A sonic exploration and tonal analysis of contemporary creative music in a myriad of improvisational/composed settings, textures, and expressions.
Welcome to Sound Projections
I'm your host Kofi Natambu. This online magazine features the very best in contemporary creative music in this creative timezone NOW (the one we're living in) as well as that of the historical past. The purpose is to openly explore, examine, investigate, reflect on, studiously critique, and take opulent pleasure in the sonic and aural dimensions of human experience known and identified to us as MUSIC. I'm also interested in critically examining the wide range of ideas and opinions that govern our commodified notions of the production, consumption, marketing, and commercial exchange of organized sound(s) which largely define and thereby (over)determine our present relationships to music in the general political economy and culture.
Thus this magazine will strive to critically question and go beyond the conventional imposed notions
and categories of what constitutes the generic and stylistic definitions of ‘Jazz’, ‘classical music’, ‘Blues.’
'Rhythm and Blues’, ‘Rock and Roll’, ‘Pop’, ‘Funk’, ‘Hip Hop’, etc. in order to search for what individual
artists and ensembles do cretively to challenge and transform our ingrained ideas and attitudes of what
music is and could be.
So please join me in this ongoing visceral, investigative, and cerebral quest to explore, enjoy, and pay
homage to the endlessly creative and uniquely magisterial dimensions of MUSIC in all of its guises and expressive identities.
Saturday, December 1, 2018
The Supremes (1961-1977): Legendary and iconic singing group
The most successful American performers of the 1960s, the Supremes for a time rivaled even the Beatles
in terms of red-hot commercial appeal, reeling off five number one
singles in a row at one point. Critical revisionism has tended to
undervalue the Supremes'
accomplishments, categorizing their work as more lightweight than the
best soul stars (or even the best Motown stars), and viewing them as a
tool for Berry Gordy's crossover aspirations. There's no question that there was about as much pop as soul in the Supremes'
hits, that even some of their biggest hits could sound formulaic, and
that they were probably the black performers who were most successful at
infiltrating the tastes and televisions of middle America. This
shouldn't diminish either their extraordinary achievements or their fine
music, the best of which renders the pop vs. soul question moot with
its excellence.
The Supremes were not an overnight success story,
although it might have seemed that way when they began topping the
charts with sure-fire regularity. The trio that would become famous as the Supremes -- Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard -- met in the late '50s in Detroit's Brewster housing project. Originally known as the Primettes, they were a quartet (Barbara Martin
was the fourth member) when they made their first single for the Lupine
label in 1960. By the time they debuted for Motown in 1961, they had
been renamed the Supremes; Barbara Martin reduced them to a trio when she left after their first single.
The Supremes' first Motown recordings were much more
girl group-oriented than their later hits. Additionally, not all of
them featured Diana Ross on lead vocals; Flo Ballard, considered to have as good or better a voice, also sang lead. Through a lengthy series of flops, Berry Gordy
remained confident that the group would eventually prove to be one of
Motown's biggest. By the time they finally did get their first Top 40
hit, "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes," in late 1963,
Ross had taken over the lead singing for good.
Ross was not the most talented female singer at Motown; Martha Reeves and Gladys Knight in particular had superior talents. What she did have, however, was the most purely pop appeal. Gordy's patience and attention paid off in mid-1964, when "Where Did Our Love Go" went to number one. Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland,
it established the prototype for their run of five consecutive
number-one hits in 1964-1965 (also including "Baby Love," "Stop! In the
Name of Love," "Come See About Me," and "Back in My Arms Again"). Ross' cooing vocals would front the Supremes' decorative backup vocals, put over on television and live performance with highly stylized choreography and visual style. Holland-Dozier-Holland would write and produce all of the Supremes' hits through the end of 1967.
Not all of the Supremes'
singles went to number one after 1965, but they usually did awfully
well, and were written and produced with enough variety (but enough of a
characteristic sound) to ensure continual interest. The chart-topping
(and uncharacteristically tough) "You Keep Me Hangin' On" was the best
of their mid-period hits. Behind the scenes, there were some problems
brewing, although these only came to light long after the event. Other
Motown stars (most notably Martha Reeves) resented what they perceived as the inordinate attention lavished upon Ross by Gordy, at the expense of other artists on the label. The other Supremes
themselves felt increasingly pushed to the background. In mid-1967, as a
result of what was deemed increasingly unprofessional behavior, Ballard was replaced by Cindy Birdsong (from Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles). Ballard become one of rock's greatest tragedies, eventually ending up on welfare, and dying in 1976.
After Ballard's exit, the group would be billed as Diana Ross & the Supremes, fueling speculation that Ross
was being groomed for a solo career. The Supremes had a big year in
1967, even incorporating some mild psychedelic influences into
"Reflections." Holland-Dozier-Holland, however, left Motown around this time, and the quality of the Supremes'
records suffered accordingly (as did the Motown organization as a
whole). The Supremes were still superstars, but as a unit, they were
disintegrating; it's been reported that Wilson and Birdsong
didn't even sing on their final hits, a couple of which ("Love Child"
and "Someday We'll Be Together") were among their best.
In November 1969, Ross'
imminent departure for a solo career was announced, although she played
a few more dates with them, the last in Las Vegas in January 1970. Jean Terrell replaced Ross, and the group continued through 1977, with some more personnel changes (although Mary Wilson was always involved). Some of the early Ross-less singles were fine records, particularly "Stoned Love," "Nathan Jones," and the Supremes-Four Tops
duet "River Deep -- Mountain High." Few groups have been able to rise
to the occasion after the loss of their figurehead, though, and the Supremes proved no exception, rarely making the charts after 1972. It is the Diana Ross-led era of the 1960s for which they'll be remembered.
Motown’s first and most commercially successful girl group.
They Supremes were more of a women group than a girl group.
Beautiful, glamorous and mature, the Supremes were so popular that they
rivaled even the Beatles.
Biography
The Supremes rose from the poverty of Detroit’s
Brewster housing project to become Motown’s most consistent hitmakers
and the most popular female group of the Sixties. The Supremes sang in a polished style that bridged the worlds of pop
and soul. Their greatest success came with songs tailor-made for them by
Motown’s peerless in-house writing and production team of Brian
Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland (see “Holland-Dozier-Holland").
Under the watchful eye of Motown founder Berry Gordy, the partnership
between the Supremes and Holland-Dozier-Holland yielded an astounding
run of Number One hits at mid-decade. In June 1965 they set a record for
the most consecutive Number One hits by an American group when “Back in
My Arms Again” rose to the top of the Billboard singles chart.
The other hits in that streak were “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby
Love,” “Come See About Me” and “Stop! In the Name of Love.” This milestone is all the more impressive because it occurred at the
height of the British Invasion—a period when beat groups from abroad
otherwise ruled the charts. The Supremes were America’s ingénues,
exuding a stylish charm and soulfulness that appealed across the board
to black and white listeners at a time when racial divides were coming
down. Known in-house as Motown’s “sweethearts,” Berry Gordy saw the
potential in them from the beginning. “All three girls had qualities so
unique I’d often think: ‘If they could make us feel the way we do, what
could they do to the world at large?’” he wrote in his autobiography, To Be Loved.
The answer to that question is that not only did the Supremes come to
epitomize the Motown sound, they earned a place in music history as
singers and showgirls whose popularity in the Sixties was second only to
the Beatles’. The members of the Supremes—Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary
Wilson—first came together in a quartet, the Primettes, that had been
recruited by singer Paul Williams as a sister act to his locally popular
Detroit group, the Primes (later known as the Temptations). After
persistently showing up at Motown’s “Hitsville” headquarters after
school, the Supremes were signed to the label in January 1961. The group
was slow to find its footing, enduring several years of flop singles
before finally clicking with “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through
His Eyes” (Number Twenty-Three) in late 1963. After that, it was off to
the races for the Supremes, who amassed a dozen Number One hits between
the years of 1964 and 1969. In addition to the aforementioned singles,
the Supremes’ other chart-toppers were “I Hear a Symphony,” “You Can’t
Hurry Love,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” “Love Is Here and Now You’re
Gone,” “The Happening,” “Love Child” and “Someday We’ll Be Together.” The Supremes successfully made the transition from grueling
one-nighters on Motown’s bus caravans to the upscale world of nightclubs
like the Copacabana, where the group performed a much-ballyhooed
engagement in the summer of 1965. By 1967 the group had officially
amended its name to Diana Ross and the Supremes, an acknowledgment of
lead singer Ross’s rising star. That same year, Florence Ballard left
the group and was replaced by Cindy Birdsong. The late Sixties saw the
Supremes recording material with a socially conscious edge, such as
“Love Child.” Ross left the Supremes to launch a successful career as a solo recording artist and movie star, making her mark in films like The Wiz (1978), Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and Mahogany (1975).
Her final appearance with the group occurred at the Frontier Hotel in
Las Vegas on January 14, 1970. She was replaced by Jean Terrell, and the
Supremes’ hitmaking streak continued with such songs as “Up the Ladder
to the Roof” and “Stoned Love.” The trio continued to perform and record
into the Seventies, with founding member Mary Wilson keeping the name
and the music alive. Later members included Scherrie Payne (who replaced
Jean Terrell) and Susaye Greene and Lynda Laurence (who took Cindy
Birdsong’s place). The Supremes gave their final performance at London’s Drury Lane on
June 12, 1977, at which point Wilson disbanded the group and retired the
name. Ballard died of cardiac arrest in 1976, after falling on hard
times. In the early Eighties, the Supremes’ rags-to-riches life story
was turned into a successful Broadway musical, Dreamgirls. Inductees: Florence Ballard (born June 30, 1943, died February 22,
1976), Diana Ross (born March 26, 1944), Mary Wilson (born March 6,
1944)
They are the most-adored of all Motown’s groups,
who cleared a path with music – and much more – during a most turbulent
and exciting time. Their utterly distinctive sound and style sustains a
first-name acquaintance (Diana, Mary, Flo) and assures them a pedestal in the halls and history of American culture. Did we mention the twelve No. 1 hits? FAST FACTS
First hit: “Your Heart Belongs To Me”
Biggest hit: “Baby Love”
Top album: The Supremes A’Go-Go
Career highlight: Not one, not two, but three of their hits inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Four
young women – teenagers, to be accurate – sing together in Detroit in
1959: Betty McGlown, Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross. Two are
virtually the same age: Mary, born March 6, 1944, and Diana, born 20
days later. Two are born the same month in 1943: Florence (June 30) and
Betty. They form the Primettes, would-be showbiz sisters to the Primes, a
male group with two future Temptations in their midst, Eddie Kendricks
and Paul Williams.
