Please I’ve heard Diana quote stories that weren’t quite accurate. I’ve heard all of them do it and in more than one occasion.
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Without a doubt it's difficult to remember every detail of every show, concert, appearance. That said, I do think Mary has taken more than a few liberties with the Supremes story. There are people that find fault with this when she gets facts incorrect; there are other people that think of her as some eccentric Aunt that tells a few tales.
I think the biggest one in recent memory is that we've heard in the Supremes early years, they were referred to as the "no hit Supremes". It wasn't that long ago that Mary said that SHE was the one that coined the phrase.
Back to Chile. ;)
Mary has never let the truth get in the way of a good story. I have even heard her contradict herself in the same interview!
That's Mary for you. She can tell a good story and be highly entertaining, but it is wise to take whatever she says with a pinch of salt, or perhaps even a pillar of salt.
please reread my post. i'm not referring to sitting on a talk show panel or on stage and misquoting something. in those situations you're working in the moment and need to answer immediately. sure they've misstated a year that a song was released or mixed up a story a bit
I'm talking about researching and publishing a biography. she and the publishers clearly had a specific type of story in mind
Most biographies have incorrect facts in them. It's human nature to state things that are more favourably disposed to their current view of things and that represent them more positively and skip over most of the bad/foolish stuff they may have done.
If Diana had ever released a proper memoirs I'm sure there would be plenty of people disputing the 'facts' within.
I'm certain if Mary was releasing a book in 2020 as opposed to the mid-80s and had access to some of these YT clips or fan lists of recording/performance dates etc available now [[and had an editor that could fact-check certain things) it would be much more accurate. Then again, you have HDH releasing books these days and people can still dispute some of the 'facts' written in them.
PS - the Chile show in the clip was nowhere near the trainwreck I was expecting. Pretty decent show really.
it’s possible. However, Mary distinctly says Flos does this after Diana talks about the replacements which was on this show online. It’s still possible that mary was incorrect. It’s also possible she just made it up. That’s what I believe because she was building up the Florence Ballard story Way out of proportion for what it really was.
from what we've read in the various books and from various interviews and sources of people that were there, both M and D really did try to help florence. these were young 21 and 22 year old girls, trying to solve mountainous problems. they were dealing with huge successes and stresses with their work, instantly thrust into a totally new world, and dealing with some very challenging personnel problems. both girls tried their best but it was simply too much
it seems that Diana might have been the first to say "ok i've tried to help but now it's just getting to the point where we might lose it all. enough is enough."
Mary also got to that point. she agreed with Berry and Diana that enough was enough. Like Diana, mary wanted to move forward with her career and flo was a barrier to that. So as painful as it was, both Mary and Diana agreed Flo's time to depart had come
Flo's tragic death really altered the story. and IMO it gave Flo a bit of a martyr aura. Flo was a good singer but not the best singer to ever wax a record. Flo was a good entertainer but she had some serious personal demons that prevented her from making good on that. Flo made a lot of poor decisions. obviously not everything is her fault but she was most definitely an active participant in how her life turned out
in order to push her own story, mary has heavily aligned herself with this tragic martyr. the spin of her stories most definitely does this. while i agree part of this is helping to keep flo's and the supremes' memory alive, she made the decision that the best way to do this was to paint Diana as the villain. and that sold well
Did someone misunderstand something? It seems like the group thought they were to be performing "somewhere where it's chilly..." rather than "somewhere in Chile..." Why else would they show up wearing what looks like long-johns under their sparkly costumes? And why didn't someone listen when told that the group's "He's my man" argument was poorly written/ad-libbed and poorly acted and was not a high point of their set; it seemed like padding, trying to stretch space as there were few actual hits to fill the hour-long [[?) contracted show at this point.
haha - i never really liked these outfits either. Mary was preg at the time and Cindy may or may not have been the same size/shape as she was when she left a year and a half prior. A lot of gowns were sized DOWN to fit Scherrie and Susaye so they probably had to go into the outfits leftover from the Jean era to find bigger costumes. I don't think i've ever seen any pics of a Scherrie lineup in these. same with the pink outfits from Glen Campbell but those are also much tighter
and yeah i always found that argument stage patter in HMM annoying. i have a handful of concert bootlegs from this period and never once does it come across as a high point of the concert. now i recognize that the tape quality is poor and so maybe in person it did. but i always thought it was dumb and poorly executed
All in all, this was a solid performance. Their voices certainly blend better live than MSS live [[although they were magic in the studio). "He's My Man" never sounded quite right live, and the banter is my only criticism of the performance. They were probably limited on outfits; even the forgiving black and silver striped robes from Soul Train/Merv Griffin/Mike Douglas would have been too short for Cindy and probably Debbie. At least they're not old DRATS gowns from a decade before.
I think the blend was pretty good too and yes He's my man never sounds good live. Their choreography wasn't that good either. The choreography of Let yourself go is better than the one from when MSS did it. The outfits are not my favourite either but by then too many had been altered or lost in the fire a few years earlier.
Rumor has it the choreography was learned in the aisle of an airplane. Not to shabby.
The let yourself go clip, also in Chile, posted a while ago has better choreography than when they did it with Mary, Scherrie and Susaye. The slower paced version and choreography did the song, live, good.
Even You're my driving wheel sounds better. Mary's first verse when singing the song is actually not bad at all. Scherrie is better on record but the live performances of the song ...no. Don't get me wrong but Mary towers above the other two, scherrie and Susye, and it always looks a bit weird when they did them hectic choreography. The three degrees had quite a hectic routine for dirty ol man and they were often, can't say always just in case, in sync and it just looked good.