Originally Posted by
supremester
JMC/JML had 7 top 40's: Ladder, Everybody's, Stoned, River, Nathan, Floy & Automatically. 7 top 40 hits - ironically the same number Diana had in the same time frame [[If not counting Special Part Of Me.) Up The Ladder was not a big hit at all, it was a hit, period. One week at #10 that no one knows now. For many, many years they didn't even have a hits package - you could buy Ladder on a Yesteryear 45 for a while or not at all.
Problem was that their LP sales - the true mark of support for an act nosedived immediately and never recovered. 25,68,116,85,155,54,160,129. They never caught up where DR&TS left off in the concert circuit. They had no "A" List club dates at all, no arenas anymore, just smaller venues and hotel rooms outside of NYC. The public never accepted them like before and I think it was cuz Jean had no spark - JMC were matronly and looked old next to Honey Cone, Labelle, 3 Degrees, Love Unlimited, Pointers - JML was an improvement but they were still wearing huge old show gowns and had zero street cred. They should have left Motown, altered their name like The J5 did and tried a fresh start like The Tops & Spinners. It worked for them, not The Tempts, but you never know until you try. She made a lot of bad decisions, then blamed it all on lack of promotion and the inanity of Berry's fear JMC would be bigger than Diana or some such rot. anyone who knows anything about BG [[without getting their info from Dreamgirl) would know there's nothing BG would have liked better than JMC to give Miss Ross a run for her money - financially and competitively.