“Theme From ‘Mahogany’”: A Look Back

[zani57]

https://www.stereogum.com/2055449/the-number-ones-diana-ross-theme-from-mahogany-do-you-know-where-youre-going-to/franchises/the-number-ones/

[Ollie9]

As we all know, Mahogany did not bomb at the box office. True it did not do as well as LSTB, but still turned out a profit.
A wistful, beautiful song that will never age. One of Diana's best vocal performances.

[DWSheffer]

One of my favorite songs by Diana.....a great song and performance all around. The message in this song will be timeless.
Darin

[RanRan79]

I hate it, but the version on An Evening With isn't half bad. In fact now that I think of it, I prefer her live versions to the recorded version. But I kinda get how it was such a big song at the time. Motown got this one right. Unfortunately they bungled the soundtrack idea. While I enjoy most of the cuts on the soundtrack, it should've been a true Diana Ross album, with her doing every song. All the great single artist only soundtrack albums that were commercial and/or critical successes and Motown fails to get Diana in on it? Crazy.

[sup_fan]

this is a fav song of mine. love her vocals and the lush track.

as for the movie, it's a campy bit of fun nonsense. there was some potential to have a more solid concept and film, but Berry's obsession with controlling the situation lead to a movie that's fun to watch but full of problems. Very interesting to think what could have been had Tony stayed on

the soundtrack was pretty useless. the instrumental tracks are pretty and all but frankly there isn't enough differentiation between the different character themes. I do think Diana vocals could have helped. But there wasn't enough for her to fill both sides.

[lucky2012]

I liked it from the first time I heard it. I didn't think it would go to #1, though. I was happily surprised! It's a beautiful melody, song and recording. I don't know what the Academy's problem was when they deemed it not qualitatively good enough to be nominated for Best Song. Ridiculous and silly.

[RanRan79]

the soundtrack was pretty useless. the instrumental tracks are pretty and all but frankly there isn't enough differentiation between the different character themes. I do think Diana vocals could have helped. But there wasn't enough for her to fill both sides.

I don't necessarily think Diana should've recorded vocals to all those instrumentals, although I dream of a discovery of Diana vocals to "My Hero Is My Gun". I might have done something like this:

Theme From Mahogany
After You
To Love Again
We're Always Saying Goodbye
Sorry Doesn't Always Make It Right
My Hero Is My Gun [[dream Diana vocals but I do love the instrumental enough to include it)

And from there I would've padded it out with more Diana originals.

[RanRan79]

I liked it from the first time I heard it. I didn't think it would go to #1, though. I was happily surprised! It's a beautiful melody, song and recording. I don't know what the Academy's problem was when they deemed it not qualitatively good enough to be nominated for Best Song. Ridiculous and silly.

I thought the song was disqualified because Thelma Houston had released a version previously, no?

[reese]

I thought the song was disqualified because Thelma Houston had released a version previously, no?

That would have been a legitimate reason but since the Academy did reconsider its decision and gave the song a nomination, they probably were unaware of Thelma's version. Also, some of the lyrics were changed for the film so maybe that made it "original" again.

[zani57]

This YouTube compilation shows Diana performing the song in Amsterdam for the Oscars while the main ceremony was being held in L.A. I remember watching this live. That stupid song “I’m Easy” from “Nashville” won over much better songs.


https://youtu.be/wex-TSUYfWo

[sup_fan]

I thought the song was disqualified because Thelma Houston had released a version previously, no?

was Thelma's released? i knew she recorded it but didn't think it was actually released.

[zani57]

How does fake news even get out there that “Theme From ‘Mahogany’” was disqualified when it’s so easy with the Internet nowadays to fact-check that the song was one of the nominated songs that year? Sounds like Sarah Huckabee Sanders made up this whopper!

[sup_fan]

it wasn't one of the songs originally nominated. The Academy passed it over and then there was significant outcry across the industry [[music and film). This caused the Academy to reconsider and change their mind, adding the song to the others already nominated. I believe this is one of [[if not the) only times the Academy has done such a thing

[lucky2012]

^ Clive Davis was a defender of Theme from Mahogany.

[captainjames]

I remember something about this and it had something to do with the song not being played throughout the movie or some crap like that.