The Primettes triumph in a talent contest in the summer of 1960, and
gain an audition at still-young Motown Records. No deal. (Meanwhile,
Betty leaves to get married, and is replaced by Barbara Martin.) They
record for another small label, but keep hanging around Hitsville.
Eventually, they make some music with Smokey Robinson, and sign a contract as the Supremes on January 15, 1961.
The early years are effectively hitless, despite this Billboard
review for “I Want A Guy,” the Supremes’ first 45: “An original,
r&b-flavored sound that could win big coin in both the pop and
r&b fields.” Coin worth calling “big” does not occur until 1964, by
which time Barbara Martin has left. The significant pop hits start with a
Top 30 tune in January, “When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His
Eyes,” and then, explosively, with “Where Does Our Love Go,” No. 1 in
August. “Plenty of jump in this one,” notes Billboard. It is the work of another trio: Holland/Dozier/Holland (Brian/Lamont/Eddie), Motown’s newest writing and production force.
America falls hard for the Supremes, blessing them with five
consecutive No. 1s during 1964-65 amid the British Invasion. After
“Where Did Our Love Go” comes “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “Stop!
In The Name Of Love” and “Back In My Arms Again.” Television, in
particular, loves them: the Supremes make no fewer than 20 appearances
on The Ed Sullivan Show from 1964-69.
Berry Gordy knows that nightclubs and concert halls will help to
propel the girls – with glamour, choreography and coiffure – to
superstardom. Their July 1965 debut at the Copacabana in New York
unlocks that door, while the records keep racing to No. 1: “You Can’t
Hurry Love,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” “Love Is Here And Now You’re
Gone,” “The Happening.” At the same time, Diana,
Mary and Flo prove their versatility with albums of country &
western favourites, British Invasion hits, Rodgers & Hart classics,
Christmas songs and Broadway showtunes.
In 1967, Florence Ballard departs, Cindy Birdsong steps into her
shoes, and Motown renames the group Diana Ross & the Supremes. After
a quartet of lesser chart placings, Berry Gordy cracks the whip, and
“Love Child” returns his star act to No. 1. This is followed by another
huge hit, “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me,” with the Temptations, a match
which is extended into hit TV specials in 1968-69.
Motown announces in November ’69 that Diana will
leave for a solo career, and that Jean Terrell will succeed her in the
trio. The last Supremes’ hit – No. 1, naturally – is “Someday We’ll Be
Together,” while Diana,
Mary and Cindy bid farewell with shows at the Frontier Hotel, Las Vegas
in January 1970. “It’s a two-for-one stock split,” declares Ed
Sullivan.
The
new Supremes hail the new year with a pair of Top 10 hits, “Up The
Ladder To The Roof” and “Stoned Love,” and a shrewd pairing with the
Four Tops. Further Top 20 tunes include “Nathan Jones” and “Floy Joy,”
while Lynda Laurence, Scherrie Payne and Susaye Greene pass through the
group as original member Mary remains the center of gravity. In 1976,
“You’re My Driving Wheel” is the Supremes’ last pop chart entry.
In 1983, Diana, Mary and Cindy are reunited at the finale of the Motown 25
TV special, and in 1988, the Supremes are inducted into the Rock &
Roll Hall of Fame. In 2015, they are named Top Girl Group of All Time by
Billboard. “The Supremes,” says understated Mary Wilson,
“throughout our long and successful history have been blessed with loyal
and devoted fans.”
The
quintessential girl group, the Supremes emerged as Motown’s leading
female artists after a disappointing start. Best known as a trio, the
Supremes started out as the Primettes. Original members included
Florence Ballard, Diane (Diana) Ross and Mary Wilson. Ballard left the
group in 1968 and was replaced by Cindy Birdsong. Success was slow
to come to the Supremes, whose records produced poor results for
several years after they signed with Motown. Despite their reputation
around Hitsville as the “no-hit” Supremes, Berry Gordy
continued to have faith in their appeal and abilities. The Supremes got
on track to fame in 1963 with the release of “When the Lovelight Starts
Shining Through His Eyes,” produced by Motown’s powerhouse trio, Brian
Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland. Holland-Dozier-Holland
went on to write and produce a string of hits for the group, starting
with “Where Did Our Love Go” in 1964. Mega-hits and international
stardom followed over the next three years: “Baby Love,” “Come See About
Me,” “Stop in the Name of Love” and “You Keep Me Hanging On,” which
received the 1966 Grammy for Best Pop Single.
The
Supremes, now noted for their style, elegance and stellar performances,
reached the top of the charts three times in 1966 with “I Hear a
Symphony,” “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “You Keep Me Hanging On.” Supremes
A’ Go-Go was the first album released by an all-female group to chart
at #1 on Billboard’s 200 list. Diana Ross, who had long
been the Supremes’ lead singer, was placed center stage in 1967 when the
group was renamed “Diana Ross and the Supremes.” She would later embark
on a solo singing career in 1970 and be replaced by Jean Terrell. Prior
to Ross’ departure, the group hit number-one on American pop charts
once more with “Someday We’ll Be Together.”
#TBT: The Supremes Become The First All-Woman Group To Top Billboard 200
On this day in 1966, "The Supremes A'
Go-Go" knocked The Beatles' "Revolver" off the top of the Billboard 200.
Celebrate with the album's two classic singles.
Colorlines Screenshot of the album art for The Supremes' "The Supremes A' Go-Go," taken from YouTube on October 22, 2015. Colorlines Screenshot Share
Before Destiny’s Child, TLC,
or any of those other era-defining all-woman vocal groups topped the
charts and captivated our imaginations, there was The Supremes.
Part of the chaotic and legendary Motown machine, The Supremes were
the label’s most commercially successful act throughout the 1960s.
Despite ongoing lineup changes and the emphasis Motown’s leaders put on
future-superstar Diana Ross over the group’s other members, The Supremes
commanded the world’s attention for their powerhouse voices and
tight musicality. On this day in 1966, while black artists were still struggling to
achieve the same fame as the white ones who were copying their
sound, the group cemented their position in music history when their
ninth album, “The Supremes A’-Go-Go,” knocked The Beatles’ “Revolver”
off the Billboard Top 200. With that, The Supremes became the group made
up entirely of women to reach number one in their home country,
dethroning the reigning British gods in the process. Today, The Supremes are still America’s vocal group with the most
chart success, with 12 Billboard Hot 100-topping singles to their name.
And Diana Ross, who started her solo career four years after this
success, became one of music history’s most iconic vocalists and
personalities. More importantly, the group paved the way for
African-American artists in every subsequent era to make their mark on
pop culture.
In honor of this Throwback Thursday, listen to the album’s two classic singles below.
As a founding member of The Supremes, Florence Ballard should have had it all. On the day Ballard would have turned 70, we look back on a life and career tragically cut short.
Florence Ballard
was born in Detroit on June 30, 1943, the ninth of fifteen children.
Young Florence moved all around the city as her father struggled to
support the large family while working at General Motors. When she was
fifteen, the family settled in the Brewster-Douglas housing project. Her
father died of cancer the following year.
Around
that time, she became friends with doo wop trio The Primes (two of whom
would later form The Temptations). When the group’s manager, Milton
Jenkins, decided to create a sister act called The Primettes, he made
Ballard its founding member. He also relied on her to find the rest of
the band. Ballard convinced Mary Wilson, whom she’d met at a talent
show, to join and also enlisted the services of her neighbor,
15-year-old Diane Ross. Betty McGlown – who was dating one of The Primes
at the time – was the final member of the quartet.
The
group played talent shows, sock hops and parties around Detroit and
landed an audition with Berry Gordy, head of what would eventually
become Motown Records. Gordy liked their sound but told them they were
too young and advised them to stay in school.
Not
long after, Ballard was raped at knife point by a high school
basketball player. She went into seclusion for a while, months later
finally telling her group mates about the attack. According to friends,
Ballard was not the same after the rape, becoming more distrustful,
pessimistic and self-destructive. She would later drop out of high
school, but managed eventually to rejoin The Primettes.
By
1960, Berry Gordy felt the girls were ready to record. Relaunched as
The Supremes – a name chosen by Ballard – the group was signed by Gordy
to Tamla Records. With Barbara Martin replacing Betty McGlown, The
Supremes released “I Want a Guy,” but the single failed to chart. Their
next release, “Buttered Popcorn,” would be the only one to feature
Ballard as the lone vocal lead. Though the song didn’t make a dent
nationally, it was a regional hit. Their next single, 1962’s “Your Heart Belongs To Me,” was their first under the Motown name, and their first to chart.
It was also the first to feature Diane Ross as the lead.
A
year later, Ross had taken over as the group’s lead vocalist, with the
others now mostly relegated to back up roles. The situation did not sit
well with Ballard – known as the ‘sassy’ one of the group, she was never
shy about expressing her opinions – but she wanted to stick with the
group anyway. Success didn’t come right away, however, and around the
the Hitsville U.S.A. studios, the group was jokingly referred to as “the
no-hit Supremes.” Finally, in 1964, they found their way to the top of
the charts with a tune they’d been reluctant to even record – “Where Did
Our Love Go.”
