Then they were talking to her about coming back as early as 1982 when they wanted to put the Supremes back together with Mary.
Printable View
agreed! and don't forget Baby It's Me being done by an outside producer.
i'm wondering if there was something else more behind the scenes. Mary and Pedro had caused quite a bit of commotion with the top Motown staffers. and of course her big lawsuit could NOT have helped things.
Randy's Beyoncé book gives some props to Matthew Knowles for having the vision to find creative outlets for all 3 girls in Destiny's Child. hence their really not having the internal struggles of other girl groups. B is obviously the superstar but Michelle and Kelly have both had their own successes. Imagine if Berry had had this vision with the Sups.
Good point sup_fan. As Neil Bigart said mary had the potential to be another Donna Summer and Flo could have been a knockout on Broadway/a Nessun Dorma like Aretha.
I'm with Luke. Like I said previously, they were looking for a reason to drop Mary and they used Dudgeon as an excuse. I would add though, there is a difference in situations in which those outside producers like Richard Perry and Niles Rodgers were brought in: Motown greenlit those decisions and with Dudgeon they did not.
I think somebody was blowing smoke up Mary's butt. There's no way that I buy Motown seriously considering putting the Supremes back together unless it was Wilson, Ross and Birdsong. They didn't give a shit about the group just a few years prior, so why go through the trouble [[and surely they had to have known Mary Wilson of 1982/83 was not Mary Wilson of 1976/77, which meant she would be even more trouble because she would not want to be controlled at all) of bringing them back? The general public didn't give a shit about the Jean-less Supremes [[and if my memory serves me it was the MSC grouping Motown was "interested" in) in the 70s, so what had changed in the 80s from the company's perspective? I suppose- if I were going to buy Motown's interest in a 80s Supremes- Motown might have wanted to give the Pointer Sisters some competition, but I really don't think MSC was the grouping to do it. Jean joining Mary and Cindy, perhaps. [[Although I doubt Jean would have been interested in rejoining Motown.) Diana joining Mary and Cindy, definitely. Scherrie? I laugh at the absurdity of the entire scenario.
Mary, another Donna Summer? I don't think so. She needed to get far away from disco. I think the 70s would have been good to Flo. I can hear her doing southern soul in the early part of the decade and I think she would have been great on the kinds of stuff Gloria Gaynor was doing with disco.
Look. It wasn't even that complicated. Berry and Motown were still not happy that Diana Ross went to RCA and Marvin went to Columbia. They felt the company was losing it's identity. The Temptations Reunion went well for the most part and so they thought a Supremes Reunion might be worthwhile. Mary did not instigate that. Someone else brought the idea to Mr. Gordy.
But that is what they were talking about back then. Mary, Donna Summers, Grace Jones and all of them were hanging out often partying in New York in those days. This "next Donna Summer" talk was before the "next Tina Turner" talk started LOL! I remember all of this stuff. I am impressing only myself here LOL!!!
Sidebar: I just posted a thread with a link to the demo version of "This Is Why I Believe In You" if anyone is interested in listening.
I'm listening Marv! Mary was a trendsetter a la Green River pre Tina. My love life is a disaster/pre She works hard for the money. And remember she was offered Holiday!!
I think that the success of the musical 'Dreamgirls' and subsequent publicity relating to the Supremes as it's inspiration played a big part in Motown's interest in reforming the group to capitalise on this attention. The lineup was to be Mary, Scherrie and Cindy.
Mary has stated that Berry Gordy was not overly enthusiastic about the idea which must have been pitched by others at the company, so she saw no reason to proceed, which was probably the right decision.
I remember reading a comment by Cindy in Jet magazine about their re-forming.
She was and in a way it was to be expected. After all, she is one of the biggest icons of the sixties along with Diana Ross, Florence Ballard, the Beatles, Dylan and the Stones. Those were some of the most popular, successful artists of that decade.
Here's a bit of trivia you may not know but Mary Wilson was asked to audition for the role of "Clair Huxtable" on the Cosby Show by Mr. Cosby himself. Phylicia Rashad got the part and the rest is history.
I'm not saying it was a good idea. Or a well thought out one. But 60s nostalgia was hot at this time. The whole Big Chill thing. While Motown was certainly innovative in some ways, they also were big on jumping on a bandwagon. If they could get a few bucks out of it, why not. As we know, many if not most Motown decisions were not based on sentiment or artistry. But just cold hard cash
Couldn't you say the same thing about Hal Davis when they assigned him to Diana Ross in 76, he'd had a couple of dry years then too .Quote:
Marv2:
Disco was just about over by the Fall of 1979. That album should have come out in '77 or '78.
And just as it might be argued that disco wasn't the right sound for Mary , equally would it have been said of Diana pre-LOVE HANGOVER. I don't think anyone at Motown had any intentions of making Diana a club favorite including [[and especially) Diana herself, but by doing so, it was the biggest favor Hal Davis could have awarded her career. It's these disco hits of hers that give her concerts a driving energy even to this day. Hal Davis did the same thing for Thelma Houston giving her such a big disco song that it's provided her a lifetime career of performing .
