thanks for a most instructive and interesting piece of research.It backs up my conviction that the Motown top brass did not know what to do with the post Diana Ross Supremes. I'm convinced that they did not understand that they had to change along with the times, they couldn’t just repeat the success of Diana, they had to be different - and contemporary.
I mean, really, what was the point of old show tunes in 1970/71???
That said, I do fully understand that Motown wanted some continuity, and not to alienate the audience that the Supremes had. Big changes must have looked a big commercial risk. And I understand too that Motown's business model was, to a substantial extent, to bring black music to a white audience. And nothing wrong with that either.
But the risk should have been taken. The times they were a changing by 1970 and Motown didn't see it. And with Jean Terrell they had a more soulful vocalist better able to win an audience in the afro-American community with a new approach. There is an important - and overlooked - passage in Mary's second book to the effect that Jean felt very strongly that entertainers had to address social and political issues. Doing so was a key part of the Philadelphia mix which eventually supplanted Motown.
But Jean wouldn’t have had much support for this approach from Motown i guess. It is deeply telling that Berry Gordy hated Stoned Love - not just the greatest Supremes song from the Jean Terrel era, or indeed the greatest Supremes tune ever [[which it is) - but one of the culminating anthems of soul; one of the dozen or so tunes you would burn to dvd and giving a visiting Martian who wanted to know what soul was.