#423 Diana Ross & The Supremes - Anthology (2001)

MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:

This greatest hits and career retrospective by Motown Records’, ’60’s, Pop, Soul, and R&B, all-female, vocal group was originally released in 1974.

Since then it’s been re-released with some changes several times but we’re reviewing the 2001 version which Rolling Stone chose.

And because this is an epic anthology with too many songs to get to we chose 15 to highlight their career.

And what a career...

In 1958 a Detroit, Michigan singing junior high student named Florence Ballard met two young men from a local vocal group called The Primes. One of their girlfriends also sang so The Primes’ manager asked Florence to help put together a sister act called The Primettes. Florence asked her best friend Mary Wilson and Mary asked her school friend Diana Ross.

The four girls spent a couple years singing popular hits around the Detroit area and built some success.

They decided they wanted to make a record with a newer local label called Motown Records. Diana asked her old neighbor, Smokey Robinson to get them an audition with label head Berry Gordy.

Berry liked them but thought they were too young and inexperienced.

The girls still stopped by the Motown Studio known as Hitsville USA every day after school and even convinced Gordy to let them contribute back up vocals and hand claps to several recordings with Motown‘s house band the Funk Brothers.

Gordy finally agreed to sign them if they changed their name and gave them a list to choose from.

Florence chose The Supremes.

Incidentally the guys in The Primes also signed to Motown shortly after and became The Temptations.

In an effort to appeal equally to black and white audiences Gordy had Maxine Powell, of Motown's in-house finishing school and Artist Development department, polish the girls to define their feminine and glamorous image and Motown choreographer Cholly Atkins teach them refined and classy stage moves.

Between 1961 and 1963 The Supremes put out a bunch of non-charting songs with each singer trading off lead vocals usually written and produced by Berry Gordy or Smokey Robinson but that changed at the end of 1963.

The Motown writing and producing team of brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier took over working with The Supremes and Berry Gordon chose Diana Ross to be the lead singer of the group.

After finally getting one charting single they had a remarkable run of five consecutive number ones.

By 1965 they were international stars with a crossover pop appeal that broke down racial barriers and paved the way for fellow Motown artists like The Temptations and the Jackson 5.

Now Berry Gordy had been secretly planning to take Diana solo for a while but by 1967 many Motown acts as well as Florence and Mary were pissed that he was putting his interest in Diana above everyone else. That didn’t get better when he officially changed their name to Diana Ross & The Supremes that year.

The group began to disintegrate and Florence’s hurt turned to depression and a drinking problem which made her gain a lot of weight and become undependable. She performed intermittently that year with newer Supremes filling in until finally Gordy fired her.

Cindy Birdsong replaced Florence but the group hit another hurdle the following year when their hit machine of Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown.

With their new output only finding occasional success and their “blackness” now being questioned by the counter-culture and the socially conscious black music market Gordy saw the right time to pull Diana from The Supremes.

So after lining up Diana’s replacement the group played their last shows together in January of 1970 at The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.

Diana went on to huge success and The Supremes had a few early Top 20 hits and line up changes before calling it quits in 1977.

Tragically The Supremes’ founder Florence Ballard died at 32 in 1976 after years of fighting for restitution against Motown.

The ladies had become the most successful chart-topping American popular music group of the 1960s and although they never won a Grammy they had 12 #1 hits and 33 songs in the Top 40.

In 1988 The Supremes became the first female group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Their style and essence was inherited and emulated by artists like En Vogue, Destiny’s Child, and nearly every all-female vocal group after them.