What's your thought on the Andantes replacing vocals on groups

[StuBass1]

actually that's not totally true. in very, very few instances were any of the men replaced by background singers. yes, in some cases the andantes were added to male group records, most notably on the Four Tops. But almost never were Duke, Obie and Lawrence replaced by, say, the Contours or the Spinners. Same with the Miracles. Smokey didn't record without Bobby, Ronnie and Pete.

So why was it ok that the women background singers at motown were interchangeable but the male background singers were not?

Interesting question... I'd assume that quite frankly...while the male groups often needed higher register voices like the Andantes to bring home the concept, balance and brighten the sound to suit am radio...most had the male voices pretty well covered, although it was not unheard of at Motown for a producer on a male group to see one or more of the Originals for example hanging around and ask them to join in on the vocal track to add something as I've heard before...but not to the extent of adding female voices. As for the girl groups... I don't think there was much of an idea to add masculinity to those records to lower the vocal register on the overall sound, as the bass guitar and bari sax held down the low end on virtually every Motown record and the 3 guitar backbeats brought the fidelity back up, but using the Andantes as more a function of the just being better singers with greater ranges than the actual group members... the best female singers at the company...The Andantes sang on at least 8 Supremes songs, 12 Vandellas songs, 14 Marvelettes tracks...in addition to the Tempts, Tops, and solo vocal projects. They were the best around for what they did... Just not stage material...