Cindy Birdsong - Till the Boat Sails Away [[1976)

[daviddh]

just a few points, the Mamas and Papas fired Michelle from the group and replaced her, and when the group went on tour the fans did not receive her replacement well and the tour was a disaster. soon Michelle was back.
BG knew this and with the possible departure of FB, he knew that the Supremes could suffer a similar backlash.
also in 1967, Reflections was going to be the last supremes single. the drama had gone one for to long and now Florence was out. the original plan was to bring Flo back and do a farewell tour , thus the double Greatest hits album sept 67 which was going to include Reflections,.. but was at the last minute replaced with another HDH song.
what ever went wrong ,Flo was not coming back and the farewell tour idea ditched but Motown had little faith that the supremes could overcome their double loss of FB and now HDH. Ross decided to stay to fulfill her contract out of loyalty possibly to MW, and perhaps by this time Cindy may have earned her stripes and the group reborn as DRATS.
I am not a fan of the cindy track. it doesn't fit her.

[jim aka jtigre99]

Cindy's voice blended very well with Mary in the background and they had beautiful harmony with Jean and, especially, Scherrie. This song was just Cindy singing in Randy's Living room with some friends. A singer would sing quite differently in that situation as opposed to being in the studio or a concert. The song was much better suited for Mary's vocals even if Cindy had recorded an actual lead performance. I, for one, love all of her contributions as a Supreme. She managed a perfect visual and harmonic background blend with Mary. During her time with the group, Mary was a much stronger lead singer [[IN MY OPINION) than Cindy was. Still, this was just some friends singing a song at home and not a professional recording where someone would use their voice to its fullest advantage. It was nice enough, though, just like Cindy.

[RanRan79]

just a few points, the Mamas and Papas fired Michelle from the group and replaced her, and when the group went on tour the fans did not receive her replacement well and the tour was a disaster. soon Michelle was back.
BG knew this and with the possible departure of FB, he knew that the Supremes could suffer a similar backlash.
also in 1967, Reflections was going to be the last supremes single. the drama had gone one for to long and now Florence was out. the original plan was to bring Flo back and do a farewell tour , thus the double Greatest hits album sept 67 which was going to include Reflections,.. but was at the last minute replaced with another HDH song.
what ever went wrong ,Flo was not coming back and the farewell tour idea ditched but Motown had little faith that the supremes could overcome their double loss of FB and now HDH. Ross decided to stay to fulfill her contract out of loyalty possibly to MW, and perhaps by this time Cindy may have earned her stripes and the group reborn as DRATS.
I am not a fan of the cindy track. it doesn't fit her.

David, can you source this information? In all my Supremes "research" your scenario here is the first I've heard of it. Thanks.

[daviddh]

the Mamas and Papas info is from their own documentary video. the info on the Supremes Greatest Hits info was released in the reissue of GOLD cd a few years ago. I think. I am fairly sure Reflections was replaced with Standing At the Crossroads Of Love.
there was no plans originally of a Reflections lp as the Greatest Hits lp was released instead but perhaps if Florence had stayed ,....but then the lp was released in march 1968. but with Cindy on the cover art.
also in the Motown 40 special they talk about the Supremes break up with Florence and discuss that Motown felt the supremes would never recover the loss Of HDH and they felt BG was concerned regarding the departure of Ballard.
the management of Motown felt the Supremes were done. the plan was to do a farewell tour. as time went on Cindy apparently fit in and Ross stayed to complete her contract out with the group, but you can see the changed from 1968 forward with Diana even more out front vocally

[sup_fan]

the Mamas and Papas info is from their own documentary video. the info on the Supremes Greatest Hits info was released in the reissue of GOLD cd a few years ago. I think. I am fairly sure Reflections was replaced with Standing At the Crossroads Of Love.
there was no plans originally of a Reflections lp as the Greatest Hits lp was released instead but perhaps if Florence had stayed ,....but then the lp was released in march 1968. but with Cindy on the cover art.
also in the Motown 40 special they talk about the Supremes break up with Florence and discuss that Motown felt the supremes would never recover the loss Of HDH and they felt BG was concerned regarding the departure of Ballard.
the management of Motown felt the Supremes were done. the plan was to do a farewell tour. as time went on Cindy apparently fit in and Ross stayed to complete her contract out with the group, but you can see the changed from 1968 forward with Diana even more out front vocally

Yes it’s true Reflections was going to be on Greatest Hits. But it was such a big single they pulled it as they figured it could carry its own lp

And there were rumors Diana was going solo in late 66. That YKMHO would be the final Sups single

But I’ve never heard of any significant plans to do a farewell tour after Greatest Hits. Perhaps if Flos replacement wasn’t accepted by the public and they went ahead and pulled Diana solo they might have done something but in none of the many books I’ve read have they ever discussed this

[RanRan79]

the info on the Supremes Greatest Hits info was released in the reissue of GOLD cd a few years ago. I think. I am fairly sure Reflections was replaced with Standing At the Crossroads Of Love.
there was no plans originally of a Reflections lp as the Greatest Hits lp was released instead but perhaps if Florence had stayed ,....but then the lp was released in march 1968. but with Cindy on the cover art.
also in the Motown 40 special they talk about the Supremes break up with Florence and discuss that Motown felt the supremes would never recover the loss Of HDH and they felt BG was concerned regarding the departure of Ballard.
the management of Motown felt the Supremes were done. the plan was to do a farewell tour. as time went on Cindy apparently fit in and Ross stayed to complete her contract out with the group, but you can see the changed from 1968 forward with Diana even more out front vocally

Thank you brother. I appreciate you sourcing your claims.

[TheMotownManiac]

Some of this doesn’t make sense to me, for example:

A) I don’t think Diana’s contract was Any kind of consideration… Why would it be? She was still under contract to Motown and Bdry Gordy was making all the decisions anyway.

B) I never heard that reflections was supposed to be on greatest hits, what I have read all though I can’t remember where, is that greatest hits were supposed to come out in the summer but they couldn’t do it because they didn’t know for sure what was going to happen with Flo. The story I have always heard is that the album was pressed and ready to go in June, and that is why Flo’s Picture and name remain all over the project went by it’s eventual release several months later, she had been officially replaced by Cindy. And that is why the happening is not on any album because it was supposed to be released on the greatest hits it while it was still popular. I do not believe that Motown ever intended for to smash singles to not appear on their own album. It doesn’t make any sense at all from a marketing standpoint when you consider how the Supremes singles drove album sales.

C) I don’t know why they would be considering a farewell tour because so many of their contracts were signed in advance with the clubs in New York LA Vegas and Miami, not to mention all the other future contracts that would’ve been signed, it would’ve been quite a while until I to her like that could’ve been arranged… And even when there was time to plan a farewell tour when she did leave, they didn’t do it.

D) I am also skeptical that Motown was certain that they were going to replace Florence because not only is she all over the greatest hits package, but they never even made an announcement to the public into the fans in any kind of big way. You had to root out information in Soul Magazine or just sit there and wonder what happened to Florence? It never made sense to me, and still does not, that they performed the thoroughly modern Millie medley on at sullivan in May, when they should have done Thou Swell to support the new album. I don’t think Florence was around long enough to learn the new routine for it, so they took something new that was already in the act and did it on sullivan instead.

[daviddh]

the farewell tour probably would have included dates already on the books.
regarding her contract, I think the idea was to launch Diana as a solo in 1968 . in some way Love Child is a Diana solo