Thanks Reese! Now noted that Otis confirms the story. Or originates it, as the case may be. I agree, they sound perfect.
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The article below from The Detroit Free Press explains why all of these videos are re-surfacing again now. For that person who said that they are not enhanced, the video quality looks much better to me than what I have seen in other formats --
https://amp.freep.com/amp/5338761002
well I will never understand about this legend is this, I think everyone will admit that David Ruffin is doing a great job in the Medley in the key that it is in. If that is acknowledged by all as it seems to be here, what purpose would there be to have a medley in a lower key that he could sing in and diana could not? Are some of you suggesting that this television appearance would’ve been better served if the key were lower than one Diana could vocalize in?
David had two or three minutes on this show singing, Diana had the whole medley, green sleeves, thou swell, plus in and out of love. Miss Ross had things to do that day! Singing in the wrong key with David Ruffin was not going to be one of them.
this is another whiny, bitchy, flimsy piece of idiocy prattled on by those who are so quick to judge and shame, they don’t think of the practical reason for the key change. Evidently Otis felt that a key serving both was not preferable. It’s so childish. I much prefer the horror story of diana sleeping on the couch and mary sleeping on the floor, or how mean mean mean Diana was to accuse Mary of stealing the prize money and then spending freely at the amusement park after.
I was really not aware anyone was suggesting anything. I’ve repeatedly mentioned I think both singers do a great job so find it strange you attach this to my post.
As far as I can make out the thread is merely a discussion about an incident that according to a least one original Temptation actually happened. Whether one chooses to believe it or not or considers it a complete irrelevance is most certainly personal choice. For me personally it’s no big a deal. Are you saying Otis made the whole thing up to be nasty?. Perhaps if he had written Diana spent an hour after the show distributing funds to the sick and needy it might be more readily accepted??.
Im a little confused here. :confused:
I know that story was written in Mary's first book to illustrate the portrayal of a selfish Diana Ross, but I always thought it made Mary look like more of an idiot. There's no way I'm sleeping on the floor every night at my relative's house while you get the couch every night. I'm not waiting on you to suggest we alternate nights, I'm telling you we're alternating nights. Diana Ross in all likelihood was a selfish young lady, but I can see how tempting it might have been for her to pay someone like Mary no mind if you wait 20 years to say you wanted to sleep on the couch.
What key does David usually sing in, and what key is he singing here? Is it a major difference?
good call reese! i stand corrected. :) and that's what i love about this forum and sharing info and learning more!
I've seen a pic of the sups and temps on Douglas. they appear to be dancing, singing, having fun. no idea if they're singing one of their tunes, some pop or MOR song, who knows
i agree that some of the stories in Mary's book frankly come off a little petty. i mean - seriously!! who's gonna bring up something as trivial as who slept on what surface in 1959?!?! and bringing it up 25 years later. they were young kids - all pre-teens do idiotic things
if mary's goal was to paint diana as a conniving scheming bitch, she should have focused on more specifics that occurred within the group. not ordering pizza late at night or arriving at an interview with snazzy earrings and outfit.
but it's very one-sided. Mary doesn't acknowledge any idiot things she did as a teen. and her books fails to highlight the many positive things Diana did to accelerate the group's career. That Diana was willing to do spend MUCH more time in the studio than mary or flo, that diana worked tirelessly to perfect her components of the stage show, etc.
yet every little slight diana committed to mary, flo and/or cindy seems to be present in the books
Actually all of us in here are being Very judgmental in regards to the girls lives on and off the stage. None of us were on the road with them or in their lives 24/7 when these events occurred. The girls are the only ones that truly know what really happened and of course they will spin it to their favor. All second and third hand stories are just that , rehashed stories with something added or left off. Always remember 5 of us can see an incident and give 5 different stories on what happened. Doesn’t mean they’re lying , it just means they saw it from their angle.
I believe Mary's point was to illustrate that even way back then [[this story, if memory serves me correctly, was actually in 1962 when Flo was a temp Marvelette and Mary and Diana decided to head to Chicago for a bit) Diana was self centered. And if the story is true, it certainly makes Diana look exactly like that. But what nut would let her do it? Can you imagine if they were at a Ballard relative's home? Flo would've been like "Bitch get yo ass on the floor. You had the couch last night. Who you supposed to be, Queen Diane?":cool:
And sadly, because since the time of the book, other things have been proven false, one has to wonder if in reality Mary's relatives may have told Mary "Let your friend have the sofa" in order to be hospitable to someone who wasn't family and then Mary remixed the story for her book as Diana took the couch without any regard for Mary's feelings. Not saying this is how it was, just that I'm wondering if it's a possibility.
Yes!! I've been saying this all along. We get all these stories about bad, mean Diana, but not about Mary. Even the story Mary writes about Diana accusing Brenda Holloway of stealing her shoes or a hairspray or a brush or something stupid [[although stealing shoes isn't something stupid, that's pretty serious), Mary's story is all Diana. Mean Diane went off on this little girl and then turned out to be wrong about whatever it was. Yet when Brenda tells the story, Mary is right behind Diana egging it on.