So why not see if this same fortune could be repeated again with Mary. No one in 1979 knew disco was about to implode, so it was acceptable, even desirable, to include the genre in a project. Mary needed to land somewhere , and disco, a female vocalists' haven, for her remained virgin territory . Diana Ross at this same time was still embracing disco and her resulting work with Chic would garner some of the most successful music of her catalogue.
As far as RED HOT being released too late , I agree that the disco style being utilized in it was dated for 1979 and no DJ was looking to play music that sounded like the same o same o. I don't think the record would have fared any better a year or more earlier though . The record is weak in several ways and even in disco, hearing something like 'RED HOT' repeated too much , as in over and over [[and over) again, gets tiresome.
IMO , the bass line in RED HOT is a rambling mess . The best hope would have been to pull forward that piano part beginning at 3:23 and make that the song's driving force instead of that confused bass line . Most of the Linda Clifford growls could go too . Etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3PQCpXkZ_c
Back to Mary being stuck with Hal Davis, do we feel the same about Syreeta when she worked with Davis following this project ?
Did she actually audition for the part? I never knew that.
Another piece of funny trivia "Cosby" related. Phylicia Rashad had 2 [[I think) albums on Casablanca. I have one, "Josphine Superstar", kind of a take off on Josephine Baker. I know I've never played it but just one of those things, when I saw it, I had to have it!
when you say remixes, there is more than just the Rusty Garner one?
of which I believe is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otk2H51VLd0
and I agree, imo, it's an improvement, for one thing, easily 50% less "red hots" heard throughout. lol!
The back up girls have been relegated to a less prominent role. Vocally more sparse, including removing Mary's "rap" piece about her phone number. Very jarring mix at 1:20 Rusty!
Still don't care for the bass line , but that could just be me; the last 45 seconds, removing the vocals there and concluding the record with more of that piano work instead , nice!
One more thought in defense of Motown. They bothered to have the song remixed and then released it as both a promo 12" for the clubs [[added: on red vinyl! no less) and as a commercial retail pressing for the fans. Quite a bother that doesn't strike me as particularly nefarious!
Yes there are several remixes done in recent years. Here is the most recent one by Glenn Rivera from earlier this year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFCgEtnIM08
This one is my favorite by Donald Bumps from about 3 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQSnPv3Gyko
oh .
but no other "real " ones from back in the actual day. I gotcha.
I could've gone with that Bumps one back then, bass line and all! I don't think Mary would've liked it one bit as a release though. She's been all but eliminated! lol!
Very Walter Gibbons.
Oh oh third play going on fourth: I'M HOOKED!
I didn't think Mary had instigated it. She'd have to be a complete idiot to want back in that bag without Diana by her side. Mary's focus should have been forging her path alone and out of the shadow of the group, not rejoining it. Someone else bringing the idea to Gordy just means that someone else at Motown, besides Gordy, was an f'n idiot.
Well I'm going to say it: It wasn't a good idea, nor was it well thought out. Lol Absolutely worst idea. I get the 60s nostalgia and I get someone wanting to do with the Supremes what had been done with the Tempts. But there's a couple of issues with that. For one, Scherrie in the lineup gives the Supremes a 70s/disco identity. I don't think the public would have given into 60s nostalgia for a disco lineup of Supremes. Not that I'm saying that's the type of music they would have been doing, but that was their identity as a lineup in the 70s, which just doesn't conjure up the feels of the 60s. The other thing is that the Tempts reunion was what it was because of the presence of two people: David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, two people who immediately come to mind when the name "Temptations" is uttered. Nobody outside of us diehard Supremes fans and music historians think of Scherrie Payne when we think of Supremes. Also David hadn't performed as a Tempt since 1968, Eddie since 1971. And both left the group when the group was still extremely popular. Of course their reunion was going to be newsworthy.
MSC hadn't even been gone 10 years when this reunion talk started and the last time they were together they were riding on one "hit" that barely made the top 40 pop and couldn't manage to crawl it's way into the top 20 r&b. Nobody cared. And now all of a sudden in 1983 people were supposed to run to stores to pick up the latest Supremes' album? The only way Motown could've capitalized successfully on Dreamgirls and the Tempts reunion with a Supremes reunion is if the label and all parties concerned could've reached an agreement where Diana rejoined Mary and Cindy. Nothing says 60s nostalgia like the 60s Supremes.
Gordy should've been offended by whoever walked into his office one day and said "I have a great idea...". Whomever it was should've been fired on the spot.
Diana Ross can sing just about any genre and seem at home. I think that's why it's always been easy for different producers with different types of sounds in mind to approach her to do the singing. She had already tackled a number of different things, so experimenting with her on a disco number like "Love Hangover" might have seemed like a no brainer. By the time of Mary's solo debut she had been a part of the disco music scene for years with the Supremes and it was those ballads on the albums that clearly showed what she was made of. I just think that if anyone at the label really wanted her to succeed they would have given her a project that played to her strengths.
I will say this in a small defense: most the songs IMO aren't good quality, no matter who was singing them. So it's possible- though I doubt it- that with better disco songs maybe- MAYBE- Mary's album wouldn't have been so bad.