“Where
Did Our Love Go” began a remarkable run, with their next four singles
all reaching No. 1. Within a year The Supremes were international stars,
and were arguably the second most popular act in the world behind The
Beatles. They were one of the first African-American acts to achieve
crossover success with white audiences, recording movie soundtracks,
appearing in films, performing on "The Ed Sullivan Show" no fewer than
17 times, and even marketing their own brand of bread.
But
tensions in the group were simmering as it became clear that Berry
Gordy considered Ross – now going by Diana with an “a” – the star. When
Ballard came down with a sore throat before a show, Ross stepped in to
sing lead on Ballard’s signature song, “People.” After that, Gordy gave
the song to Ross. Depressed, Ballard battled with her weight and
alcohol, struggling at times to fit into her dresses, and missing shows
and recording dates because of her drinking. Berry Gordy quietly started
grooming another singer, Cindy Birdsong, to take her place – even going
so far as to secretly fly Birdsong to all Supremes shows just in case
Ballard failed to show up. Ballard got wind of the plot and reacted by
getting drunk before a show at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in 1967.
It would be the last time she took the stage as a Supreme.
Gordon
sent her packing back to Detroit. For her six-year tenure with The
Supremes – one that saw the group release ten No. 1 singles – she was
given a one-time payment of $139,804. As part of the agreement, she
wasn’t allowed to promote herself as a former Supreme or even mention
having been associated with Motown Records.
Nonetheless,
Ballard tried to launch a solo career following her dismissal from the
group, but after two singles that failed to chart, ABC Records shelved
her album. She took some time off to raise the three children she had
between 1968 and 1971. But in 1971, her husband left and her house was
foreclosed on. She sued Motown for additional royalties but lost. Just a
few years after founding the hottest group in country, she was on
welfare.
Ballard
began drinking heavily and put on more weight. Her fortunes improved a
bit when she won an insurance settlement and was able to buy a small
house for her family in Detroit. By 1975, she had reconciled with Diana
Ross and was talking about trying to relaunch her singing career. But years of hard living caught up with her. On February 21, 1976, she died from a blood clot in one of her arteries. She was just 32 years old.
Stevie
Wonder, The Four Tops, Mary Wilson and Diana Ross all came to Detroit’s
New Bethel Baptist Church to pay tribute to the founder of one of the
most important acts of the 1960s. Years later, when Jennifer Hudson won the Oscar for her role in Dreamgirls,
a movie inspired by The Supremes, she dedicated her award to Florence
Ballard, “who never got a chance” – an overstatement, perhaps, but one
that captures the sadness behind one of the more tragic tales of the
Motown era.
Although loosely based on The Supremes (above), the movie
Dreamgirls is a work of fiction. The real story of the 1960s girl
groups, however, changed American music forever.
(Michael Ochs Archives / Corbis)
by
Katy June-Friesen smithsonian.com
With three Golden Globe awards and eight Academy Award nominations, Dreamgirls
has renewed interest in the girl groups of the 1960s as well as Motown
Records, the Detroit-based company that became one of the most
influential labels of the time. The movie, based on the 1981 Broadway
play, tells the story of a small black record label and its star singers
whose success crosses over to the pop charts. Although loosely based on
The Supremes, the movie is a work of fiction. The real story of the
1960s girl groups, however, changed American music forever.
The girl group phenomenon reached its height between 1960 and 1963,
though many scholars recognize The Chantel's 1958 song "Maybe" as the
beginning of girl groups' commercial success. In 1961, The Shirelles
reached number one on the pop charts with "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?"
That same year, Motown got its first pop hit with The Marvelettes'
"Please Mr. Postman." A black-owned recording company having such a hit
was, at that time, revolutionary. Hundreds of girl groups recorded songs during the sixties, but
hardly any of them were seasoned musicians. The groups, usually made up
of three to five singers, often formed through glee clubs and high
schools, with many having backgrounds in church gospel music. Their
songs employed a lead voice with backup harmonies, and the music was a
hybrid of soul, rhythm and blues, pop and 1950's doo-wop.
"It's sort of the female corollary to doo-wop at the beginning," says Jacqueline Warwick, author of the new book Girl Groups, Girl Culture: Popular Music and Identityin the 1960's
and professor of music at Dalhousie University. "Whereas these teenage
boys, in cities like Detroit, can go out on the streets and kind of roam
around the neighborhood and sing harmonies with each other, girls
aren't so free to do that. So they're sitting at home or gathering at a
friend's house or they're sitting on the bench during basketball
practice at school, and doing the same kind of thing—harmonizing and
making up songs."
It wasn't uncommon for a group to get its big break at a high school talent show or, like The Dreamettes in the movie Dreamgirls, at a local talent contest. In the oral history Women of Motown
by veteran music critic Susan Whitall, former Marvelette Katherine
Anderson Schaffner talks about her group's Motown break: "We all sang in
the [Inkster High] School glee club; that was one of the classes we had
together. They announced that they were having a talent show. When they
announced that, Gladys asked why don't we go ahead and be a part of the
talent show. …We sang one of The Chantels' numbers—I'm thinking it was
'Maybe.' We lost! But because of our performance, one of our
teachers…when it came time to audition for Motown—because that was a
part of what your winnings would be, to audition for Motown—she
recommended that they take the top five. And we were fourth."
The girls went to Detroit for an audition, and eventually, they
kick-started the Motown hit machine that would later call itself "The
Sound of Young America." Teen Culture
The success of girl groups had much to do with the market. The
post-war baby boom had produced more teenagers than ever before, and the
1950s brought the explosion of a new teen culture with its own music,
clothes, movies and dancing. Teenage life became synonymous with pop
culture, and with many of these teenagers having money to spend, the
record market flourished. Teenagers listening to popular music during this time heard songs
with voices that sounded like their own. They watched performers on
stage who were their age. For American girls to see female groups was
something new. "That really had never happened before and it really
hasn't happened since," says Warwick. "We get young teenage girls at
front and center in mainstream pop culture." Crossing Color Lines
In the 1950s and 1960s, the R&B (Rhythm and Blues) charts were
"black" charts and the pop charts were "white." But girl groups—from the
black The Marvelettes to the white The Shangri-Las—were popular with a
mixed audience from the beginning. In Motown, founder Berry Gordy aimed
to make music with widespread pop charts appeal.
Certainly whites (particularly young
people) had been listening to black music before girl groups came on the
scene, and black artists had made the pop charts before. Nat King Cole
reached the charts in 1946 with "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66," which
made the top ten. In the 1950s, Chuck Berry had songs at the top of the
R&B and pop charts, as did Little Richard. And it wasn't only
men—Ruth Brown's "Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean" was number one on
the R&B charts in 1953, and number 23 on the pop charts.
Yet before girl groups, it was easier for a song to cross over than
for artists themselves to do, says Warwick. And, of course, white
artists also re-recorded songs done by black artists. "We listen to Pat
Boone covering Little Richard songs now and it's just laughable," she
says, "but at the time that was a real phenomenon. Little Richard's song
'Tutti Frutti' [could] access that white suburban middle-class
audience, but Little Richard himself [couldn't] do that. With girl
groups, that becomes more possible." That isn't to say teenagers weren't also listening to the original
Little Richard. But in Motown, Berry Gordy knew he could achieve both
the musical and social aspect of crossover with well-groomed, sweet
young girls.
Finding the Words
Girl groups subject matter articulated a common teenage experience,
regardless of race, even as the culture around them was slow to catch
up. They sang to mixed audiences about courtship, boys, parties, parents
and parents not letting them go to parties to court boys. But they also
sang about love and crushes, mostly from the position of a patiently
waiting, yearning girl. This seemingly passive attitude and general lack
of depth in song subject matter makes it easy to dismiss girl groups
music as trivial and, in contemporary terms, less than radical.
But
the songs were sometimes closer to real life than expected. For
instance, "Please Mr. Postman" is in some ways a classic girl group
song, with a girl waiting for a letter from a boy. But this song
inevitably gained meaning from the times in which it was heard. Schaffner of The Marvelettes talks about the song's political
significance in Marc Taylor's book The Original Marvelettes: Motown's
Mystery Girl Group. "We were all surprised when 'Postman' hit so big,"
she says. "The most surprised was Motown. But then again, hindsight is
that there was a lot going on when 'Postman' was released. We were into,
or going into the Vietnam War. We had a lot of young men that were
leaving home for the first time going into the military, and, of course,
some never returned. The timing of 'Postman' was excellent. When my
brother went into the military, I know how anxious I or my mother or
sister would be looking for a letter or something like that from him."
The girl group era was also the civil rights era. Freedom Rides
began through the South in 1961, and in 1963 at the March on Washington,
Martin Luther King Jr., delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. That
same year, four teenage girls were killed in the bombing of the
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Because of
events like this, says Warwick, the figure of the non-white teenage girl
was being politicized in America. And the same non-threatening, pure
quality that was letting black girl groups cross over into white culture
was giving young women force in the civil rights movement. "If you
think about the Little Rock Nine in Arkansas in 1967," she says, "of
nine black teenagers chosen to integrate the schools, six of them were
girls. And all that very famous footage of Elizabeth Eckford…going to
school that first day. So the emblem of the teenage girl is being imbued
with a lot of political significance."
In the entertainment world, The Supremes—arguably the most
successful girl group of all time—began playing venues that had been
hard for black musicians to book. They were also among the first black
musicians to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. "For them to be on
Ed Sullivan—almost every week it seemed like—that was a tremendous,
incredible influence," Whitall remembers. "I was just overcome every
week by this, these incredible visions, they were just such beautiful
girls in these beautiful gowns, singing the music that I was listening
to all week on the radio. … And I'd even think—and this is where it gets
interesting racially—oh, I want to look like Mary Wilson, she's
beautiful."
Even when girl groups didn't set out make political statements or
songs, the politically charged times came to them. In 1967, Martha and
The Vandellas were singing in Detriot when the riots broke out. From the
stage, they told the audience what was happening outside. Everywhere
they went on tour that summer, there were riots. Soon people started
talking about how the group's hit song "Dancing in the Streets" was
about social uprising. This was not what Martha Reeves thought of when
she sang the song. In Women of Motown, she says, "What I related
the song to was my experience in Rio at Carnival time, and in New
Orleans at Mardi Gras. It was a time for people to forget who they are
and just get with each other to be happy and loving and dance and
rejoice."