We get almost a crash course in Diana's love life. Meanwhile Mary's love life gets mostly a paragraph 200 pages apart. There's no way Mary could avoid writing about Diana and Berry because of it's impact on the group. The passages about that relationship are fair game. But the story about Diana and the white guy from DC, Diana and Brian Holland, even Diana and the football player she was apparently seeing briefly in the late 60s, this was necessary because...?
Mary's life appears to me to be far more interesting than some are willing to give credit for. It's a pity we get very little of it in her first book because of the choice to focus on Diana, and to a lesser extent Florence.
Yeah it's her book, so I think somebody like me was expecting her to write about, oh I don't know, herself.:p
I do agree about the studio. I don't think Diana was willing to spend any more time in the studio than Flo or Mary. The producers decided who they wanted to sing lead and they recorded the lead singer. Sure, most of the time they wanted the actual Supremes to sing backup, and apparently that's what they got. But one has to wonder how demoralizing it was when Flo and/or Mary would discover they weren't on a track, for whatever reason. [[And yet still being charged for the studio time.) I can imagine at a certain point there wasn't always an incentive to do as they were told. Can you imagine how Diana's work ethic might have suffered if she started finding out her leads were replaced with Flo or Mary? Yikes.
Even the Christmas album debacle is a bit strange. Diana says she recorded the album all by herself while Flo and Mary went on a break, but Flo and Mary recorded leads for the album during the same time Diana was laying down leads, so something doesn't make sense.
True, but if you put a story out there, you gotta expect for people to formulate thoughts and opinions. Mary wrote a book because she wanted her version of the story out there. It's impossible to read a book and not form an opinion. At least I think it's impossible. I can only speak for myself, but I do think I'm being a bit judgmental with my criticism of Mary not speaking up about the couch. While Flo was probably the type to say something, Mary hasn't always proven to be someone willing to speak up for herself or others. That's life. But my opinion about the story remains the same. While I don't think Dreamgirl was as harsh on Diana as some fans seem to think, it's clear this book was supposed to be more or less a hatchet job on the woman Mary once turned to for help when no one else would, and then IMO, ushered in the nonsense we see in this forum between those who worship at the feet of Mary and those who worship at the feet of Diana.
i completely agree! well said
and you're right about mary's book. of course she wasn't going to include much that might put her in a negative light.
there were stories from Gil that were wonderfully balanced about the girls and how both mary and diana were really, really anguished over Flo's decline. both really wanted to help and tried to keep things together.
I guess Diana finally said "look - we've tried and enough is enough. this isn't working." seems that mary was in agreement with that.
Mary is a pretty nice person. Not perfect but a peacekeeper and didn’t like conflict so she wasn’t usually difficult.
in my timeline work, i've listed out the session dates for the Xmas lp. It isn't as if the girls dedicated weeks and weeks to rehearsal, studio time, experimentation. it really was a factory assembly line. when their part was needed, they got into the studio. that was it. because everything was recorded separately, it seems they would have blocks of time for lead vocals and blocks for background. plus all of the other musicians. i doubt the producers often had the entire band and orchestra all there. they'd record the funk bros, then set time to record strings, then start layering it all together, then decide they needed more strings or revised backing vocals or a harmonica or more ooomph on the percussion, or whatever. so all of these would have had separate recording times
then add in all of the different producers - HDH, mickey stevenson, smokey, norman, clarence paul, berry and many many others.
an act or two would be off the road and available. obviously that had to take precedent for recording session prioritization. get diana or martha or levi or whomever into that studio and crank out as much stuff as you can. then all of those others i just mentioned had to be scheduled around that. I think that's why the A's were used on the Supremes stuff. given the volume of content being recorded, there's just no way to manage that PLUS all of the public appearances and performances.
Wasn’t it at at rehearsal for this show that Diana yelled at Vandellas and others for having a sing a long and slapped Eddie Kendricks across the face ?
supposedly those stories were part of the TCB timeline
And as another poster here said, we weren't there so we don't know. it's very possible diana did smack eddie. i don't think anyone here is completely absolving diana of any blame or diva-ness
but mary offers up a VERY sanitized version of herself through the books. to the point where it can lead the reader to discredit her. sure diana made mistakes but at least acknowledge that you're also fallible.
let's not forget that Mary wanted to install mirrors on her bedroom ceiling of her new house in 1965. she was all of 21 years old and yet already considering such a design choice. interesting... lol
I have no reason to think it’s not true, but I know that if it was in a lower key, Diana would’ve had trouble with the verse if I’m losing you because it’s already low for her… Not low necessarily I guess but on the lower side of her comfort range.
my problem with this story is because it is mentioned to imply that David Ruffin was making diana ross look bad and so she wanted to change that, and that it is implying a selfish diva behavior that a few children on this board are rolling around like pigs in shit in. The fact is that the key used is one that both sound good in, and as such, I can’t even understand why Otis Williams or anyone would bother to say we change the keys to the both lead singers could sing in it. There’s no story there. There’s no reason to mention a key change for musical groups that deal with musical charts every single day for years and years and years. It’s as common place as yes if he had said “diana dropped a bobby pin in the dressing room. “Only this particular chart is mentioned in Otis’ book or any of the books And it is to throw shade. It’s a desperate attempt to get a little Diana dirt into any book because that’s what sells the books. If dream girl had made diana ross look like a sand, it probably would’ve done half the business it did more like supreme faith.
