Florence and Mary on Background Vocals
As I was playing through some of the albums from 1965 and 1966 to focus on the background voices of Mary and Florence, I made a particular observation. Their harmonies were always so 'tight' and distinctively beautiful. When they would sing backgrounds in unison [[not harmonies), more times that not, Mary's voice stands out much more that Florence's. Of course, a prime example of that is "Where Did Our Love Go" where I question that Florence's voice is even on the recording at all. It sounds like a Diana-Mary duet to me.
Mary's smokey, thick voice did seem to soften the edge of Diana's lead lines; and I am beginning to wonder if Florence's voice was maybe somewhat too abrasive on those recordings thus she was placed further from the mic or mixed in at a much less volume level especially when she are singing a unison line. Florence definitely could belt out her gospelish style [[my opinion) voice which didn't seem to cater to the Supremes sound.
Which brings me to my next "I wonder." Vocally, did Berry see Cindy's much softer soprano as being more conducive to the direction he was wanting to take the Supremes as they expanded more in more into the pop and show buiness arena? And yes, Mary's voice, on those live recordings of DRATS is way more powerful than Cindy's.