And there you have it folks.
Thank you George.
Roberta
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It's not a "There You Have It" situation when someone whose hearing may or not be accurate says something that is completely subjective. I've heard people say all KINDS of things, I've heard John Perrone say with complete certainty that Cindy is not singing the operatic intro in "The Loving Country", and we all know that's totally untrue. We HAVE the isolated background vocals, but not EACH vocalist isolated. When 3 people are singing together, sometimes people's judgement can be thrown off as to who is in the mix. And singers don't always sound EXACTLY the same on every song. If one of the HOLLANDS makes that statement, then I will accept it as fact.
Thanks George.
I know you guys who actually work on these projects have some reluctance to enter the fray and bring rationality and facts into the mix of high anxiety and emotion. I respect you greatly for setting the record straight.
If the doubters/haters can't take it from George and Andy, they couldn't take it from Berry, Mary and Diana, or even Diane.
But deep down, you know the man has served you the final goods and Roberta is right ~ it's a done story. And Motown Maniac is also right..............who cares?
Mary is not laying awake at night over this and Diane doesn't know and Diana doesn't care; too busy on the tour.
Marv ,
Don't your 'they' mean Mary & Motown?
Perhaps "they" said nothing about "Stop In The Name Of Love" , because Mary and Flo recorded vocals which may have been used on one version and not the other. Mary may not have been listening all that closely to notice/ distinguish on which version the Andantes were added/ replaced the Supremes. If Mary didn't notice, she wouldn't bring the song up in any lawsuit.
"Love Child" and "Someday We'll Be Together" are an entirely different issue- Mary knows that she was not on either; Cindy also knows the same. Mary brought these up, cause she knew for sure!
Therefore, Marv, your argument on this post is like comparing apples and oranges and not all that effective.
I don't have a problem with truth. In fact if HDH stated some facts I could accept it and move on. Anyone other than HDH or Diana or Mary is just offering an opinon pure and simple!
Love Factory The History Of Holland Dozier Holland by Howard Priestley, the book I started many years back and [[hopefully) as accurate a history as I could write is now available on Kindle.
Oh, it's still feebly facted because even IF they are on Stop!, they are not on many, many other recordings from 1965 and beyond, and Mary knows this. Still, she chose to say it was a conspiracy after Flo left, claimed they performed on shows they didn't yada yada. as you said, it was years ago - how could Mary remember every detail? Anyway, what do you care about Mary - she asked you publicly and privately to stop your mudslinging and yet you continue. Mary is doing her Lena Horne show in Las Vegas in May - are you going? It should be good.
I don't believe anything that I didn't already believe in 1965 when I first heard this record. All I see is some words on the internet. I have ears [[that have been checked during a recent physical) that are still very good and I believe them,not what I am reading here. Get the Holland Brothers or just drop the subject.
Oh yeah Mary Wilson will be playing the Rrazz Room again with "Upclose" and in Vegas with "The Lena Horne Project". She also recently served as a mentor to Jordan Sparks for the upcoming film "Sparkle" starring the greatest female singer that ever recorded, Ms. Whitney Houston!
Blather, blather.....blather! and I just posted about Mary's upcoming appearance in Vegs in May. I don't know if I will go yet. Are you going to Norwins Supremes Convention in D.C.? You, it will be great and I am sure there will be a few folks there that would to meet you........
You are wasting your breath. He won't give in because he doesn't want to. He doesn't care what the facts are - he does care about image. Which is why he spends countless hours online bashing Diana Ross and praising Mary. It would be admirable if he stuck to the truth and was classy about it, but he uses foul language, homophobic slurs and false information to bolster his claim. Even his Yahoo Mary Group is down to just a very few participants because of the negativity and falsehoods. He says Mary and he are friends and that they talk etc. I sent her a lot of those instances and she didn't even know who he was, asked for a photo and claimed never to have been to his group. When a member invited her there to see what was going on, he banned him for interfering. But have no fear. All of his claims are being supplied to Mary with an invitation here so she, personally, can address all this pettiness [[her word) and hopefully put an end to it all. She is very, very unhappy with the negativity directed toward Diana by a few of her fans and wants us all to live in peace as we enter our golden years. The words are Reach Out and Touch [[Somebody's Hand)......... make this world a better place, if you can!
Oh yes, I will be there and am looking forward to meeting everyone!
I like the Supremes' records. I consider the mono hit single "You Keep Me Hanging On" perhaps the best pop song of the 60s. I don't know or care who actually sang the backgrounds. I just like the song. That guitar figure on the intro and throughout the song is killer!
There's no rationality and fact in someone's subjective opinion, it is someone saying that THEY think it's Andantes, and not Mary and Flo. Like I said, if the INDIVIDUAL backgrounds were separated, then the evidence would be obvious, but when three women are singing together, it's harder to tell. Did you just ignore the video clip comparison I posted earlier? Here's another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7t_l2rws-8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN-hcWau2wU&feature=related
That is definitely Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross singing on that record. Thanks Jill. Now until the Holland Brothers and Lamont Dozier tells us differently, then anything else is just the opinion of someone else that was not even in the studio that day and clearly do not know the voices of the Supremes very well.
