Quote Originally Posted by sup_fan View Post
you're definitely right. wasn't it around mid 72 that their identify crisis continued over to their live shows too, when they took a bunch of the old DRATS song book and brought many of the tunes back?

It always seemed, at least through the mid 70s, that there was a total lack of coordination between the studio and live work of the groups. Diana included. they were taking these huge Vegas-like shows and touring them everywhere. and then they occasionally incorporate a new recorded song. But the tours weren't focused on centered around an album or project. maybe they started some of this with Diana and Lady tours. but the Sups certainly weren't doing anything significant to promote their lps.

Working with 3 high profile producers - Smokey, JW and SW - you'd think that they're really hype that up. leverage the producer's name and notoriety. revamp the show to acknowledge their working with him. plus the revamping of the show would have re-energized the public's desire to attend
Exactly. When Gil Askey came back as their musical director, he brought out the Farewell charts and reincorporated them into the show. Jean was not particularly happy with this. She refused to say the spoken passages in "Love Is Here And Now You're Gone" and put her foot down on doing "Love Child" despite having performed it in their shows when she first joined. I think a lot of this falls back on Motown and their inability to break out of the Vegas-style show format that had worked so well in the 60s. By 1972, the musical audience had changed and doing a Vegas-style show dated the group and skewed them to an older crowd.

They needed a Vicki Wickham to come in and totally reinvent them, their image, and musical approach. I would have kept the glamour, but dropped the 60s gowns and become more in line with how the Three Degrees were doing it. When I said earlier that they needed to be reintroduced to the R&B community, I meant in the aspect that they should have been the primary target in their musical approach. In the 60s, Motown was really about the crossover appeal. They wanted to hit on the pop charts. By the 70s, the focus should have shifted to just the R&B charts and less on the pop. The Pointer Sisters were catching fire around this time. Having someone like Thom Bell or Stevie Wonder as their musical advisor/producer would have steered them into a direction of being a strictly R&B act. Drop the Vegas stuff, the lighter pop stuff, etc. The ladies were totally capable of it. Transformation was needed and it could have kept them going for much longer.