please. So Lavelle puts together a tour of small black clubs in Florida that he calls, quote, "The Aretha Franklin Review." At her first gig, Mary goes onstage in a long, yellow gown that Lavelle buys for her. It looks like a cheaper version of something the real Aretha Franklin might wear. She also wears a wig and very heavy makeup, but it's her voice that makes it all work. Mary performs as Aretha like her life depends on it because she thinks it does. The audiences are completely fooled. Jet Magazine reports in 1969, quote, "When she sang the second song, 'Baby, baby, sweet baby,' they roared as one, 'That's her, that's Aretha.' They gave her a standing ovation at the end of the set."
She's being held hostage and forced, and she's like, okay, watch this.
Yeah. Like, she's like, well, there's nothing you can do about it.
Terrifying.
And then she's actually getting to do a thing where she gets the jolt, she gets the feeling.
That some of us are lucky enough to know, where you're like, "Oh, standing ovation." When Mary gets offstage, Lavelle doesn't want anyone to get too close of a look at her. So in case they put two and two together, so she's rushed out of the venue. She's rushed to a cheap motel room. Lavelle gets her a hamburger and just like hold her over to the next show. He doesn't give her any of the money that they earn that night. So she basically still has no way to get away, even if she wanted to.
She's been kidnapped.
Yes. And this is how the tour starts.
Jesus.
Once Mary performs a string of successful shows, Lavelle starts to get cocky. He decides to book Mary at bigger venues in larger towns, including the 1,400-seat Hi-Hat Club in Fort Myers where this story began. That show sells out. But it's a bigger town and there are more people in this crowd who have already seen Aretha Franklin perform live. So when Mary steps onstage, there are murmurings that something seems off. And Mary must have sensed this energy because she gets nervous. And she'll later say, quote, "I wanted to tell everybody beforehand that I was not Miss Franklin, but Lavelle said the show promoters would do something awful to me if they learned who I really was."
Fuck.
Yeah. So Mary eventually settles into the set and of course nails it once again. Jeff Mase writes this in his Smithsonian piece, quote, "The hoodwinked conductor urged his band to play the Franklin song 'Since You've Been Gone,' and as it always did, the music transformed Jones. With every note, her fears melted away. She closed her eyes and sang, her powerful voice a mixture of Saturday night sin and Sunday morning salvation."
Such a good line.
And he doubters in the crowd were instantly convinced, end quote. So that's like, this is a true talent. This is a person who should be heard.
And like in whatever style that she wants to sing, the show is happening. It's not like a person who's like, "My face looks like her and I've got the right wig."
And then it's also...
Disappointingly crappy.
Kind of embarrassing.
Because there's, to me, there's nothing really more embarrassing than like mid-singing. When someone's just like, "Here we go."
But like really believes in themselves.
That's why I don't believe in myself and I would never try. That's the best, when you have a voice like mine, that's the best course of action. You know?
I know my attributes and singing is not one of them.
I mean, I feel like, it's not like I can't sing, I just know...
You're a good singer.
I, but there's so many people that are really, really good at singing. Where it's like, let them do it and I'll stay in my front room.
No, you're one of the good ones. What are you talking about?
I'm not, it's not even like that. I'm just saying, it's great to be good.
But then you've got people who are either Aretha Franklin or exactly like Aretha Franklin. Or fucking Jennifer Hudson or Kelly Clarkson where you're like, "Yeah, that, let them do..."
Got it.
Let them do it.
I don't want to do karaoke. Okay, so this gets even riskier because this set goes off without a hitch. So Lavelle decides to up the ante.
Dude, stop it.
He can't stop it. He books a 4,200-seat venue.
Holy shit!
It's the Southeastern Livestock Pavilion in Ocala, Florida.
You're fucking... no.
Yep.
You're pushing it.
I feel like the Southeastern Livestock Pavilion...
Oh, the smell.
It's... there's sawdust on the floor.
Oh, god.
It's where you show your sheep at the fair. Like, what are we doing? How big is this place?
No, like, get the 4-H Club out of here because Aretha's coming in.
Because Aretha's younger sister is coming in.
Oh, my god.
When Ocala hears that the Queen of Soul is coming, they flip out. Jeff Meish says, quote, "They stuck posters up all over town. DJs were talking about it in the local area, and it was gonna be one of the biggest shows of the year."
You can't do that.
He got too far out over his skis.
Yes, exactly.
But of course, all this publicity has consequences. It turns out, the real Aretha Franklin is on vacation in Miami at the time.
