Diana Ross / The Supremes
Diane Earle
BORN: March 26, 1944, Detroit, MI
As a solo artist, Diana Ross is one of the most successful female singers
of the rock era. If you factor in her work as the lead singer of the Supremes
in the 1960s, she may be the most successful.
With her friends Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Barbara Martin, Ross
formed the Primettes vocal quartet in 1959. In 1960, they were signed to
local Motown Records, changing their name to the Supremes in 1961. Martin
then left, and the group continued as a trio. Over the next eight years,
the Supremes (renamed "Diana Ross and the Supremes" in 1967, when Cindy Birdsong
replaced Ballard) scored 12 number one pop hits. After the last one, "Someday
We'll Be Together" (October 1969), Ross launched a solo career.
Motown initially paired her with writer/producers Nickolas Ashford and Valerie
Simpson, who gave her four Top 40 pop hits, including the number one "Ain't
No Mountain High Enough" (July 1970). Ross branched out into acting, starring
in a film biography of Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues (November 1972).
The soundtrack went to number one, and Ross was nominated for an Academy
Award.
She returned to record-making with the Top Ten album Touch Me in the Morning
(June 1973) and its chart-topping title song. This was followed by a duet
album with Marvin Gaye, Diana & Marvin (October 1973), that produced
three chart hits. Ross acted in her second movie, Mahogany (October 1975),
and it brought her another chart-topping single in the theme song, "Do You
Know Where You're Going To." That and her next number one, the disco-oriented
"Love Hangover" (March 1976), were featured on her second album to be titled
simply Diana Ross (February 1976), which rose into the Top Ten.
Ross' third film role came in The Wiz (October 1978). The Boss (May 1979)
was a gold-selling album, followed by the platinum-selling Diana (May 1980)
(the second of her solo albums with that name, though the other, a 1971 TV
soundtrack, had an exclamation mark). It featured the number one single "Upside
Down" and the Top Ten hit "I'm Coming Out."
Ross scored a third Top Ten hit in 1980 singing the title theme from the
movie It's My Turn. She then scored the biggest hit of her career with another
movie theme, duetting with Lionel Richie on "Endless Love" (June 1981). It
was her last big hit on Motown; after more than 20 years, she decamped for
RCA. She was rewarded immediately with a million-selling album, titled after
her remake of the old Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers hit, "Why Do Fools
Fall in Love," which became her next Top Ten hit. The album also included
the Top Ten hit "Mirror, Mirror."
Silk Electric (October 1982) was a gold-seller, featuring the Top Ten hit
"Muscles," written and produced by Michael Jackson, and Swept Away (September
1984) was another successful album, containing the hit "Missing You," but
Ross had trouble selling records in the second half of the 1980s. By 1989,
she had returned to Motown, and by 1993 was turning more to pop standards,
notably on the concert album Diana Ross Live: The Lady Sings...Jazz &
Blues, Stolen Moments (April 1993).
Motown released a four-CD/cassette box set retrospective, Forever Diana,
in October 1993, and the singer published her autobiography in 1994. Take
Me Higher followed a year later, and in 1999 she returned with Every Day
Is a New Day. 2000's Gift of Love was promoted by a concert tour featuring
the Supremes, although neither Mary Wilson nor Cindy Byrdsong appeared --
their roles were instead assumed by singers Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne,
neither of whom ever performed with Ross during the group's glory days. ~
William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
African-American musical superstar Diana Ross may well be a by-product of
the almost crippling shyness she has suffered since childhood. Reportedly,
it took a lot out of young Ross to work up the courage to sing in her church
choir; but once she decided that music was to be her bread and butter, there
was no stopping her. With Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson, Ross formed the
now-legendary R&B "girl group" the Supremes, which was elevated from
a local Detroit attraction to international renown by Motown Records maven
Berry Gordy. When Florence Ballard was replaced by Cindy Birdsong in 1967,
the group's name was changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes (which it had
essentially been all along). Ross struck out on her own in 1969; within 12
months, her popularity was such that she was voted Entertainer of the Year
by the NAACP. In 1972, she made her long-anticipated film debut in Lady Sings
the Blues, delivering a bravura performance as blues great Billie Holliday.
Nominated for an Oscar, Ross lost the statuette to Liza Minnelli, but did
take home a Golden Globe Award. Her follow-up attempts at film stardom were
major disappointments: Mahogany (1975) was utterly forgettable save for its
signature tune "Do You Know Where You're Going To," while The Wiz (1978)
suffered from bad casting decisions and an utter lack of a consistent style.
Despite her failures on the big screen, Ross continued to excel as a recording
artist. She floundered a bit when she left Motown in 1980, but was back on
top the following year after signing with RCA. In 1977, Diana won a Tony
Award for her starring Broadway revue, and in 1988 she was inducted into
the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Diana Ross showed no signs of slowing down
in the 1990s: in 1993, she wrote a book titled Secrets of a Sparrow; in 1994,
she made her TV-movie acting debut, playing a paranoid schizophrenic in the
commendable Out of Darkness; and in 1996, she was center of attention in
what was arguably one of the most spectacular Super Bowl half-time shows
ever conceived. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The Supremes
FORMED: 1961, Detroit, MI
DISBANDED: 1977
The most successful black 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 characteric 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 and
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. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide