"Reflections" original cover

[carlo]

I think the cover with Flo photos might have just been a mock-up that was put together in a hurry to be used on those generic 45 sleeves.

If you look at it, there are large black lines around the top and top left circles, almost as if they were traced or cut-outs. They might have just grabbed any photos thinking that they would be so small on the 45 sleeve that no one would notice. And even then, there are still some photos on it that were originally DMF but they cut Flo out. So why go through the trouble of cutting Flo out of those if that wasn't the original intent?

There are fans who own an early 1st pressing copy of the Reflections album with the original cover that features photos of Flo, with the new cover pasted over top, similar to what was done with The Beatles' "butcher cover" for "Yesterday and Today". I have been told that the cover with Flo is somewhat visible underneath the pasted layer. Therefore this was not only done for the 45's sleeves, but was intended to be the actual album cover and pulled at the last minute. Although I have also wondered in regards to the question you posed...on the original cover that featured photos of Flo, they still included photos with only Diana and Mary. What was the reasoning behind this? I wonder if this collage was truly meant to be a symbolic representation of "reflections" of The Supremes' history up to that point, and the changes that they had gone through. Perhaps that is why they were originally ok with the design that included Flo, and perhaps later on, someone changed their mind. My thinking is that the change with the album cover would have likely been due to the fact that even though Flo was fired in July of '67, by the time the release of the Reflection album rolled around in March of '68, she had likely only come off the heels of signing her release with Motown and then was likely in the subsequent stages of her assembling her litigation with Motown, as well as signing her solo contract with ABC Records, which likely made things far too complicated for Motown to even consider going-forward with their original plan of including photos of her on the cover of a new Supremes album. I'm sure these different legal complexities came to their attention at the final hour, and to cover their own ass, they changed the cover.

[reese]

There are fans who own an early 1st pressing copy of the Reflections album with the original cover that features photos of Flo, with the new cover pasted over top, similar to what was done with The Beatles' "butcher cover" for "Yesterday and Today". I have been told that the cover with Flo is somewhat visible underneath the pasted layer. Therefore this was not only done for the 45's sleeves, but was intended to be the actual album cover and pulled at the last minute. Although I have also wondered in regards to the question you posed...on the original cover that featured photos of Flo, they still included photos with only Diana and Mary. What was the reasoning behind this? I wonder if this collage was truly meant to be a symbolic representation of "reflections" of The Supremes' history up to that point, and the changes that they had gone through. Perhaps that is why they were originally ok with the design that included Flo, and perhaps later on, someone changed their mind. My thinking is that the change with the album cover would have likely been due to the fact that even though Flo was fired in July of '67, by the time the release of the Reflection album rolled around in March of '68, she had likely only come off the heels of signing her release with Motown and then was likely in the subsequent stages of her assembling her litigation with Motown, as well as signing her solo contract with ABC Records, which likely made things far too complicated for Motown to even consider going-forward with their original plan of including photos of her on the cover of a new Supremes album. I'm sure these different legal complexities came to their attention at the final hour, and to cover their own ass, they changed the cover.

I've heard the same re fans having the original pasted-over cover. It just seems rather strange that none of these have ever appeared over the years, at least not to my knowledge. I do recall a fan posting that he had a pasted-over copy but that it was the back cover that seemed to have changed.

All of this said, if I even had a copy, I probably wouldn't risk ruining it just to see the original so maybe that is why none seem to have surfaced.