Shut the fuck up. Oh, no! And she's like, "Wait a minute."
Even though this is hundreds of miles south of Ocala, she even hears about it. Like, it's that... the murmurings of "she's around."
And she hears the gossip about she's about to play a live show in Ocala.
So, she calls her attorneys, they call a prosecutor, and they call that prosecutor just in time because it turns out the prosecutor had two tickets to the fake Aretha Franklin show.
So now investigators are on the case. They trace the scheme back to Lavelle Hardy. And at this point, he's booked nine shows in Florida as part of this Aretha Franklin review.
Guy.
He's like, "Gotta get that bag while you can." Sure, fine.
In any way possible.
So, Lavelle and Mary are both arrested and put in jail for suspected fraud. And of course, the story makes national news. Lavelle Hardy has handed false advertising charges and given a $500 bond, which is about a $4,000 bond today. Mary meanwhile tells police that she's not in on this scheme. She's been kidnapped, she's been held captive by Lavelle, and that she's only basically been fed a few hamburgers. Oh my god, let me guess, they don't believe her. Well, to which Lavelle responds, quote, "There wasn't anybody standing over her with a gun and a knife. She wasn't forced to do anything. And about those hamburgers, we all ate hamburgers, not because we had to, but because they taste good." End quote.
Don't you think that's very, just one of those personality types, where it's like, first of all, you're saying it's no big deal and she wasn't forced, but now you're arguing the weirdest point of this story? Yeah. And now you're like, arguing it like that's also important. Right, and if I can prove that part wrong, then the rest of it somehow wrong too? Yeah. When that's not the case? Right. Luckily, the prosecutor believes Mary Jones and her side of the story. And he, the prosecutor, later tells Jet Magazine, quote, "I wanted to protect this girl. It was obvious she was a victim. I asked her to sing like Miss Franklin, and she did it in the courtroom, just like her. But she has a sound and a style of her own. She has talent too, no doubt about that." Wow. The prosecutor... That's pretty moving. I know.
They're like, she's been taken advantage of. Yeah. So now Lavelle, who's been sitting on a ton of cash, all the cash they made from these shows, winds up giving most of that money, which is around $7,000, to an attorney. And that attorney then convinces prosecutors to turn him loose, and he immediately leaves Florida. That means Mary never gets the money she was promised, or any money at all, for her performances, and so she doesn't have any money to get a lawyer. But luckily, she's let off the hook by none other than Aretha Franklin herself. Yes. Aretha only wanted Lavelle Hardy to be held criminally liable. So she, like, they come to her basically and say, "You want to press charges, I guess." Yeah. And then she's like, "Not against her." Yeah.
But Mary's problems don't end there, because she's right back where she started. She doesn't have a penny to her name, and now she has no way to get back to her family in Virginia. And this is where the story takes another turn. One of the many people following this story is a white lawyer from Jacksonville, Florida, named Ray Green. And like Lavelle Hardy once did, Ray clearly senses an opportunity with Mary. But unlike Lavelle, he pitches himself as an above-board business manager and he offers her a $500 advance right on the spot so she can get back to Virginia. Then he promises to take her on a nationwide tour, performing as herself.
So, it takes a little while, but Ray is able to earn Mary's trust. And within weeks of meeting him, Mary is booked on her own tour and finally earning some serious money.
Hell, yeah.
Performing under the name Vicky Jane, Mary gets as much as $1,500 a performance, and that is how much in today's money.
You already told me. Seven...tell me.
$13,000 a show.
And these audiences are excited to see the Aretha Franklin impostor that they've been reading about in the news.
That's your press that you already got.
Yes, you did it. No such thing as bad press. So, back in New York, Lavelle Hardy's trying to stretch his 15 minutes of fame. He gives an interview declaring that he's looking for an agent, saying, quote, "The news is now nationwide and everybody wants to see Vicky and everybody wants to see me."
But, as Jeff Miesch points out, quote, "Nobody cared about Lavelle Hardy." After a week...this is my favorite line, we're still in the quote. "About a week after his boast, he was back onstage at the Pink Garter."
Oh, they're always taking back that old Pink Garter.
You fall all the way back down to the Pink Garter. Mary, on the other hand, is going strong. Several weeks after first making the news, she then catches the eye of the legendary Duke Ellington. He recognizes her musical gift and he invites her onstage to sing with him at a show in Florida.
Shit.
She wears that same yellow dress she wore impersonating Aretha earlier that year and a photographer snaps a picture of the two together and Jet magazine uses it in a feature about Mary.
