rick james was frequently backed in his studio recordings by vocalists joanne "jojo" mcduffie and the sisters maxine and julia waters. for live performances starting in 1979, james was backed by mcduffie along with cheryl bailey (who used the stage name cheri wells), candice "candi" ghant and kimberly "maxi" wuletich. casually amongst the musicians, mcduffie, wells, ghant and wuletich used the moniker mary jane girls, a subgroup of james' backing band, the stone city band. the girls learned choreographed dance routines and they practiced under a vocal coach.