Originally Posted by
RanRan79
I've seen Mary's autograph with the word "touch" often but never thought about why. Good point about the significance of it to her career, which begs the question why doesn't she include the song in her live act?
I first heard "Touch" when I acquired the 70's Greatest Hits and Rare Classics, which I was lucky enough to purchase within months of becoming a Supremes' album collector back in the 90s. "Touch" was a fast favorite of mine and I was surprised that it hadn't been a hit. At the time in the 90s a lot of us kids were getting into cuts- particularly slow jams- from the 70s thanks to the constant sampling that was taking place in current music, and I thought "Touch" was right in line with the sound. [[Surprised no one sampled it, as far as I know.) It was a gorgeous record IMO. Both Mary and Jean sound great and the track is beautiful.
In the years since, I have cooled off the song a bit, which I've chalked up to the mix that I truly love being the one on the GHRC, while the ones I ultimately ended up playing more often were the album version and the version on the 2000 boxset, which is a bit inferior in sound. I've also come to understand why the song probably didn't catch on the way that it should've. In no particular order:
Promotion...There's tons of audio and video of JMC performing all of their first few singles, but as far as I've seen and heard, JML did it once and SMC did it once, both long after the song had any chance of making waves. I think someone said in the forum that the girls did the song on Flip Wilson, but I've yet to see the clip. Obviously Motown thought the song had potential or it never would've been released in the first place, but it appears like Supremes publicity dropped off for this particular cut in comparison to what had been going on the previous year.
The mix...As I said, the mix on GHARC sounds to my ears to be the superior mix, all the others pale. Perhaps had a different mix been issued it may have gone further.
Mary and Jean...I never thought about it until someone mentioned it in the forum, but the song doesn't work as well with two females duetting. Perhaps the song would've been better had it been a duet with the Tops, but my money is on the song being better with Mary singing the lead alone. It was much more suited to her talents than Jean's, IMO.