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Quote Originally Posted by bankhousedave View Post
A good question. After It's Growing the Tempts requested that they didn't have any additional voices on their recordings. The Tops seemed also to record ensemble, with Levi also singing backing parts, although they always worked with the Andantes. There's the story of Levi coming in off a plane, putting his bag down, recording a vocal, picking up his bag and getting on another plane. I guess the rest of the song was already done, including the backing vocals.

The Andantes weren't the only studio singers. The Originals sang backup, as did the Spinners, and everyone helped each other out as needed.

The Supremes were constantly touring in the sixties, with a string of hits and a lot of glitzy venue and TV bookings. It's likely that even the Tempts, the Tops and Vandellas spent more time around Detroit.
Everyone seems to forget that The Love-Tones were Motown's main male back-up group from 1961-63, before the Spinners took over that work. They had been brought into Motown with Mickey Stevenson near the end of 1960, or in early 1961. They had been Mickey's back-up group [[then called "The Mello-dees) on his own Stepp Records, and his productions on House of Beauty and Anna Records. They backed up on many of Mary Wells' hit recordings, as well as for Linda Griner and others. They were formerly The Teardrops on Samson Records.

It is also true that early in Motown's history, just about any of the artists that were hanging around the recording studio, at the time of a recording session, may have been recruited to sing back-up.