[vgalindo]

^ Clive Davis was a defender of Theme from Mahogany.
Yes it was actually Clive Davis that came to fight for the song to be included in the nominations.

[annettewainwright]

Yes it was actually Clive Davis that came to fight for the song to be included in the nominations.

Correct! And who could forget that dramatic performance at the telecast!

[144man]

was Thelma's released? i knew she recorded it but didn't think it was actually released.

I've heard it on an official New Zealand released single.

[annettewainwright]

I listened to it in FLAC in the car this morning - what a difference a "format" makes!

[PeaceNHarmony]

I listened to it in FLAC in the car this morning - what a difference a "format" makes!I've heard OF, but never HEARD, FLAC - can you tell us more?

[annettewainwright]

I've heard OF, but never HEARD, FLAC - can you tell us more?

When in doubt, CNET it out! I've ripped all of my CDs in FLAC format and store them in the "cloud". Here's a primer:

https://www.cnet.com/news/what-is-flac-the-high-def-mp3-explained/

[PeaceNHarmony]

How does fake news even get out there that “Theme From ‘Mahogany’” was disqualified when it’s so easy with the Internet nowadays to fact-check that the song was one of the nominated songs that year? Sounds like Sarah Huckabee Sanders made up this whopper!Well ... there's a SHS in every organization, I guess. 400-lb stay-at-home malcontents doing nothing with their lives other than creating lies. Anyhoo, the song is wonderful, the Diana version is a classic and all these decades later it still gets airplay!!

[benross]

Barbra Streisand sang just the title song on the soundtrack album for the film The Way We Were, so the producers of the Mahogany soundtrack were not out of step.

However, the Streisand album recordings of the theme were those heard in the movie, not the version released as a single, so fans got a nice bonus.

[RanRan79]

That would have been a legitimate reason but since the Academy did reconsider its decision and gave the song a nomination, they probably were unaware of Thelma's version. Also, some of the lyrics were changed for the film so maybe that made it "original" again.

Oh okay, so she did get the nomination. Interesting.

[RanRan79]

was Thelma's released? i knew she recorded it but didn't think it was actually released.

I have it on a compilation. I thought it was released and failed and quickly forgotten when Ross' version hit the streets.

[RanRan79]

How does fake news even get out there that “Theme From ‘Mahogany’” was disqualified when it’s so easy with the Internet nowadays to fact-check that the song was one of the nominated songs that year? Sounds like Sarah Huckabee Sanders made up this whopper!

Who the fuck is bothering to fact check every Diana Ross trivia question? She isn't the president or any other elected gov't official that anyone should be so bothered to do research in the basement of Soulful Detroit regarding her career. First of all, I hate the song, so I will admit that the ins and outs of it's entire history is one I often skip over. I was under the impression that the song was disqualified from Academy nomination because technically the song had a release by Thelma Houston. And apparently that's where my brain began to tune out any further information because for all of these years that I have been interested in Diana, I can't recall hearing that the song was reconsidered and given a nomination. So when Lucky posted his thoughts, I followed it up by attempting to confirm that the information I had about "Theme From Mahogany" was correct. I now know the truth and will alter my thoughts going forward. Sarah Sanders was a liar with a purpose, spreading lies in the hopes that it would make her boss look good. I fail to see any resemblance between Sanders and myself or anything said in this thread. Somebody always on some bullshit.

[lucky2012]

^ Zani57 apparently didn't know that the song was disqualified and then qualified after being defended by industry people, including Clive Davis.

[PeaceNHarmony]

An interesting thing is that the song was SUCH a big hit, and created yet another signature song for Diana. 'Interesting' because we often discuss 'release-a-bility' of songs as singles, and I can clearly remember friends doing a vocal "Zzzzzz" when the record came on the radio in the early days of the record's airplay!

[Ollie9]

An interesting thing is that the song was SUCH a big hit, and created yet another signature song for Diana. 'Interesting' because we often discuss 'release-a-bility' of songs as singles, and I can clearly remember friends doing a vocal "Zzzzzz" when the record came on the radio in the early days of the record's airplay!

It was certainly slow off the starting block in the UK. I can remember listening to the song being played on the radio with the radio presenter commenting that he found it hard to understand there was no sign of it on the charts yet.