Meet the Supremes is the debut studio album by The Supremes, released in late 1962 on Motown. The LP includes the group’s earliest singles: “I Want a Guy”, “Buttered Popcorn”, “Your Heart Belongs to Me”, and “Let Me Go the Right Way”. The earliest recordings on this album, done between fall 1960 and fall 1961, feature the Supremes as a quartet composed of teenagers Diane Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Barbara Martin. Martin left the group in early 1962 to start a family, and the other three girls continued as a trio. None of these singles charted within the top 40 of the Billboard Pop Singles chart, leading to the group being referred to around the Motown offices as the “no-hit” Supremes. Though the album made little to no impact on the US album charts, in 1962, when it was released in the UK in 1964 it managed to peak at #8 on the UK Albums Chart. (More from Wikipedia)
Interestingly, the Supremes’ little-known first album called Meet the Supremes was released in late 1962, more than a year before Meet the Beatles! came out. (Motown did the same with the debut album of the Temptations, another of their major groups, but Meet the Temptations came out two months afterward).
Some of the earliest tracks on the Meet the Supremes album date from 1960 and 1961 and feature Barbara Martin before she left to start a family in early 1962; the Supremes then went forward as a trio. Although not shown on the album cover, Martin performs background vocals on several songs and sings lead on “After All”, a song that was omitted on the original album but was included on later editions.
While the album made it to #13 on the British charts, Meet the Supremes didn’t sell well in this country; the two singles from the album, “Your Heart Belongs to Me” and “Let Me Go the Right Way” barely cracked the Billboard Hot 100, although the latter song made it to #26 on the R&B Singles chart.
(April 2015/1)