The Sounds
In Motown, Berry Gordy had a specific formula for making a hit
song. He gathered a stellar group of area jazz musicians (all men),
known collectively as The Funk Brothers. He stuck with a select group of
songwriters who were told to write songs in first person and present
tense. The Motown sound was characterized by a straight-forward,
grounded beat (bass and drums) and melodic hook. It also employed
call-and-response vocals and heavy use of tambourine. In New York, Phil
Spector produced girl group songs using his famous "wall of sound," a
production technique that employed a huge amount of instruments and
layered track after track on top of each other. He created a thick,
roaring, echoing sound, like The Ronettes' recording of "Be My Baby."
"Musically, the girl group sound—and popular music at the time in
general—was drawing on a lot different sources," says Warwick. "There
are girl group songs that are based on blues progressions… But there's
also some that sound more like Tin Pan Alley songs—almost like Broadway
numbers." The girls rarely wrote their own songs, but neither did the male
groups of the time. Instead, says Whitall, it was more of a movie studio
system. "This is not a singer-songwriter thing, where they were coming
in with their own material," she says.
But the success of girl groups had to do with more than harmony and
lyrics. It was about the whole performance—how they moved, the clothes
they wore, how big their hair was. In Motown, Gordy hired finishing
school teacher Maxine Powell to teach the girls how to walk and talk. He
also brought in professional choreographers. All of this was part of
his effort—embraced by the girls—to convey a middle-class
respectability.
Outside Motown, The Shangri-Las were
singing songs about good girls loving bad boys, such as "Leader of the
Pack." In the mid-to-late 1960s, they took on more of a tough girl
image, wearing spike heels and tight leather pants to match their
delinquent themes. The Ronettes, who were biracial, also became famous
for their bad-girl short skirts, high-piled hair and thick eyeliner. Male promoters did have ultimate control over the groups, and in
what is arguably a tradition in the recording industry, some musicians
were exploited: they didn't get credit for their work, it was released
under a different name or they didn't get royalties.
But for many girls, fame also offered an array of new opportunities. In Women of Motown,
The Marvelettes' Schaffner says, "I loved going on the road. As with
many artists who lived in the black community at that time, it was an
avenue that allowed you to travel to other cities and states and gave
you that 'out.'" Of course, some of the girls were so young that
chaperones accompanied them on tour—sometimes their parents.
End of an Era
The girl group boom began to fizzle in the late 1960s, in part
because of the British Invasion. But The Beatles themselves were
obsessed with American girl groups and even sang girl group songs,
including "Please Mr. Postman," The Shirelles' "Baby It's You" and The
Cookies' "Chains."
The
only girl group able to compete with The Beatles on the American charts
was The Supremes, who maintained popularity into the early 1970s, even
though Diana Ross had left the group. Yet The Supremes aren't
necessarily representative of the rest of girl group culture. Says
Warwick, "Even from the very beginning, their songs are a little more
adult in the themes," such as in the songs "Where Did Our love Go" and
"Stop in the Name of Love." These grown-up themes contrast with The
Shangri-Las singing healsongs about teenage drama. "At Motown, The
Marvelettes, The Velvelettes, groups like that, are much more clearly
identified as teenagers," she says, "and arguably that's why The
Supremes had more longevity. They were able to transition into becoming
adults with greater ease." One thing is certain: by the time the women's movement arrived in
the late 1960s, there was a generation of women used to standing on the
stage and telling the world how they felt. In an era of cultural
upheaval, girl groups helped articulate the personal experiences of
teenagers—of all races—who were living through tremendous political
upheaval.
October 25, 1966 Supremes A’ Go-Go by The Supremes #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, October 22 – November 4, 1966
When the Supremes earned five consecutive
#1 pop hits in 1964-65, they established themselves as Motown’s great
mainstream hope. Berry Gordy and company eagerly stoked the group’s
crossover appeal, stuffing Supremes LPs with pop standards and ballads
and constructing albums themed around the British Invasion and country
and western to prove their versatility and expand their fanbase.
While these albums featured a few gems and
sold reasonably well — they were released by the Supremes in the
mid-’60s, after all — they missed the point of what made the group
great.
Finally, someone at Motown HQ had a simple,
yet brilliant, idea: since the Supremes made their name with danceable
R&B hits, why not release an album full of danceable R&B hits?
The result, 1966’s Supremes A’ Go-Go, became not only the group’s first #1 album, but the first #1 album by an all-female group.
In addition to two of the group’s most
recent hits, “Love is Like an Itching in My Heart” and “You Can’t Hurry
Love,” the tracklist of Supremes A’ Go-Go is fleshed out with songs that had been recent successes for other artists, many of them fellow Motown acts. No one knew the Supremes better than their writing/production team Holland-Dozier-Holland, so fittingly, the bulk of the album consists of songs penned by the trio. Only two new songs feature on Supremes A’ Go-Go, both of which had already been released as singles, but they stand as two of the Supremes’ all-time best. The album opens with “Love is Like an Itching in My Heart,” one of
the few Supremes singles of the era not to top the pop charts, “only”
making it to #9. While it may not have been one of the group’s biggest
hits, its driving, funky sound perfectly sets up the album to come, as
well as presaging heavier Supremes singles like “Reflections” and “You
Keep Me Hangin’ On.” The Supremes did manage to score a #1 with “You Can’t Hurry Love,”
one of the group’s most enduring classics — not only for its catchy
melody and tight, bouncy arrangement, but because it marked the turning
point where the Supremes began incorporating a more soulful,
sophisticated style. The rest of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s contributions to Supremes A’ Go-Go
had previously been hits for other Motown acts, including the Four
Tops, the Isley Brothers, and Martha & the Vandellas. The one
exception is also the most compelling of the non-singles. “Put Yourself
in My Place” had been recorded the previous year by the Elgins as the
B-side to their debut single, “Darling Baby,” but it would surely be new
to most people who bought Supremes A’ Go-Go. While the melody of “Put Yourself in My Place” wasn’t as airtight as
the singles Holland-Dozier-Holland were producing for the Supremes, it
has a shimmering, wistful quality that stood out from the rest of the
album while still feeling well-suited to the group’s sound, especially
Diana Ross’s little-girl vocals. The other Holland-Dozier-Holland songs on Supremes A’ Go-Go
are consistently well done, if never quite matching the originals. The
fact that several of these tracks were recorded in LA rather than
Detroit, without the benefit of Motown’s studio band the Funk Brothers,
gives them a somewhat tidier, less powerful sound as well. Still, it’s a treat to hear the Supremes reclaim the Isley Brothers’
“This Old Heart of Mine (is Weak for You),” which itself had borrowed a
hook from “Back in My Arms Again,” or tackle a sped-up, energized
version of the Four Tops’ “Baby I Need Your Loving.” A cover of the
Vandellas’ “Come and Get These Memories” allows Mary Wilson a deserved
moment in the spotlight, even if her interpretation doesn’t add anything
new.
The Supremes’ version of “Shake Me, Wake Me (When It’s Over),”
however, rivals the Four Tops’ hit version, with Ross ably matching Levi
Stubbs not in vocal power, but in raw anguish In addition to the Holland-Dozier-Holland hits, Supremes A’ Go-Go
features two other Motown classics. The Supremes’ take on “Money
(That’s What I Want),” penned by Berry Gordy and originally performed by
Barrett Strong, is a fun nod to Motown’s early days, if not
particularly inventive. “Get Ready,” on the other hand, may not quite match the Temptations’ original,
but it could have easily been a hit in its own right, perhaps even
surpassing the legendarily disappointing chart performance that ended
Smokey Robinson’s tenure of writing for the Tempts.
Only two tracks on Supremes A’ Go-Go
originated outside the Motown hit factory, and appropriately enough,
they’re two of the album’s least interesting. Ross leaves her groupmates
behind for a solo take on “These Boots are Made for Walkin’,” but she
lacks the archness and assertive sexuality that made Nancy Sinatra’s version
so enticing and the absence of Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard’s
backing vocals is keenly felt. The Supremes reunite for the closing
track, “Hang On Sloopy,” which is decent but inessential. (Isn’t there
another Four Tops song the girls could put their own spin on?)
While every track on Supremes A’ Go-Go
may not be a classic, the album hangs together as a whole and
represents the Supremes’ distinctive sound well, which is more than
could be said of most of the group’s previous cobbled-together affairs.
Its pop success also stood out from the sea of white male artists who
usually dominated the era’s albums charts.
Not only was Supremes A’ Go-Go the first #1 album by a female group, it was only the second chart-topping Motown LP ever (after Little Stevie Wonder’s Recorded Live: The 12-Year-Old Genius three years earlier), and the only #1 album that year by African-American artists. Supremes A’ Go-Go
may not be the defining artistic of the sort that labelmates Marvin
Gaye and Stevie Wonder would release a few years later, but its
artistic cohesion and mainstream popularity hinted that Motown had more
to offer than killer singles.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
Baby, baby, where did the time go? The Supremes scored their first
No. 1 single more than four decades ago with “Where Did Our Love Go.”
Truth be told, however, trio co-founder Mary Wilson never could stand
their breakthrough hit.
“It seemed like it didn’t have any soul,”
she told The Plain Dealer in 2004 before an appearance at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. “I still don’t like the song.” Her visit
coincided with the unveiling of “Reflections: The Mary Wilson Supreme
Legacy Collection,” an exhibit featuring the fashion statements of
Motown’s greatest girl group.
The other original Supremes – Diana
Ross and Florence Ballard (who died in 1976) – didn’t love “Where Did
Our Love Go” at first, either, Wilson said by phone from her home in Las
Vegas. “We wanted a ‘Heat Wave’ or a ‘Dancing in the Street,’
like Martha and the Vandellas,” she said. “Those songs were soulful. . .