At the time, clearly, the biggest star on that stage that night was diana ross. Her group has sold twice as many records as the Temptations, five times as many concert tickets and currently have the number one album in the country. More people were tuning in to see her than anyone else if we’re going to start putting people against each other. It would make sense to have things in her key even if it didn’t work out for the other person.
The folks that are saying that David is singing circles around diana ross I don’t agree with. He is the great David Ruffin and I bow down to him, but he is to soul music as diana ross is to pop music and comparing the two is absurd. You’re not comparing apples and apples so why bother? Compare Diana to Petula Or Cher or other pop divas of the day - not Mahalia Jackson. Manny Manny Manny Manny people that day, I did not appreciate the sound of Mahalia Jackson, would have sent ross saying circles around her. It’s all about where your focus is. But folks try to throw shade, use these Donald Trumpian Comparatives to prove a point that Actually cannot be made.
HA! I just had my first, true LOL today - thank you for that.
In Mary’s books, she doesn’t mention much about having friends prior to the group. It’s very possible that diana ross was her very first close friend, and I could see where as Diana grew into adulthood and changed and moved away from Mary some white that Mary had might have felt like a jilted lover. She’s certainly writes like one. I have never read an autobiography that has so much Information… Personal information about other people who are not the subject matter. And I imagine that diana ross at any age was quite a handful no matter how you look at it - but that same whatever it is, is what put the group over.
Mary wasn’t typically mean to people.
Amen, MotownManiac! My feelings exactly. A singer "singing circles" around another is always only an individual's opinion.Quote:
The folks that are saying that David is singing circles around diana ross I don’t agree with. He is the great David Ruffin and I bow down to him, but he is to soul music as diana ross is to pop music and comparing the two is absurd. You’re not comparing apples and apples so why bother? Compare Diana to Petula Or Cher or other pop divas of the day - not Mahalia Jackson. Manny Manny Manny Manny people that day, I did not appreciate the sound of Mahalia Jackson, would have sent ross saying circles around her. It’s all about where your focus is. But folks try to throw shade, use these Donald Trumpian Comparatives to prove a point that Actually cannot be made.
Randy includes a story of Mary and Diana meeting in Vegas backstage where mary asked if Diana will call her regarding being interviewed for her book. as the story goes, mary says "well no one wants to read about me. it's a book about us. the supremes"
that pretty much sums it up. without heavyduty Diana content, there would never have been anything published.
i've heard earlier drafts were different - not sure now if they were heavier on the tea and she toned it down or if it was too light and she was told to make it more juicy
the book came out in 86 i think. so not quite 10 years after she left the Supremes. and although some crazed fans go on and on about all of the "interest" different labels had in her, she had no contract and hadn't had anything significant since motown dropped her. there's considerable speculation that her writing the book was a last-ditch effort to drum up interest in her and sign a mega recording deal. that too didn't happen
maybe mean isn't the word to describe it. but there was pretty much non-stop conflict between the girls in the 70s. Jean, Lynda, Scherrie, cindy and susaye.
at a certain point you can't only blame the "other" people. The common thread is mary. if every person within the group in the 70s is having problems, don't you think the answer at least partially lies with the one person that was in every single lineup?
Replace the name "Mary Wilson" with "Diana Ross" and I might believe what you are saying. As it stands now, you are completely lying! But that's cool, you do it so much on here that people outside of those that read your posts seriously don't realize it. Mary was not mean to any of those women.
How about you give examples of how Mary Wilson was mean to each one of those women, maybe throw in a link or two while you're at it?
Look, see here you go lying again. Mary Wilson went to see Diana Ross in Vegas with her family and asked Diane if she would agree to be interviewed for her book. Diane responded "Is it a good book or a bad book Mary?". Mary told her it was a book about them, The Supremes. Diane said, I will not have time for that. Mary told her to just call her when they were back in LA. Diane then becomes flippant and goes "Call you? Call you for what?" and then brushes Mary off. I have always said at that point Mary should have just A). Beat Diane's ass right there for being disrespectful or B.) Blast her good with all the dirt in her book, which she did not do after all!
LOL................... that seems like so long ago but what I remember it seems like Mary took her daughter with her to see if she could talk with Diana. Mary as hoping Diana would embrace her daughter and that would give her a chance to talk to Diana. Diana saw right through it.