diana ! mary ! flo ! : the supremes thread.

Um, I love the Supremes. I think my favorite is "Love Child". Or "The Happening". And Miss Ross was always too big for her boots, according to Mary Wilson. But going out with Berry Gordy kinda helped push her over the edge. There's loads of funny stories about her in the Mary Wilson biography Dreamgirl, I wish I could remember some. I recall her pushing Mary Wilson out of the way on the Supremes performance on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special. I think they were performing "Someday We'll Be Together", ha ha.

I guess they get overlooked cause they're omnipresent. Sort of like the Beatles. It's more fun discovering the Shangri-Las or the Patti Labelle & the Bluebelles or the Charades or whoever. And it's annoying when people go on about how weak Diana's voice was--she had one of the most perfect pop voices ever.

When I was a kid I thought the Supremes were just the most insanely glamorous thing I'd ever seen.

anyone see Diana on Graham Norton the other week. Was awful awful awful, she seemed really disorientated, started off really wary of Graham then when he started throwing all his camp drivel at her she just got confused and backed off, missing jokes and not 'getting' anything.

Come on now -- if "You Keep Me Hanging On" was released tomorrow by a contemporary R & B singer you'd flip when you heard it. That's my fave -- and I love how the guitar ostinato is the perfect musical evocation of the neurosis in the lyrics -- Robert White RIP.

Tammi Terrell was her sister-in-law.

What are these anti-gay comments she made? I thought she was in-with-the-gay-scene, what with 'I'm coming out' and all.

yeh, i've got this LP. its got some great stuff on it, not the least being a cover of joni mitchells 'all i want' which for the first minute or so manages to sound like neu jamming with the memphis horns!

keep talkin.

love hangover is pretty wonderful

Diana Ross =! The Supremes

There's an Almighty Mix of Up The Ladder To The Roof which is okay...their mix of Love Hangover is ace though.

My review of 1977's 20 Golden Greats compilation, containing a link to the piece where I actually wrote about most of what's on the album: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/diana-ross-and-supremes-20-golden-greats.html

I'm intrigued by the early 70s post Ross stuff at the moment. Just rtying to work out what was happening with various Motown artists in the early 70s when Stevie Wonder and marvin Gaye were both doing pretty innovative stuff, as was Norman Whitfield though he may have started a bit earlier.

So not sure what the story is on the new line up Surpremes, Diana ross or Smokey Robinson.
Was hoping to d.load stuff and check it out but not seeing it on torrent sites. & seeing the Hip _O Select cd of the Jean Terrell era is going for about a grand on Amazon. Would hope if that music was decent somebody might come along and reissue it.

Did wonder if the 2lps on a cd series that covered a lot of 60s Motown extended to the post-Ross Supremes stuff but not finding it. not sure if that simply indicates it doesn't exist or not.

RIP Mary Wilson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc2JNZqscw0

Long before I really listened to their music, I knew who they were as a ubiquitous presence in the culture (which seems crazy now because AFAIK they hadn't had a hit in decades). Then one evening, some news program did an interview with her where they talked about her ongoing feud with Diana Ross, and while they walked around Detroit, she took them to Motown, thinking it would be fun if she gave them a personal tour. To her shock, they refused to let her in, even though it was clear who she was. (I think the excuse was that they were "closed," i.e. no tourists or visitors) She broke down crying and the reporter had to console her. Never saw anything like that on TV before so it's just something I've always remembered, even though it would be years before I really got into their music.

Wow, good interview: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/12/967322146/fresh-air-remembers-mary-wilson-founding-member-of-the-supremes Makes me want to read her (mentioned) book, if it's anything like as balanced and thoughtful and succinct as she is here, in 1986. Intriguing excerpt of v. early track---"They didn't know what to do with us"---seems like something that could have been covered by Blue Angel-era Lauper, among others.

It was from Mary Wilson's first book that I learned that Diana was the only Supreme who sang on such late '60s hits as "Love Child" and "Someday We'll Be Together." I don't think that was common knowledge before her book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZxxnyR3xhQ

Has her thing with Tom Jones been mentioned on this thread yet?

(so Ross doesn't need any more spotlighting, but gotta say that way back when my local library had records---as I suppose may happen again; they always try to keep up---I got hung up on her uneven but often fetching, substantial Ashford & Simpson-written [and produced?] platters, the s/t and Surrender. Also Diana, the strongest original solo album I've heard, produced & written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards [think they both also played on it, anyway plenty of Chic appeal w/o turning it into *too* much of a producer's album])

Yeah, I like Diana a lot, but I actually prefer the original "Chic" mix. Cranked through my stereo (you need at least bookshelf speakers to really feel the difference in the drums), I kept flipping it back and forth between tracks, especially on "I'm Coming Out," and the music just sounded even more to fun to play on Rodgers and Edwards's original mix. Motown's staff engineer certainly prefers the released mix - he didn't just remix it because he was ordered to - but just for my tastes, I've stuck with Rodgers and Edwards's mix. The only thing they re-recorded IIRC was a few of Ross's vocals, otherwise most of the differences came in putting it all together (levels, amount of echo on each instruments, compression, etc.)

Where did you get that?! Is it legit?

it’s the bonus disc on the deluxe legacy edition, I think

https://www.discogs.com/Diana-Ross-Diana/release/1135038

great deluxe set, btw, you get “love hangover” and assorted 12” mixes

Awesome, thanks!