. Then they brought us this song.”
She proceeded to sing: “Baby, baby, where did our love go . . .”
The
Supremes thought it was “bubble gum,” Wilson said. The songwriting team
of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr. assured them the
tune was a smash.
“We had to record it,” Wilson said. “We had no choice.”
For
the Supremes, “Where Did Our Love Go” was the first of a dozen
chart-toppers, including “Baby Love,” “Stop! In the Name of Love” and —
one of Wilson’s personal favorites — “You Can’t Hurry Love.”
A
string of more than 30 Top 40 singles in the 1960s and 1970s made the
Supremes a cornerstone of the Detroit-based Motown empire, aka
“Hitsville U.S.A.”
“It’s an amazing legacy. . . . The songs of the
Supremes are burned into people’s minds,” said Pat Lawrence, senior
vice president of Universal Music Enterprises. The record company’s
“Motown 1*s,” a compilation of digitally remastered hits by the
Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations and others, was released last
week.
Wilson is at a loss to explain the enduring appeal of Motown in general and the Supremes in particular.
“Everyone grew up on this music,” she said. “I don’t know what makes it good music. . . . All I do is sing it and dance to it.”
SONGS: "Stop! In the Name of Love," "You Can't Hurry Love," "Someday We'll Be Together."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sally O’Rourke works in an office and sometimes writes about music. She
blogs about every song to ever top the Billboard Hot 100 (in order) at No Hard Chords. She has also contributed to The Singles Jukebox, One Week // One Band, and PopMatters.
Special interests include girl groups, soul pop, and over-analyzing
chord changes and lyrics as if deciphering a secret code. She was born
in Baton Rouge and lives in Manhattan. Her favorite Nugget is “Liar,
Liar” by The Castaways.
SOPHISTICATED LADIES Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson and Diana Ross in 1966.Credit
Everett Collection
MARY
WILSON was 13 and an aspiring pop diva with little cash to spare and
even fewer role models. But she had a notion of what a star should look
like.
“I
used to think I was Doris Day,” Ms. Wilson said. “She was cute and
perky and that was me. For a while in our group, I was the blonde.”
Her
group, the Supremes, and its rags-to-riches story from the streets of
Detroit in the 1960s to the top of the Billboard charts, was the
inspiration for “Dreamgirls,” the hit 1981 Broadway musical and a film,
which opened Friday in New York.
Ms.
Wilson’s gilded coif predated the bottle-blonde hairstyles adopted by
modern performers like Mary J. Blige. For a young black woman in those
days, the choice was audacious. And that was the point.
“In
those days rock ’n’ roll singers were not really glamorous,” she said.
“We were totally into glamour and we did it all ourselves.”
Long
before fashion stylists commandeered the red carpet, the Primettes, as
the Supremes were then known, routinely foraged at the five and dime for
jewelry and spiky false eyelashes, and stitched up their fancy gowns at
home. The aim, radical in its day, was to inject a little
sophistication into the raw world of rhythm and blues, Ms. Wilson said.
That standard of sophistication, she added pointedly, was defined by
white society.
The
group’s evolution, as mimicked in “Dreamgirls,” may make audiences ooh
and ahh when it opens nationally on Christmas Day. But the
transformation narrative is real: Ambitious girls from the projects,
tricked out in bad wigs and decorously tatty dresses, turn into soignée
birds of paradise, eclipsing most of their white female counterparts on
the concert stage.
“We
definitely started that trend of glamour, of girl groups getting
dressed up,” Ms. Wilson said. “Just like in the ‘Dreamgirls’ movie, when
they were trying to make us into a classier kind of group that could
play the clubs,” she said. “We did that.”
Ms.
Wilson, 62, who still performs in a solo act and who lives in Las
Vegas, said the group’s style was the amalgam of self-will, lofty
visions and the well-meaning advice of hairdressers, friends and
television advisers. But much of it was strictly their own.
Beyoncé Knowles, Anika Noni Rose and Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls.”Credit
David James/Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks
Under
the dictatorial watch of Berry Gordy, the legendary hitmaker and chief
of Motown Records, the group polished its image, setting a standard for
sophistication and dazzle that still holds up, even among all the overly
handled, hyper-invented stars of today. To this day, it is rarely
rivaled on the concert stage.
Gordy’s
objective “was to transcend what every other previous girl group had
been,” by conceiving a signature style for the group, said Howard
Kramer, the curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and
Museum in Cleveland, which did a retrospective of Supremes costumes two
years ago.
“Before
the Supremes, the look was smart and simple, like the Shirelles; sassy
and sexy like the Ronettes, or tomboyish and provocative like the
Shangri-Las,” Mr. Kramer said. “But no one had ever done cocktail classy
or set out to utilize certain visual signifiers that made them
palatable to a white audience.”
At
the time there were few models a young African-American woman could
emulate. “A lot of times black faces couldn’t be on album covers, and
you didn’t know who was in a group,” said Sharen Davis, the costume
designer for the movie version of “Dreamgirls,” and herself a member of
a girl group in the 1970s. Apart from Lena Horne or Diahann Carroll,
“there were few black women on TV. There were no African-American role
models really.”
Ms. Wilson said her style icons included Sophia Loren and the McGuire Sisters.
Some
have suggested that Martha and the Vandellas, another highly successful
black girl group in the ’60s, was an early fashion influence. Not so,
Ms. Wilson insisted.
“They
had the hit records first,” she said. “We would have loved to be as
soulful. But they would have loved to have our glamour.”
André
Leon Talley, the Vogue editor at large, said a young African-American
woman in the ’60s aspiring to chic could look to only two icons: Audrey
Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy of the White House years. Until the Supremes.
“Those
shimmery dresses — for the first time I think people saw women of color
looking affluent on TV,” said Mr. Talley, an ardent fan as a youth.
“The Supremes were living the dream, looking impeccable and flawless to a
fault.” For many young fans, black or white, he said, they represented a
new fashionable ideal.
Patrick
O’Connell, the publicity director for Vogue, recalled his first
reaction. “I remember as kid of 8 or 9 growing up in rural Wisconsin,
looking at my mother’s album covers and being so mystified, being just
awestruck,” he said. “They had great style. The broke the mold. They set
the example.”
Yet
the Supremes were not the first black singers in spangled gowns. Ms.
Davis, who also was the costume designer for the movie “Ray,” said Ray
Charles told her that he was the first musician to have three backup
girls.
Cindy Birdsong, left, Diana Ross and Mary Wilson of Diana Ross and the Supremes in late 1960s.Credit
Bettman/Corbis
“He
was fixated on their wardrobes,” Ms. Davis said. “It was amazing
because he couldn’t see. But the ladies behind him always had to be
elegant.”
Acquiring
a high-bred signature look was a calculated appeal to younger audiences
and essential to the group’s mainstream success. “In the late 1950s and
’60s, that visual element became so important,” Ms. Davis said. Before
that, it was strictly about the music. “People used to buy an album —
they were into the sound. But when TV came along, these kids were into a
look.”
Ms.
Wilson said the Supremes, who were just teenagers when they first
performed professionally, acquired their look on a schoolgirl budget.
“We would go to Woolworth’s and buy our pearls,” Ms. Wilson recalled. “We’d buy Butterick patterns and make our own dresses.”
Ms.
Wilson still owns most of the gowns, earrings and corsets she wore
playing clubs like the Copacabana in New York and the Eden Roc in Miami.
She treasures the crystal-spattered white satin mermaid showstopper she
wore at the Palladium in London at a command performance for the Queen
Mother. When they are not on exhibit at museums like the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame and the Metropolitan in New York, the dresses are kept
sealed inside a steamer trunk, she said.
Among the most memorable, she said, are the orange and beige balloon-shaped cocktail dresses the group wore early in its career.
“Diana
and I made them ourselves,” she recalled, referring to Diana Ross, the
lead singer. Ms. Wilson said they clearly were inspirations for a few of
the Dreamettes’ looks.
They
may even have inspired the orange sherbet-colored cocktail dresses the
Dreamettes wore at their Detroit debut, an early scene in “Dreamgirls”
when they perform “Move” in pert-looking frocks with box pleats and
genteelly scooped necklines.
“The
idea at the beginning was that they had to look like their mothers made
their dresses,” Ms. Davis said. “The concept is, it’s almost a church
dress. Their parents would not have been into spending money on
something they could wear just to perform.”
By
the mid-1960s, the Supremes had traded up, shopping at Hudson’s, then
the top department store in Detroit. With early hits like “Where Did Our
Love Go,” and “Baby Love,” “we could afford to buy really high end
gowns,” Ms. Wilson said. “Saks Fifth Avenue was the shop we put all our
money in. I put all my money on clothes.”
The Supremes at a royal performance in England in 1968.Credit
Peter King/Fox/Getty Images
From
club dates, the group moved to television, on shows like “Hullabaloo”
and “The Ed Sullivan Show,” their costumes designed by Michael Travis, a
former apprentice of Bob Mackie. The array of colors and the beading in
those days were spectacular, Ms. Wilson recalled. “Some of those gown
weighed 35 pounds.”
“As
Diane used to say,” she said, using Ms. Ross’s original first name,
“and a lot of people got angry — ‘I know a lot of little old ladies went
blind beading those dresses.’ ”
In
designing for the Dreamettes, Ms. Davis also looked to Diana Ross and
Cher, she said. “Those women were always very sexy, very sleek and never
trashy,” she said. “Cher’s beautiful long hair and eyelashes just
mesmerized me.”
For
the film, the hair and makeup team scoured a handful of discount stores
in Los Angeles to try to replicate the fantastically sculptured wigs
that became a Supremes hallmark.
“That
was literally what those girl groups would do,” said Tym Buacharern,
the chief makeup artist for “Dreamgirls.” “They went to the ‘hood and
picked out their wigs.”
