Nothing But Heartaches..what happened?

[bradsupremes]

Was "Nothing But Heartaches" ever performed during the RTL tour? I know they did "In And Out Of Love" and "Forever Came Today" in a few places, but I haven't heard anything about "Nothing But Heartaches" being performed.

[Methuselah2]

Was it a case of over confidence? I always skipped over it as i thought it was kind of boring. But then again someone said it sold 700k copies sonwhat do I know.

It certainly could have been part of it, Detmotownguy. Maybe it seemed like the 6th sure thing to all involved. And to many--myself included as a fan--it seemed it would be. It also might have been a time at the company when many different things were vying for attention and others seemed they could fare well without as much. Factor in the public, also, and the outcome is up for grabs.

[Methuselah2]

Itching was the best, always like the rock edge of that song. Diane did a gr8 job on that song.

I'm keen on ITCHING, too. Interesting that it was recorded before both BACK IN MY ARMS AGAIN and NOTHING BUT HEARTACHES but not released until 1966. Awfully glad it didn't get shelved and trapped in the vault.

[JohnnyB]

Was "Nothing But Heartaches" ever performed during the RTL tour? I know they did "In And Out Of Love" and "Forever Came Today" in a few places, but I haven't heard anything about "Nothing But Heartaches" being performed.

Nothing But Heartaches was performed at least once during RTL, in Houston. It was performed late in the show, during the portion in which Diana asked for audience requests.

[detmotownguy]

Nothing But Heartaches was performed at least once during RTL, in Houston. It was performed late in the show, during the portion in which Diana asked for audience requests.

She should do a HBO special called REQUESTS. Start off by getting a few of the hits out of the way then take requests. Do "obscure" hits for her fans like Too Shy......blah blah blah....there was a clip here a while back where she sat down on the steps and sang a few songs. might have sang a few jazz songs. She really connected to her fans. Her shows from what i can tell have been pretty standard the last dre years.

[marv2]

I'm keen on ITCHING, too. Interesting that it was recorded before both BACK IN MY ARMS AGAIN and NOTHING BUT HEARTACHES but not released until 1966. Awfully glad it didn't get shelved and trapped in the vault.

Some of these songs like "Love Is Like An Itching in My Heart" were played in Detroit before released nationally it seemed.

[westgrandboulevard]

Being a much smaller country, the UK has just a national sales chart.

I often read comments here about certain records in the US doing better in some regions across the States, than their positions on Billboard or Cashbox national charts would suggest.

Did Detroit have its own regional chart, based on sales - or would it have been based on radio plays?

[marv2]

Being a much smaller country, the UK has just a national sales chart.

I often read comments here about certain records in the US doing better in some regions across the States, than their positions on Billboard or Cashbox national charts would suggest.

Did Detroit have its own regional chart, based on sales - or would it have been based on radio plays?

Several radio stations in Detroit, Toledo, Ohio and various cities in Ontario, Canada [[i.e. Windsor, London, Toronto) had their own, individual weekly Hit record charts that were usually distributed and available at most local record shops. I use to collect them for CKLW, WKLR, KEENER and WCHB. These are all radio stations that were popular in the region. Each had different records on their lists based on local sales, phone in requests and airplay. In those days, stations had what we called "Request Lines" where listeners could call in an request a certain record be played or dedicate a record to someone.

[marv2]

Being a much smaller country, the UK has just a national sales chart.

I often read comments here about certain records in the US doing better in some regions across the States, than their positions on Billboard or Cashbox national charts would suggest.

Did Detroit have its own regional chart, based on sales - or would it have been based on radio plays?

For example, the Supremes "Bad Weather" was a number one record in Washington D.C. and charted very high in Hawaii.

[westgrandboulevard]

How would sales figures for 'Nothing But Heartaches' and 'Bad Weather' be obtained for placing on the national R&B chart?

From selected record shops and departments, in selected parts of the U.S.?

[marv2]

How would sales figures for 'Nothing But Heartaches' and 'Bad Weather' be obtained for placing on the national R&B chart?

From selected record shops and departments, in selected parts of the U.S.?

I am not sure how it was done nationally in those days [[Pre-1991), but they would call the local record shops weekly for sales figures for the local radio station Hit Charts.

[marv2]

Check this out. Here are a good sampling of the weekly surveys for powerhouse station CKLW [[Windsor-Detroit) for the years 1967 - 79:

http://www.ct30.com/big30/index.html

[luke]

Interesting. Maybe I'm mistaken but it looks to me like up the ladder only made into the 20s but stoned love made it to # 4. I wonder why.

[westgrandboulevard]

Thanks, Marv.

Always interesting to study lists of titles like these, and note how many lesser known singles feature on them.

Interesting to speculate on why these comparatively little known titles were regionally popular in Detroit-Windsor, and how popular they may have been in other regions.

Also, the reasons why they didn't achieve bigger sales figures nationally.

All based on both the number and geographical spread of the radio stations placing the records on their playlists?

[marv2]

Interesting. Maybe I'm mistaken but it looks to me like up the ladder only made into the 20s but stoned love made it to # 4. I wonder why.

I can tell you why. That was because the hardcore R&B stations in the area were playing "Bill, When Are You Coming Back" almost as heavy as all stations were playing "Up the Ladder to The Roof"! The excitement surrounding the "New Supremes" was so great in our area that some DJ's were jumping the gun and playing both sides of the single.

[marv2]

Thanks, Marv.

Always interesting to study lists of titles like these, and note how many lesser known singles feature on them.

Interesting to speculate on why these comparatively little known titles were regionally popular in Detroit-Windsor, and how popular they may have been in other regions.

Also, the reasons why they didn't achieve bigger sales figures nationally.

All based on both the number and geographical spread of the radio stations placing the records on their playlists?

On thing that factored into lesser known singles becoming popular in Detroit was CAN-CON! Some other regions of the United States never heard many of the records we heard just about everyday and that had become very popular locally. Many of these records were by Canadian Artists.

[luke]

Thanks. Never knew that

[marv2]

Thanks. Never knew that

You are most welcome Luke!

[TheMotownManiac]

It is very interesting to see the play list from a Detroit Top 30 station and what Motown got played. Very interesting to see which Ross/Supremes songs got played after the split. Ross fared much better but the Motown Diva of choice at this station was clearly Gladys Knight as ALL of her records got played. I'm very surprised that they didn't play any of The Supremes/Four Tops or Diana&Marvin duets The last Supremes song to get played was Floy Joy and the last Ross was Love Hangover while Gladys got everything spun.

Interesting. Maybe I'm mistaken but it looks to me like up the ladder only made into the 20s but stoned love made it to # 4. I wonder why.

[144man]

I wonder if it would have done better if they'd released it under the title "I Can't Break Away" instead.

[marv2]

I wonder if it would have done better if they'd released it under the title "I Can't Break Away" instead.

That would have been a nice title. It was a big hit record that could have went to number one, but there was just a flood of Supremes music put out too closely together.

[daviddh]

Marv2, I agree , I think the Supremes released 5 albums in 1965, way to much. they competed against themselves really. how many artists release more than one lp per year then the did that again in 1968 ,releasing 6 albums in one year. if I were BG I would had only released WE REMEMBER SAM COOK,MORE HITS, MERRY CHRISTMAS, and I suppose COPA , cutting out LIVERPOOL<COUNTRY ....not to mention MEET THE SUPREMES was reissued in jan 65 with a new cover

[daviddh]

NBH is still a favorite of mine. actually I like a lot of the songs that were not #1's.....