That detail that she wore that dress is such a great fuck you.
So good.
It's so good.
Oh my god.
Duke Ellington becomes something of a mentor to Mary and he urges her to quote, "break out of the Aretha thing." He even offers to write six songs for her. She's of course very eager to get out of the shadow of Aretha Franklin and she desperately wants material that reflects her own life and she will later say, quote, "I've got my own bag. The way I feel is that people can buy Aretha for Aretha and they can buy Vicky Jane for Vicky Jane. It's gonna be hard, but nothing's gonna stop me from making it as a singer. I wanna do songs strictly about me, how I got started and how I love. Everything I write will be based on my life. I think people will be interested." And quote. Yeah. And they really are.
Mary is now flying on jets for the first time to do shows in places like Las Vegas.
Jet magazine also reports that in early March of 1969, quote, "A hungry singer in Richmond, Virginia is pretending to be Vicky Jones and she did brisk business for a time."
Mary Jones gets her own impostor.
So Mary tours for a year and earns some serious cash, but back at home, her mother is no longer able to care for her boys and they wind up living with Mary's ex-husband. He wastes no time in telling the children that their mom abandoned them and that she'd never come back for them. Mary's son Gregory becomes so distraught that he changes the station anytime an Aretha Franklin song comes on the radio. But when Mary gets back to her hometown of West Petersburg, she's there for a performance and she's eating at a local diner when two of her sons run into the restaurant. The boys see their mom and they scream for her and the waiter tries to shoo them away thinking that they're fans. And Mary yells, "Hey, those are my babies."
And this whole experience is so awful for her that she quits her singing career on the spot.
She stays in Virginia. She fights to get full custody of her sons and she devotes the rest of her life to raising them.
Oh my god. She just stops?
Yeah. Mary Jones never takes the stage again.
What?
She goes back to living a private life. She died in the year 2000 in her late 50s and her incredible story fades into obscurity. And then, decades later, writer Jeff Maseh stumbles upon the story. He tells Phoebe Judge of The Criminal Podcast, quote, "When her son Gregory agreed to talk about his mother, he was so emotional and so happy that someone finally called him because he'd obviously been telling this story over the decades, but people wouldn't believe it."
I know. So, even beyond her brush with fame in the late 1960s, which is certainly extraordinary, Mary's boys remembered the little things about their mother. How she sang her favorite songs while doing stuff around the house, and yes, they were often Aretha Franklin songs. Or how she kept her issue of Jet magazine, in which she was pictured with Duke Ellington, as a reminder that her sons could, quote, "be anybody they wanted to be." Jeff Maseh adds, quote, "Mary's sons told me that she wanted to be Aretha so much, but they always saw her as mom. They just loved being around their mom." By the late 1960s, right around the time Mary was forced to perform in Florida, American
households started getting color TV en masse and access to shows like Soul Train, which regularly featured Motown superstars, making ripping off performers all the more difficult. And today, of course, with the internet and social media and everything, the once viable imposter scheme is pretty much all but impossible to pull off. And that's the incredible story of Mary Jones, a world-class vocalist worth remembering for who she was.
How about that?
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah.
It's a Hanukkah miracle. Oh my god.
Light a candle for Mary Jones.
That's right. Jesus.
Right?
I'd never heard that. That is incredible.
I've never heard that.
I can't wait to see the photos of that.
Wow. Great job.
Thank you.
Great solo story.
Right? It gave us everything.
It had to be. It had to be, you know, solo.
It was meant to be.
As she is supposed to be solo as well.
Wow. All right. Well, great job.
Thank you so much.
Thank you guys all so much for listening.
Thank you. I hope you're either having a great holiday, that you had one already, that you're going to have one for the next eight days.
Or listen, maybe a great new year instead. That's fine.
Yeah, you might need to just go out in the woods somewhere and not have any holiday at all.
That sounds great.
That sounds, not for me, but perfect. Do what you need to do.
We're here for you, unless you don't want us to be. That's fine, too.
Yeah, we'll leave you alone. You want to shut your door?
We could totally leave you alone.
Honey, come downstairs. Oh, no, you don't have to.
Don't have to. Stay in your pajamas. Like, we support it.
We love you in whatever room you're in. I told Nora that one time.
Aww.
Stay sexy.
And don't get murdered.
Lahayim. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
This has been an Exactly Right Production.
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle-Craton.
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci.
Our researchers are Maren McLaughlin and Ally Elkin.
Email your hometowns to [email protected].
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder.
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