The
makeup — triple rows of false eyelashes, feline liner, searing
coral-tone lips — was trickier. Mr. Buacharern leafed through countless
old issues of Ebony, Jet and Playboy, and viewed grainy footage of “The
Sonny and Cher Show,” only to learn that, by contemporary standards,
“the colors were off.”
“The
cosmetic industry didn’t really cater to women of color,” he said. “In
making the movie, we could actually correct that, finding just the right
orange to match the skin tone of African-American women.”
Match
or not, Ms. Wilson is sticking with her trademark orange lipstick,
Cleopatra green eye shadow and artificial sunburst lashes. “I never
stopped putting them in.”
“I’m
still basically stuck in the ’60s,” Ms. Wilson added unabashedly. As
for her curve-hugging mermaid-shaped gowns, “I’ve got great legs and I
like to show them,” she said. She still treasures but does not wear “our
first long gown, a black sheath like Audrey Hepburn wore. I think we
bought it at Saks.”
Missing
from her panoply is a sumptuous white fur stole that Florence Ballard
used to wear. (Ballard, the model for Effie, the Dreamettes lead singer,
was replaced by Cindy Birdsong in 1967 and died of a heart attack in
1976 at 32.)
“I
used to tell Florence, if you ever die, girl, you got to will me that
coat,” Ms. Wilson said wistfully. “Wish someone could tell me what
happened to that coat.”
THE MUSIC OF THE SUPREMES: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH THE SUPREMES:
The Supremes were an American female singing group and the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Founded as The Primettes in Detroit,
Michigan, in 1959, the Supremes were the most commercially successful
of Motown's acts and are, to date, America's most successful vocal group[2] with 12 number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100.[3] Most of these hits were written and produced by Motown's main songwriting and production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. At their peak in the mid-1960s, the Supremes rivaled the Beatles in worldwide popularity,[3] and it is said that their success made it possible for future African American R&B and soul musicians to find mainstream success.[3] Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross, and Betty McGlown, the original group, are all from the Brewster-Douglass public housing project in Detroit.[4] They formed the Primettes as the sister act to the Primes (with Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, who went on to form the Temptations).[4]Barbara Martin
replaced McGlown in 1960, and the group signed with Motown the
following year as the Supremes. Martin left the act in early 1962, and
Ross, Ballard, and Wilson carried on as a trio.
During the mid-1960s, the Supremes achieved mainstream success with Ross as lead singer and Holland-Dozier-Holland as its songwriting and production team. In 1967, Motown president Berry Gordy renamed the group Diana Ross & the Supremes, and replaced Ballard with Cindy Birdsong. Ross left to pursue a solo career in 1970 and was replaced by Jean Terrell, so the group's name reverted to The Supremes. During the mid-1970s, the lineup changed with Lynda Laurence, Scherrie Payne and Susaye Greene joining the group until, after 18 years, The Supremes disbanded in 1977.
History
Origins
Frederick Douglass Housing Project in Detroit
In Detroit in 1958, Florence Ballard, a junior high school student living in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects, met Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, who were two members of a Detroit singing group known as the Primes.[4] Ballard sang, as did Paul Williams' girlfriend Betty McGlown, so Milton Jenkins, the Primes's manager, decided to create a sister group to be called the Primettes.[4] Ballard recruited her best friend Mary Wilson, who recruited classmate Diana Ross.[4] Mentored and funded by Jenkins, the Primettes began by performing hit songs of artists such as Ray Charles and the Drifters at sock hops, social clubs and talent shows around the Detroit area.[4] Receiving additional guidance from group friend and established songwriter Jesse Greer, the quartet quickly earned a local fan following.[5] The girls crafted an age-appropriate style that was inspired by the collegiate dress of popular doo-wop group Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers;[6] and, for the most part, Ballard, Ross and Wilson performed equal leads on songs. Within a few months, guitarist Marvin Tarplin
was added to the Primettes' lineup— a move that helped distinguish the
group from Detroit's many other aspiring acts by allowing the girls to
sing live instead of lip-synching.[7] After winning a prestigious local talent contest,[8] the Primettes' sights were set on making a record. In hopes of getting the group signed to the local upstart Motown label, in 1960 Ross asked an old neighbor, Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson, to help the group land an audition for Motown executive Berry Gordy,[9] who had already proven himself a capable songwriter.[10] Robinson liked "the girls" (as they were then known around Motown)[11]
and agreed to help, but he liked their guitarist even more; with the
Primettes' permission he hired Tarplin, who became the guitarist for the
Miracles.[9] Robinson arranged for the Primettes to audition a cappella
for Gordy—but Gordy, feeling the girls too young and inexperienced to
be recording artists, encouraged them to return when they had graduated
from high school.[9][11] Undaunted, later that year the Primettes recorded a single for Lu Pine Records, a label created just for them, titled "Tears of Sorrow", which was backed with "Pretty Baby".[12] The single failed to find an audience, however.[13] Shortly thereafter, McGlown became engaged and left the group.[14] Local girl Barbara Martin was McGlown's prompt replacement.[13] Determined to leave an impression on Gordy and join the stable of rising Motown stars, the Primettes frequented his Hitsville U.S.A. recording studio every day after school.[15]
Eventually, they convinced Gordy to allow them to contribute hand claps
and background vocals for the songs of other Motown artists including Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells.[16]
In January 1961, Gordy finally relented and agreed to sign the girls to
his label – but under the condition that they change the name of their
group.[17] The Primes had by this time combined with Otis Williams & the Distants and would soon sign to Motown as the Temptations.[18]
Gordy gave Ballard a list of names to choose from that included
suggestions such as "the Darleens", "the Sweet Ps", "the Melodees", "the
Royaltones" and "the Jewelettes".[19]
Ballard chose "the Supremes", a name that Ross initially disliked as
she felt it too masculine. Nevertheless, on January 15 the group signed
with Motown as the Supremes.[20] In the spring of 1962, Martin left the group to start a family. Thus, the newly named Supremes continued as a trio.[21] Between 1961 and 1963, the Supremes released six singles, none of which charted in the Top 40 positions of the Billboard Hot 100.[3] Jokingly referred to as the "no-hit Supremes" around Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. offices,[22]
the group attempted to compensate for their lack of hits by taking on
any work available at the studio, including providing hand claps and
singing backup for Motown artists such as Marvin Gaye and the Temptations.
During these years, all three members took turns singing lead: Wilson
favored soft ballads, Ballard favored soulful, hard-driving songs, and
Ross favored mainstream pop songs. Most of their early material was
written and produced by Berry Gordy or Smokey Robinson.[23] In December 1963, the single "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes" peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100.[24] "Lovelight" was the first of many Supremes songs written by the Motown songwriting and production team known as Holland–Dozier–Holland.[25] In late 1963, Berry Gordy chose Diane Ross — who began going by "Diana" in 1965[26]—as the official lead singer of the group.[27]
Ballard and Wilson were periodically given solos on Supremes albums,
and Ballard continued to sing her solo number, "People", in concert for
the next two years.[28] In the spring of 1964, the Supremes recorded the single "Where Did Our Love Go".[27] The song was originally intended by Holland-Dozier-Holland for the Marvelettes, who rejected it.[27] Although the Supremes disliked the song, the producers coerced them into recording it.[27] In August 1964, while the Supremes toured as part of Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars, "Where Did Our Love Go" reached number one on the US pop charts, much to the surprise and delight of the group.[29] It was also their first song to appear on the UK pop charts, where it reached number three.
The Supremes deliberately embraced a more glamorous image than
previous black performers. Much of this was accomplished at the behest
of Motown chief Berry Gordy and Maxine Powell, who ran Motown's in-house finishing school and Artist Development department.[32]
Unlike many of her contemporaries, Ross sang in a thin, calm voice, and
her vocal styling was matched by having all three women embellish their
femininity instead of imitate the qualities of male groups. Eschewing
plain appearances and basic dance routines, the Supremes appeared
onstage in detailed make-up and high-fashion gowns and wigs, and
performed graceful choreography created by Motown choreographer Cholly Atkins. Powell told the group to "be prepared to perform before kings and queens."[32] Gordy wanted the Supremes, like all of his performers, to be equally appealing to black and white audiences,[33] and he sought to erase the image of black performers as being unrefined or lacking class.
Public magazines such as Time and The Detroit News commented on the Supremes' polished presentation.[34]Time
called the Supremes "the pride of Detroit" and described them as "three
thrushes who have a touch of gospel and sweet lyrics like 'I'm standing
at the crossroads of love'."[34] Arnold S. Hirsch of The Detroit News
said about the Supremes: "they don't scream or wail incoherently. An
adult can understand nine out of every 10 words they sing. And, most
astounding, melody can be clearly detected in every song."[34]
In addition, unlike most American vocal groups, the group members
became easily identifiable by their fans, thanks partially to the cover
of their album, More Hits by the Supremes, which each member was pictured separately on the front, with her signature above it.
By 1965, the Supremes were international stars. They toured the world, becoming almost as popular abroad as they were in the US.[35][36]
Almost immediately after their initial number-one hits, they recorded
songs for motion picture soundtracks, appeared in the 1965 film Beach Ball,
and endorsed dozens of products, at one point having their own brand of
bread. By the end of 1966, their number-one hits included "I Hear a Symphony", "You Can't Hurry Love" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On".[37] That year the group also released The Supremes A' Go-Go, which on October 22 became the first album by an all-female group to reach number one on the US Billboard 200, knocking the Beatles' Revolver out of the top spot.[38]
Because the Supremes were popular with white audiences as well as with black ones, Gordy had the group cater to its middle American audience with performances at renowned supper clubs such as the Copacabana in New York.[39]
Broadway and pop standards were incorporated into their repertoire
alongside their own hit songs. As a result, the Supremes became one of
the first black musical acts to achieve complete and sustained crossover
success. Black rock and roll
musicians of the 1950s had seen many of their original hit tunes
covered by white musicians, with these covers usually achieving more
fame and sales success than the originals. The Supremes' success,
however, counteracted this trend. Featuring three group members who were
marketed for their individual personalities (a move unprecedented at
the time) and Diana Ross's pop-friendly voice, the Supremes broke down
racial barriers with rock and roll songs underpinned by R&B
stylings. The group became extremely popular both domestically and
abroad, becoming one of the first black musical acts to appear regularly
on television programs such as Hullabaloo, The Hollywood Palace, The Della Reese Show, and, most notably, The Ed Sullivan Show, on which they made 17 appearances.[32]
The Supremes' cross-cultural success effectively paved the way for the
mainstream success of contemporaneous label mates such as the
Temptations, the Four Tops and the Jackson 5.
