Supremes sing hdh ?

[marybrewster]

To the general record buying public, how many people do you think actually knew who HDH were?

Seems a bit of a gamble on an LP title without name recognition certainty. If I'm not mistaken, this was later titled "Sing Motown" in the UK.

[rovereab]

I guess it could be argued that the group had been singing Motown for years.

Perhaps the album could have been called The Supremes Hanging On......

[snakepit]

Yes. The UK version was amended to "sing Motown".
It's been suggested that HDH' s fallout with Motown was because they wanted their own label within Motown, which Berry refused.

Perhaps naming this LP after them gave HDH a sense of power , that they ultimately put to the test and failed.

[luke]

How did they fail? They were beyond successful.

[snakepit]

Failed in their attempt to chalenge Berry Gordy into giving them more power and ultimately more money.
Gordy said no, so HDH had to leave .

[RanRan79]

To the general record buying public, how many people do you think actually knew who HDH were?

Seems a bit of a gamble on an LP title without name recognition certainty. If I'm not mistaken, this was later titled "Sing Motown" in the UK.

I think ultimately it was a lack of vision, which as brilliant as Motown could be at times, was something they often fell into, IMO. I'm going to assume that the association between the songwriting team and the Supremes was well known to the millions who purchased their records and Motown was hoping that this would attract the public's attention. While the Supremes' albums were consistent number one and top 5 albums on the R&B charts starting with WDOLG, the girls really only broke into the pop top 5 [[up until this point) with two albums, WDOLG and A Go Go, as popular as the Supremes were. I'm guessing Motown was using a marketing ploy in the hopes of recreating the success of A Go Go on the Hot 100. The truth is that it made much more sense to title the album after "Hangin On", which was a huge across the board hit and would've attracted far more buyers than the name of a relatively new songwriting team [[as opposed to the already legendary Rodgers and Hart). I'm betting More Hits would've done better too if it had been titled after "Stop In the Name of Love".

[RanRan79]

Yes. The UK version was amended to "sing Motown".
It's been suggested that HDH' s fallout with Motown was because they wanted their own label within Motown, which Berry refused.

Perhaps naming this LP after them gave HDH a sense of power , that they ultimately put to the test and failed.

I thought HDH wanted a stock in Motown. Was it a label too? I always thought they were stepping over the line asking for a piece of the business.

[snakepit]

Yes possibly stock in Motown was an issue.
I have seen reports that they wanted their own label/artists to write/produce.
Presumably they wanted publishing rights as this where the big money comes from.
Gordy would no truck with that.

It is alleged that the driving force in all this was Eddie Holland.
Perhaps allowing Motown to title the LP "HDH" was him/them flexing their muscles.
I believe that the main focus of HDH's law suits was that Berry Gordy had built his business around the songs/productions of HDH...an insight perhaps into their thinking at the time.

[copley]

I think that the simple answer why it was re-titled for the UK is that no one other than die hard Motown fans had a clue who HDH were so it was for purely marketing reasons.

[snakepit]

You're absolutely correct.
I should imagine a lot of people would have also asked "what or who" is Motown?

[copley]

In '67 I'm not really sure if I was aware of HDH but I of course knew about the Motown sound. Mind you back then I called it the Tamla sound - lol!

[snakepit]

I learnt a lot of my Motown history by reading back copies of magazines such as Record Mirror, Disc, Melody Maker, NME etc.
I agree that back in 67 or so, it was commonly referred to as Tamla in the magazines.

[copley]

It was thanks to RM printing the US Top 50 that I was able to work out that Tamla Motown releases in the UK could appear on any one of four different labels in the US!

[snakepit]

Yes it was all a great journey...a real learning curve.
Trying to draft a TMG discography was a painstaking job. No internet then!
I had to visit a shop in town...a good stockist..who listed label releases in an exercise book, but that was not complete by any means.
Happy days.

[soulster]

I learnt a lot of my Motown history by reading back copies of magazines such as Record Mirror, Disc, Melody Maker, NME etc.
I agree that back in 67 or so, it was commonly referred to as Tamla in the magazines.

Why did they call it "Tamla-Motown" in the U.K.? Why didn't they just call it Motown?

[snakepit]

There are examples of USA trade ads that refer to Tamla-Motown even though there were several labels at Motown.
It was thought sensible to group all artists on one generic label.
It must have sounded pretty exotic in to a UK pop music industry in 1965.

[jack020]

Very popular lp series in Holland

[TomatoTom123]

I believe all Motown singles and albums [[on Motown, Tamla, Gordy, etc) that were released in the UK were released on the Tamla Motown label. That was from 1965 until 1976, after which they just came out on a blue Motown label.

[copley]

Tamla Motown catalogue numbers TMG existed from May 1965 - April 1981.

http://globaldogproductions.info/t/tamla-uk.html

[snakepit]

Copley
I always thought it was March 1965 as per the tour.
The release date on that demo states March.

[144man]

Why did they call it "Tamla-Motown" in the U.K.? Why didn't they just call it Motown?

Because the "[Mary Wells Fan Club &] Tamla Motown Appreciation Society" predated the formation of the label by over a year and had become known to the music press.

[144man]

Yes possibly stock in Motown was an issue.
I have seen reports that they wanted their own label/artists to write/produce.
Presumably they wanted publishing rights as this where the big money comes from.
Gordy would no truck with that.

It is alleged that the driving force in all this was Eddie Holland.
Perhaps allowing Motown to title the LP "HDH" was him/them flexing their muscles.
I believe that the main focus of HDH's law suits was that Berry Gordy had built his business around the songs/productions of HDH...an insight perhaps into their thinking at the time.

Wasn't it because of Eddie Holland's driving ambition that he replaced Mickey Stevenson as A&R director?

[copley]

Copley
I always thought it was March 1965 as per the tour.
The release date on that demo states March.

Yes you are correct. I have discovered that list I posted has several wrong dates! Sorry.

[snakepit]

Wasn't it because of Eddie Holland's driving ambition that he replaced Mickey Stevenson as A&R director?

There appear to be two versions.
Mickey says he was told Eddie was replaceing him, so he left for MGM.
The other is that Mickey had an offer from MGM and left, so Eddie was appointed in his place.

I'd plump for version two.

Eddie's new role as head of A&R would also have given HDH a strong bargaining chip to tackle Berry about royalties, money etc.