The Supremes were an American female singing group and the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960’s, primarily with Diana Ross as lead singer. Founded as the Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, the Supremes are, to date, America’s most successful vocal group with 12 number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. At their peak in the mid-1960s, the Supremes rivaled the Beatles in worldwide popularity, and their success made it possible for future African American R&B and soul musicians to find mainstream success. In 1967, Motown president Berry Gordy renamed the group Diana Ross & the Supremes. Ross left to pursue a solo career in 1970 and was replaced by Jean Terrell, at which point the group’s name reverted to the Supremes. The Supremes disbanded in 1977 after an 18-year run. (More from Wikipedia)
Holland-Dozier-Holland is a songwriting powerhouse; besides writing some of Motown’s best-known hits, they wrote most of the songs on entire albums for some of the biggest stars on the label. For the Supremes’ second album Where Did Our Love Go (1964), not only did Holland-Dozier-Holland write the group’s three Number 1 hits that appear on the album (as well as 10 of their 12 Number 1 hits overall) – “Where Did Our Love Go”, “Baby Love”, and “Come See About Me” – they also wrote 5 of the 9 other songs on the album. About Where Did Our Love Go, Wikipedia says: “With the release of this album, the Supremes became the first act in Billboard magazine history to have three number-one hits from the same album. It was the album that introduced ‘The Motown Sound’ to the masses. It was also, at the time, the highest ranking album by an all female group.”
* * *
The Supremes were founded in 1959 by four teenagers – Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross, and Betty McGlown – under the name the Primettes; they started as a sister act to the Primes, who evolved into the Temptations. Barbara Martin replaced McGlown in 1960. Ross was going by the name “Diane Ross” initially; that was actually the name that her mother intended to give her, but through a clerical error, her birth certificate says Diana Ross. In order to distinguish themselves from other similar groups in that era, the Primettes hired guitarist Marvin Tarplin to accompany them so they would not have to lip sync.
When Diana Ross approached Smokey Robinson (who had been a neighbor previously) about getting an audition with Motown founder Berry Gordy, Robinson agreed to help but was more impressed with their guitarist; Marvin Tarplin quickly became the guitarist for his band the Miracles for more than a decade. For his part, Berry Gordy originally thought the girls were too young and inexperienced but finally signed them in January 1961.
* * *
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 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.
All told, Motown released eight singles by the Supremes between 1961 and 1963, and none made it into the Billboard Top 40. In the Motown offices, the group was often referred to as the “No Hit Supremes”.
* * *
Early on, Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Diana Ross shared lead-vocal duties on their recordings. Berry Gordy though was always impressed mainly with Diana Ross; from Wikipedia: “In Berry Gordy’s autobiography, To Be Loved, Gordy recalled he was heading to a business meeting when he heard Ross singing ‘There Goes My Baby’ and Ross’ voice ‘stopped me in my tracks’.”
Even before the name was changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes in 1967, the heavy promoting of Diana Ross was causing turmoil in the Supremes and even in other Motown groups. Florence Ballard in particular felt that she was being pushed into the background; she gained weight and began drinking heavily, eventually failing to show up for rehearsals and arriving at concerts too inebriated to perform. She was eventually eased out entirely in April 1967 and was replaced by Cindy Birdsong of Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles. (Patti LaBelle performed on Dancing with the Stars in the current season).
Diana Ross left the Supremes in 1970 to start a solo career, though Berry Gordy had been thinking about that as early as 1966. Guinness World Records lists Diana Ross as the most successful female recording artist in history; combining her recordings with the Supremes and individually, Diana Ross has had 70 charting hit singles and sales of more than 100 million albums. In 1976, Billboard magazine named Diana Ross the “female entertainer of the century”.
* * *
The saga of the Supremes formed much of the story line for the hit musical Dreamgirls.
* * *
As I wrote about Bob Dylan in my last post, his first album, Bob Dylan sold modestly; and Dylan became known as “Hammond’s Folly” around Columbia Records – John H. Hammond had decided to sign Dylan on the spot after hearing him perform on September 14, 1961 at the apartment of Carolyn Hester and Richard Fariña (two folksingers that I also wrote about last month), though he evidently made a formal audition first (no recorded evidence of that audition survives, unfortunately).
As can be seen from his example and that of Diana Ross and the Supremes, who were referred to at Motown Records early in their career as the “No Hit Supremes”, record companies give up on musicians pretty quickly; and any number of the Under Appreciated Rock Bands and Under Appreciated Rock Artists that I have written about over the years could potentially have had high-profile careers. This doesn’t seem to be true so much for, say, Hollywood actors, as many of them are able to hang around for years or even decades before making it big.
(April 2015/1)
* * *
Items: The Supremes