Changes
Problems within the group and within Motown Records' stable of
performers led to tension among the members of the Supremes. Many of the
other Motown performers felt that Berry Gordy was lavishing too much
attention upon the group and upon Ross, in particular.[3]
In early 1967, the name of the act was officially changed briefly to
"the Supremes with Diana Ross" before changing again to "Diana Ross
& the Supremes" by mid-summer. The Miracles had become "Smokey
Robinson & the Miracles" two years prior. The fall of 1967 saw
Martha & the Vandellas become "Martha Reeves & the Vandellas".[40] Having learned that Ross would receive top billing, David Ruffin lobbied, unsuccessfully, to have the Temptations renamed as "David Ruffin & the Temptations",[41]
although Gordy maintained that because they would be providing two
acts, a lead singer and a group, Motown could demand more money for live
bookings.[42] The Supremes' name change fueled already present rumors of a solo
career for Ross and contributed to the professional and personal
dismantling of the group. In fact, Gordy intended to replace Ross with Barbara Randolph as early as the fall of 1966, but changed his mind and instead kept Ross in the group for several more years.[43]
Gordy's caution may have been sparked by an incident in early 1966 as
the group prepared to make their second appearance at the Copacabana.
Angered by erratic behavior from Florence Ballard, Gordy intended to
replace her with Marlene Barrow, a member of the Motown in-house singing
group the Andantes.
However, when club management heard of this change, they threatened to
cancel the group's appearance if Ballard was replaced, as they saw
Ballard's banter with her group mates as a major part of their act's
success.
As Ross became the focal point of the Supremes, Ballard felt
pushed aside in the group. Depression ensued, and Ballard began to drink
excessively, gaining weight until she could no longer comfortably wear
many of her stage outfits. The friendship, and later the working
relationship, between Ross and Ballard became strained.[44]
During this turbulent period, Ballard relied heavily upon the advice of
group mate Mary Wilson, with whom she had maintained a close
friendship. Wilson, while outwardly demure and neutral in hopes of
keeping the group stable, privately advised Ballard that Ross and Gordy
were eager to oust Ballard.[45] Although the Supremes scored two number-one hits during the first quarter of 1967, "Love Is Here and Now You're Gone" and "The Happening", the group as a unit began to disintegrate.
By 1967, Ballard would not show up for recording dates, or would
arrive at shows too inebriated to perform. For some early 1967 shows,
she was replaced by Marlene Barrow. Looking for a more permanent
replacement, Gordy once again thought of Barbara Randolph, possibly
believing that Randolph could be groomed as lead singer for the group
once it was decided to take Ross solo. However, Ross did not receive
Randolph well. In April 1967, Gordy then contacted Cindy Birdsong, a member of Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles who superficially resembled Ballard, with plans to bring her in as Ballard's replacement.[46] He made his plans clear to Ballard and her group mates at a mid-April meeting, and Birdsong was brought in to begin rehearsals.[46] Gordy did not fire Ballard outright at that time, asking Ballard instead to quit on her own.[46] Birdsong first appeared with the Supremes in Ballard's place at a benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl on April 29, 1967.[46][47]
Following the performance, Gordy quickly learned that Birdsong was
still contractually committed to the Blue Belles when that group's
lawyers filed an injunction against him. In May, Ballard returned for
what she believed was a probationary period, although in reality it was a
stopgap measure until Gordy was able to buy out Birdsong's contract.
During May and June, knowing that she was one step away from being
dismissed, Ballard made an attempt to toe the line, slimming down and
showing up to commitments on time and sober. Despite this, Birdsong was
secretly traveling with the Supremes, studying their routines.[46] On June 29, 1967 the group returned to the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas
billed as "the Supremes with Diana Ross", the first time in which Ross
was billed separately from the group. One month later, Gordy renamed the
group "Diana Ross & the Supremes," putting Ross's name ahead of the
group.
The first two days of the Flamingo engagement went by smoothly.
On July 1, when reporting for makeup and wardrobe before their first
show of the evening, Ballard discovered an extra set of gowns and
costumes that had been brought along for Cindy Birdsong. Angered,
Ballard performed the first concert of the night inebriated, leading to
an embarrassing on-stage incident in which her stomach was revealed when
she purposely thrust it forward during a dance routine. Enraged, Gordy
ordered her back to Detroit and permanently dismissed her from the
group. Birdsong officially assumed her place during the second July 1
show.[44][48] Ballard's release from Motown was made final on February 22,
1968, when she received a one-time payment of US$139,804.94 in royalties
and earnings.[49] She attempted a solo career with ABC Records, and was forced to formally reject a solo contract offered by Motown as part of her settlement.[50] Ballard's two 1968 singles failed to chart and her solo album was shelved.[51] In 1971, Ballard sued Motown for $8.7 million, claiming that Gordy and Diana Ross had conspired to force her out of the group;[52] the judge ruled in favor of Motown. Ballard eventually sank into poverty and died abruptly on February 22, 1976 from coronary thrombosis at the age of 32.[53]
At the time of her death, she had begun to make financial and personal
strides and was planning to reinvigorate her solo career.
Ross's departure
Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown in early 1968 after a dispute with the label over royalties and profit sharing.[54]
The quality of Motown's output (and Diana Ross & the Supremes'
records in particular) began to falter as a result. From "Reflections"
in 1967 to "The Weight" in 1969, only six out of the eleven released
singles reached the Top 20, and only one of those, 1968's "Love Child",[55]
made it to number one. Due to the tension within the group and
stringent touring schedules, neither Mary Wilson nor Cindy Birdsong
appear on many of these singles; they were replaced on these recordings
by session singers such as the Andantes.[56] The changes within the group and their decreasing sales were signs of changes within the music industry. The gospel-based soul of female performers such as Aretha Franklin
had eclipsed the Supremes' pop-based sound, which had by now evolved to
include more middle-of-the-road material. In a cultural climate now
influenced more than ever by countercultural movements such as the Black Panther Party, the Supremes found themselves attacked for not being "black enough", and lost ground in the black music market.[57] In mid-1968, Motown initiated a number of high-profile
collaborations for the Supremes with their old colleagues, the
Temptations. Besides the fact that both groups had come up together, the
pairings made financial sense: the Supremes had a mostly white fanbase,
while the Temptations a mostly black fanbase. By 1969, the label began
plans for a Diana Ross solo career.[58] A number of candidates—most notably Syreeta Wright—were considered to replace Ross. After seeing 24-year-old Jean Terrell perform with her brother Ernie
in Florida, Berry Gordy decided on Ross' replacement. Terrell was
signed to Motown and began recording the first post-Ross Supremes songs
with Wilson and Birdsong during the day, while Wilson and Birdsong
toured with Ross at night. At the same time, Ross began to make her
first solo recordings. In November 1969, Ross' solo career was publicly
announced.
"Someday We'll Be Together"
was recorded with the intent of releasing it as the first solo single
for Diana Ross. Desiring a final Supremes number-one record, Gordy
instead had the song released as a Diana Ross & the Supremes single,
despite the fact that neither Wilson nor Birdsong sang on the record.
"Someday We'll Be Together" hit number one on the American pop charts,
becoming not only the Supremes' 12th and final number-one hit, but also
the final number-one hit of the 1960s. This single also would mark the
Supremes' final television appearance together with Ross, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 21, 1969. The Supremes without Ross made their final appearance altogether on Ed Sullivan on February 15, 1970.
The Supremes in the 1970s
Diana Ross & the Supremes gave their final performance on January 14, 1970 at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.[59]
At the final performance, the replacement for Diana Ross, Jean Terrell,
was introduced. According to Mary Wilson, after this performance, Berry
Gordy wanted to replace Terrell with Syreeta Wright. Wilson refused, leading to Gordy stating that he was washing his hands of the group thereafter.[60] This claim is also made by Mark Ribowsky.[61]
After the Frontier Hotel performance, Ross officially began her career
as a solo performer. Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong continued working
with Jean Terrell on the first post-Ross Supremes album, Right On.[62] The Terrell-led Supremes—now rebranded as "the Supremes;" known
unofficially at first as "the New Supremes", and in later years
informally called "The '70s Supremes"—scored hits including "Up the Ladder to the Roof" (US number 10, UK number 6), "Stoned Love" (US number 7, UK number 3) and "Nathan Jones" (US number 16, UK number 5), all of which were produced by Frank Wilson.
These three singles were also R&B Top Ten hits, with "Stoned Love"
becoming their last No.1 R&B hit in December 1970.
Songwriting/production team Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson produced another Top 20 hit for the group, a Supremes/Four Tops duet version of Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep – Mountain High".
In 1972, the Supremes had their last Top 20 hit single release, "Floy Joy", written and produced by Smokey Robinson, followed by the final US Top 40 hit for the Jean Terrell-led version of the group, "Automatically Sunshine"
(US number 37, UK number 10). "Automatically Sunshine" later became the
group's final top 10 single in the UK. On both "Floy Joy" and
"Sunshine" Terrell shared lead with Mary Wilson. Motown, by then moving
from Detroit to Los Angeles to break into motion pictures, put only
limited effort into promoting the Supremes' new material, and their
popularity and sales began to wane. Cindy Birdsong left the group in
April 1972, after recording the Floy Joy album, to start a family; her replacement was Lynda Laurence, a former member of Stevie Wonder's backup group, Third Generation (a predecessor to Wonderlove). Jimmy Webb was hired to produce the group's next LP, The Supremes Produced and Arranged by Jimmy Webb,[63] but the album and its only single "I Guess I'll Miss the Man" failed to make an impact on the Billboard pop chart, with the single charting at number 85.
