Diana had little to no creative control for most of her time at Motown, so who else had the power to have her hold back? I think the decision to have Diana go for the gold or play it safe was up to the producer. Clearly Nick and Val loved Diana going full throttle and so that's the way they often recorded her. HDH seems to have utilized her full range as a particular song calls for it. There's like two threads with a billion pages each that might give you great insight into why some of us think her RCA period was on the bland side, and you will read opinions- like mine- who think that Diana was the last person who should have been in full creative control. Now to be fair of Diana, she produced her Wiz songs album and except for when she was trying to sing in the style of the character [[yikes) she pulled off some phenomenal vocal performances going full throttle, so she definitely wasn't opposed to doing that even when she was at the helm of the project. Also her live vocals during the 70s and 80s definitely gave front and center attention to the fact that she was more than a cooer, and I figure she probably had creative control with the live shows even in the 70s.
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