Reflections and Ode to Billy Joe

[lockhartgary]

Hi all,
I was looking at the Reflections [[album) entry by DRATS and noticed something interesting. "Reflections" the single was held at bay from reaching the number 1 spot on the U.S. charts by "Ode to Billy Joe". DRATS covered that very same song on the "Reflections" album.

Has there been any other Motown album where this has happened?

[jobeterob]

I remember playing the Reflections cassette on a holiday in the 80's and my 5 year old son liked Ode to Billie Joe. It must have been a good song if it could catch that kind of attention.

[daviddh]

took me a while to like this song. I am not aware of any other song that was covered but kept the supremes out of #1

[lockhartgary]

I meant any Motown artist. Sorry, I should have been more clear.

[BayouMotownMan]

I think I can safely assume that Ross did not cover this song because it held Reflections back from No. 1. Gordy also emphasized the covering of Jobete songs as he disliked paying royalties outside his company.

Like virtually all the songs recorded by Diana in the 60s, it was simply another recording session. She did scads of them. When it was time to issue an album, dePasse and company would simply take the latest hit singles and go through all the other recordings and pick the best of the bunch to fill out an entire album. This is why we had so much unreleased Supremes recordings.

Actually i didn't think the song fit on the album at all and my best hunch is that it went on there because it was a Ross solo

[daviddh]

personally I would have replaced what the world need now with the happening. usually Diana does a good job on covers but , to me , this is not one of them.