We'll give him the weekend to discover what a Kindle is, ok?
when you directly compare the first 10 seconds of those clips, I think it's quite obvious they are the same, with one extra voice added on the first clip. My main issue is this. If I were George or Andy, I would not have presented this information as FACT unless you talked to the people who were THERE and confirmed it. Those clips I posted above cast serious doubt on their statements. I don't think their intentions are bad, just the opposite.. I've seen both of them post for years, and they are not shit stirrers by any means. I just think they heard something, have ran with it without THOROUGHLY vetting their information. simple as that. I DID just listen to the alternate version on the box set, and YES... the backgrounds are different, the extra voice or voices are not there. But Flo and Mary's voices are clearly on BOTH versions... with the released version containing extra voices to beef it up.
And let's also keep in mind that not every singer sings a song the exact same way every time. Flo, in particular would change up her part on "Stop" on many occasions, like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBDnGhv2bv8
George and solomon have done good work to bring supremes fans tracks we have never heard and we do appreciate their efforts however, I have to agree with the conclusion that we insist that the record released on Feb 8, 1965 feature mary and Flo with other voice or voices with the supremes, but i think the bottom line is hearing it from hdh
or Mary Wilson, since they were the ones involved in the background recording of the song and Mary would certainly remember that since it was one of their biggest hits, but here is another theory
if it is true mary and flo are alone in the bkg on where did our love go, baby love, come see about me and back in my arms again, why would they replace them on sitnof which was recorded after all of the others, and before another all supremes single nothing but heartaches the only theory i see is that that they wanted the sound fuller by adding the extra [[voice). I will try to reach Mary when she is off tour and "gently" poise the question to her, i do have her email address until i hear otherwise its the supremes to my ears.
Marv and I do not usually get along. He kicked me out of MWOS for saying I liked the background on Love Child. In Stirfry, he commented that my friend that passed of AIDS deserved what he got for being a sexual deviant and wished the same fate for me. [[It's all in the archives.) Even with that knowledge, I doubt he was meaning violence. Violence? This is 2012. Violence because we differ on background voices? LOL it can't be possible. I know I'm new here, but has anyone disagreed so vehemently about an art form that they'd resort to even inferring violence?
Hi, Kindle is the new way of getting books electronically instead of the old paper way. The link to it is http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Factory.../dp/B007C92CTY
I know it can limit how people buy things but it also allows you to self-publish, which again, can arguably open the market up to any rubbish. I hope mine isn't in that category. I'm 400 pages into another book Blueprint: A History of Funk and have written and drawn 2 parts of a 4 part comic book mini-series called Soul Man which attemots to tell the story of Soul in a fictional setting called Soul City, USA. Catch me also on Phoenix Radio, Thursday evenings 8 til 10pm [[UK time) for Soul City...2 hours of classic funk and soul. www.phoenixfm.co.uk
Frank Wilson, one of the writers and producers of 'Love Child' believed that Mary, Cindy & the Andantes was on 'Love Child'. Do all songwriters/producers always remember everything? Even HDH?
Great points Fran. Yes those guys have done a great job releasing and re-releasing a lot of the old material [[I look forward to some on the Four Tops), but I would have to hear directly from Eddie, Brian and Lamont and perhaps other Motown personnel that were there. Mary has already said that she is on all of those records, so I am not going to bother her with this stuff again.....but Fran, YOU can ask her if you like, hehehehehehe.... I have to laugh because it's always been the Supremes to my ears until after Florence and HDH left and Motown started producing those dull, mediocre records with the bland, colorless background vocals in the late sixties.
I don't know. I do know this and that there is this woman, this musician by the name of Carol Kaye that swears that she is the one playing that famous funky bassline on Stevie Wonder's 1967 hit, "I Was Made to Love Her". There is a great clip of him performing it on Youtube. There was also a year long discussion started by some guy in favor of Ms. Kaye's claim. After a little research, we learned that the Holland Brothers and a few others confirmed that it was the legendary James Jamerson playing on that record and not Kaye! They went as far as to sign an affidavitt [[sp?) stating that and commented further that Ms. Kaye was not in the studio or even in Detroit the day they recorded that record.
So yeah, for ME, it would have to be a similar situation before I would even entertain the thought that Florence Ballard, Diana Ross and Mary Wilson are not singing together on the record, "Stop In the Name of Love".
While every case is different, Mary herself says that she's not singing on "Love Child" in her book, DREAMGIRL...Quote:
Frank Wilson, one of the writers and producers of 'Love Child' believed that Mary, Cindy & the Andantes was on 'Love Child'.
When it is Andy and George, it is like the Motown Gods have spoken.
Even Marv bows to Andrew, George, as well as his Dear Diane.
Thanks Marv, I won't ask Mary this question since she already answered it to you in what you say, and they cannot take away what the supremes have don for us, and yes when Flo left the sound definetely changed. Do you remember how great they sounded on a bit of liverpool, more hits, sam cooke, and where did our love go, cwp and at the copa, after this it was different I hear a symphony onward had a different flavor to it mary and flo being pushed back in the music mix but it was still supreme until the very last note on the Happening.. Rogers and Hart was somewhat interesting as well. but it fell into the after I hear a symphony sound, notice how different Flo sounds on a lot of those tracks.