In early 1973, Laurence prevailed upon her old mentor Stevie
Wonder to write and produce a hit for the Supremes, but the resulting "Bad Weather"
peaked at number 87 on the US pop charts and number 37 in the UK.
Laurence can be heard briefly, shouting several times at the end of the
song (the only recording on which Laurence is heard). Laurence left to
start a family; her replacement: a returning Cindy Birdsong.
Dismayed by this poor-performing record and the lack of
promotional support from Motown, Jean Terrell left the group and was
replaced by Scherrie Payne, the sister of Invictus Records recording artist Freda Payne.
Between the 1973 departures of Laurence and Terrell and the first
Supremes single with Scherrie Payne, "He's My Man", a disco single on
which Payne and Wilson shared lead vocal, Motown was slow in producing
contracts for Payne and the returning Birdsong. Before the release of
the album in 1975, the Supremes remained a popular live act, and
continued touring overseas, particularly in the UK and Japan. The
group's new recordings were not as successful as their earlier releases,
although "He's My Man" from the album The Supremes
was a popular disco hit in 1975. In 1976, Birdsong, dissatisfied with
the management of the Supremes (handled at the time by Mary Wilson's
then-husband Pedro Ferrer), left again and was replaced by Susaye Greene, another former member of Wonderlove.
This final version of the Supremes released two albums, both of which reunited the Supremes with Holland-Dozier-Holland: High Energy, which includes Birdsong on all of the tracks, and Mary, Scherrie & Susaye. During that year, the Supremes released "I'm Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking", their final Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
Several fictional works have been published and produced that are based in part on the career of the group. The 1976 film Sparkle features the story of a Supremes-like singing trio called "Sister & the Sisters" from Harlem, New York. The film's score was composed by Curtis Mayfield, and the soundtrack album by Aretha Franklin was a commercial success. A remake of Sparkle was in development in the early 2000s with R&B singer Aaliyah as the lead, but the project was shelved when Aaliyah died in 2001.[64] The Sparkle remake was eventually released in August 2012 and starred Jordin Sparks and Whitney Houston, in her final film role.[65]
On December 21, 1981, the Tony Award-winning musical Dreamgirls opened at the Imperial Theatre
on Broadway and ran for 1,522 performances. The musical, loosely based
on the history of the Supremes, follows the story of the Dreams, an
all-female singing trio from Chicago
who become music superstars. Several of the characters in the play are
analogues of real-life Supremes/Motown counterparts, with the story
focusing upon the Florence Ballard doppelgänger
Effie White. While influenced by the Supremes' and Motown's music, the
songs in the play are a broader mix of R&B/soul and Broadway music.
Mary Wilson loved the musical, but Diana Ross was reportedly angered by
it and refused to see it.[66]
The album cover seen in the 2006 film Dreamgirls, left, strongly resembles the 1969 album cover for Diana Ross & the Supremes' Cream of the Crop, right.
A film adaptation of Dreamgirls, starring Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé, Eddie Murphy, and Jennifer Hudson, was released by DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures
in December 2006. The film contains more overt references to Motown and
the Supremes than does the play that inspired it: for example, in the
film, many of the Dreams' album covers are identical in design to
Supremes album covers, and the Dreams themselves hail from Detroit – not
Chicago, as do their Broadway counterparts.
"Stop! In the Name of Love" and "You Can't Hurry Love" are among the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[69] The Ross-Wilson-Ballard lineup was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and entered into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed the group at number 97 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[70]
The Supremes are notable for the influences they have had on black girl
groups who have succeeded them in popular music, such as The Three Degrees, The Emotions, The Pointer Sisters, En Vogue, TLC, Destiny's Child and Cleopatra.[71] "The Beatles were there," said Madonna of her childhood, "but I was more eager about The Supremes. I was really into girl groups."[72]
Reunions
Fan interest made the idea of a Supremes reunion tour a very
profitable one during the 1980s. In 1982, around the time that Motown
reunited all of the Temptations, it was rumored that Motown would
reunite the Supremes. The 1974 line-up of the Supremes (Wilson, Birdsong
and Payne) was considered for this reunion, which was to include new
recordings and a tour. Under advisement from Berry Gordy, Wilson
declined to reunite, and the idea was scrapped. Ross briefly reunited
with Wilson and Birdsong to perform "Someday We'll Be Together" on the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever television special, taped on March 25, 1983, and broadcast on NBC on May 16, 1983.[73] In 2000, plans were made for Ross to join Wilson and Birdsong for
a planned "Diana Ross & the Supremes: Return to Love" reunion tour.
However, Wilson passed on the idea, because while the promoters offered
Ross $15 million to perform, Wilson was offered $4 million and Birdsong
less than $1 million.[74]
Ross herself offered to double the amounts both Wilson and Birdsong had
originally been offered, but while Birdsong accepted, Wilson remained
adamant, and as a result the deal fell through with both former
Supremes. Eventually, the "Return to Love" tour went on as scheduled,
but with Payne and Laurence joining Ross, although none of the three had
ever been in the group at the same time and neither Payne nor Laurence
had sung on any of the original hit recordings that they were now
singing live. Susaye Greene was also considered for this tour, but
refused to audition for it. The music critics cried foul and many fans
were disappointed by both this and the shows' high ticket prices. Though
the tour did well in larger markets including near capacity at the
opening night in Philadelphia and a sellout at Madison Square Garden
in New York, it under performed in smaller/medium markets. The tour was
canceled after playing only half of the dates on itinerary.[75]
Post-Supremes groups
In 1986, Jean Terrell, Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence began to perform as "The FLOS": Former Ladies of the Supremes. When Terrell quit in 1992, Sundray Tucker, Laurence’s sister, stepped in for a short time, but was replaced by Freddi Poole in 1996. More recently in September 2009, Poole was replaced by Joyce Vincent, formerly of Tony Orlando and Dawn.
The group, now called "Scherrie Payne & Lynda Laurence, Formerly of
the Supremes," and Joyce Vincent, are working on a new recording. Kaaren Ragland
performed with Mary Wilson from 1978 though the mid-1980s. In 1989 she
formed her own group called "the Sounds of the Supremes". She has
claimed numerous times that she was a member of the Supremes because of
her performances with Wilson, but she was never signed by Motown and
performed with Wilson only after the Supremes disbanded in 1977 and is
not considered as a member of the Supremes.[76]
Nathan, David. The Soulful Divas: Personal Portraits of over a Dozen Divine Divas. New York: Billboard Books/Watson-Guptill Publications, 2002. ISBN0-8230-8430-2.
Posner, Gerald. Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House, 2002. ISBN0-375-50062-6.
^ Clemente, John (2000). Girl Groups—Fabulous Females That Rocked The World. Iola, Wisc. Krause Publications. pp. 276. ISBN0-87341-816-6.
^ Clemente, John (2013). Girl Groups—Fabulous Females Who Rocked The
World. Bloomington, IN Authorhouse Publications. pp. 623. ISBN978-1-4772-7633-4 (sc); ISBN978-1-4772-8128-4 (e).
Kofi Natambu, editor of and contributor to Sound Projections, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He has written extensively about music as a critic and historian for many publications, including the Black Scholar, Downbeat, Solid Ground: A New World Journal, Detroit Metro Times, KONCH, the Panopticon Review,Black Renaissance Noire, the Village Voice, the City Sun (NYC), the Poetry Project Newsletter (NYC), and the African American Review. He is the author of a biography Malcolm X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: The Melody Never Stops (Past Tents Press) and Intervals (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of Solid Ground: A New World Journal, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology Nostalgia for the Present (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/girlgroup_388.jpg)
In Detroit in 1958, Florence Ballard, a junior high school student living in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects, met Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, who were two members of a Detroit singing group known as the Primes.[4] Ballard sang, as did Paul Williams' girlfriend Betty McGlown, so Milton Jenkins, the Primes's manager, decided to create a sister group to be called the Primettes.[4] Ballard recruited her best friend Mary Wilson, who recruited classmate Diana Ross.[4] Mentored and funded by Jenkins, the Primettes began by performing hit songs of artists such as Ray Charles and the Drifters at sock hops, social clubs and talent shows around the Detroit area.[4] Receiving additional guidance from group friend and established songwriter Jesse Greer, the quartet quickly earned a local fan following.[5] The girls crafted an age-appropriate style that was inspired by the collegiate dress of popular doo-wop group Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers;[6] and, for the most part, Ballard, Ross and Wilson performed equal leads on songs. Within a few months, guitarist Marvin Tarplin
was added to the Primettes' lineup— a move that helped distinguish the
group from Detroit's many other aspiring acts by allowing the girls to
sing live instead of lip-synching.[7]
By 1967, Ballard would not show up for recording dates, or would
arrive at shows too inebriated to perform. For some early 1967 shows,
she was replaced by Marlene Barrow. Looking for a more permanent
replacement, Gordy once again thought of Barbara Randolph, possibly
believing that Randolph could be groomed as lead singer for the group
once it was decided to take Ross solo. However, Ross did not receive
Randolph well. In April 1967, Gordy then contacted Cindy Birdsong, a member of Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles who superficially resembled Ballard, with plans to bring her in as Ballard's replacement.[46] He made his plans clear to Ballard and her group mates at a mid-April meeting, and Birdsong was brought in to begin rehearsals.[46] Gordy did not fire Ballard outright at that time, asking Ballard instead to quit on her own.[46]
"Stop! In the Name of Love" and "You Can't Hurry Love" are among the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[69] The Ross-Wilson-Ballard lineup was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and entered into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed the group at number 97 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[70]
The Supremes are notable for the influences they have had on black girl
groups who have succeeded them in popular music, such as The Three Degrees, The Emotions, The Pointer Sisters, En Vogue, TLC, Destiny's Child and Cleopatra.[71]
