At a time when the general public rarely looked past 45-rpm singles, the Where Did Our Love Go album sold well enough for Motown to subsequently release three (THREE!) Supremes “concept” albums in 1965: A Bit Of Liverpool, We Remember Sam Cooke and The Supremes Sing Country, Western and Pop. No singles were ever released from these albums; that was not their purpose. The albums were designed to show the group’s versatility and repertoire. The NEXT album - 1965’s More Hits By The Supremes - could rightfully be considered their second album proper, and was directly in the pocket of “The Sound Of Young America.” It included “Stop! In The Name Of Love” and “Back In My Arms Again,” both of which had recently soared to the top of the charts, making the Supremes the first, and still the only, recording act in history to have five No. 1 singles within a twelve-month period. 1965 started off on the best note when the girls went into the studio January 3 to record “Stop!“ (who on planet Earth doesn’t know the girls palms-out traffic cop dance step for the song created by Temptation Paul Williams?) The classic Grammy-nominated version of “Stop! In the Name Of Love” was actually a re-recording that changed some lyrics, took away the handclaps, AND Mary and Florence. (Sorry to squash your memories, but the hit single you know and love features Diana Ross backed by Motown’s in-house background singers The Andantes.) The album’s third single was a toss-up between “Nothing But Heartaches” and “Mother Dear.” (Ironically, after the album’s release, the girls performed “Mother Dear” on Dean Martin’s and Red Skelton’s respective TV shows.) The so-so showing on the charts of “Nothing But Heartaches” (coming in at a dismal #11!) was a danger sign of possible Supremes fatigue, and it led Berry Gordy to issue one of the sillier memorandums ever to make the rounds at Motown’s offices. Written in Berry’s semi-literate hand in the autumn of 1965 to the creative staff, but really intended for Eddie and Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, it read: “We will release nothing less than Top Ten product on any artist; and because the Supremes world-wide acceptance is greater than the other artists, on them we will only release number-one records.” Though some of the songs on More Hits were recorded by or assigned to other artists at Motown, the Supremes had the first release on all of them, with the exception of “Whisper You Love Me Boy” and “He Holds His Own.” Both of these songs originally appeared on the album Mary Wells Sings My Guy. “Ask Any Girl,“ the album’s opening track, had also been the closing track on the Where Did Our Love Go album. I do not know what magic Berry heard in the grooves that no one else did, but he adored this song and thought it had real possible hit single potential. Ultimately, it was never released as an A-side (Berry was to heard to have said: “Damn public doesn’t know good taste!” in defending the song.) This same year the song was reworked by Len Barry as “1-2-3,” which became a huge hit and was later the subject of a lawsuit by H-D-H, whose names were added to the writer’s credits. Success on the charts meant the Supremes were pursued to appear in popular teen films. In Paramount’s Beach Ball, the girls performed the film’s title tune and “Surfer Boy.” They would also sing the theme to Dr. Goldfoot & The Bikini Machine, although they did not appear in the film. 1965 is also the year that the girls would debut their brand-new stage show at New York’s Copacabana, with it raking up another first: the first time any pop act was allowed to play at the hallowed venue of the Sinatra and Bennett crowd. After a two-week run where they had NYC at its feet, they went on to Lincoln Center - the home of classical artists and Leonard Bernstein. The Supremes were also the first pop act to play there. ANOTHER first. (Those with astute eyes will notice that I’ve used an alternate of the gorgeous album cover here. Can you spot the difference?) “Oh, those songs. People love those songs,“ Diana said recently, wearing a big smile. Essentially, More Hits By The Supremes is anchored by the two smash singles with two sides of filler. But Oh! what filler it is. It comes in at #2 in my Top 3 Supremes LP’s of all-time. And there were many “More Hits” to come.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 08:11:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015