Jean Terrell's vocals

[jim aka jtigre99]

The first record I ever bought was Up The Ladder to the Roof. I think in Right On, Jean had a very expressive voice with thoughtful vocals. I loved the progression on New Ways, though Jean's voice seemed to start to change a bit with those types of songs. I noticed on Touch, her vocals were stronger and louder and very intense and heartfelt, yet it began to have an even more nasal feel to it with the intensity of her vocals. By the time of Floy Joy, her vocals were definitely more nasal and sometimes felt at odds with the light hearted, bouncy pop music of that album. By the time of Jimmy Webb, her vocals were so nasal that they almost seem shrill. Of course, Webb had her sing out of her key range which did not endear it to most fans and Terrell reportedly was not happy about singing in this key. Still, listen to Right On and then Jimmy Webb it is almost like 2 different singers. Jean always sounded like a cross between Dionne Warwick and Diana Ross, less like Ross and more like Dionne as they went on. She does have a voice that is distinctive and pulled me into the Supremes. Yet, it is hard not to notice the change in her voice and I wonder if the progression was for the better. Had they recorded more songs like in the Touch LP, I think her voice would have evolved much better and would have helped establish her own distinctiveness. Just my opinion, though.

[sup_fan]

IMO Jean really began to open up and express much greater range as the lps continued.

RO is a wonderful album and the songs are just great. but there is a certain degree of uniformity to Jean's leads. all of them are wonderful but all of them are fairly similar. she doesn't really explore a broader range of interpretations and sounds

by the time Touch was released - oh my goodness!! Listen to the anguish she conveys on This Is The Story, the light heartedness on Here Comes The Sunrise, the confidence on NJ, the resignation on It's So Hard. there's much more variety in her performances. and as such you get many different sounds from her voice. her lower range is front and center on Love It Came To Me This Time. the happiness and warmth in Sunrise. the cries and pain in TITS with it's more piercing upper vocals

I think on the song Touch, her upper range is more shrill against Mary's mellow alto. there's a nasality too that makes the duet seem a bit incongruous. perhaps a softer tone from jean would have helped. and i think giving Cindy some lead lines here and there would have helped too

[jim aka jtigre99]

IMO Jean really began to open up and express much greater range as the lps continued.

RO is a wonderful album and the songs are just great. but there is a certain degree of uniformity to Jean's leads. all of them are wonderful but all of them are fairly similar. she doesn't really explore a broader range of interpretations and sounds

by the time Touch was released - oh my goodness!! Listen to the anguish she conveys on This Is The Story, the light heartedness on Here Comes The Sunrise, the confidence on NJ, the resignation on It's So Hard. there's much more variety in her performances. and as such you get many different sounds from her voice. her lower range is front and center on Love It Came To Me This Time. the happiness and warmth in Sunrise. the cries and pain in TITS with it's more piercing upper vocals

I think on the song Touch, her upper range is more shrill against Mary's mellow alto. there's a nasality too that makes the duet seem a bit incongruous. perhaps a softer tone from jean would have helped. and i think giving Cindy some lead lines here and there would have helped too

I do wish they would have embellished upon her outstanding vocals on the Touch LP in later recordings. She gave wonderful vocals. As for the song Touch, her vocals seemed all wrong for the chemistry and feeling of the song. She did in fact seem shrill next to Mary's vocals on the ballad. I actually would have preferred Mary to have either sung it alone or with Cindy. Strangely, when they sang lead together on Floy Joy and Automatically Sunshine later, the results were far better.

[jobeterob]

This was in Rolling Stone about Touch in an article - 20 good albums you've never heard of.

Many years ago, I posted the Rolling Stone review of Touch on here; it was a very good review.

The Supremes, 'Touch'
You might have stopped paying attention to the Supremes after Diana Ross went solo in 1970, but although they were no longer a steady source of Number One hits, they had eight Top 40 singles in the Seventies after her departure. And working with various Motown second-stringers, they made some of their strangest, most memorable music. We said Touch, the third Supremes album with Jean Terrell on lead vocals, was "an unqualified success and the final proof that the Supremes will continue without Diana Ross." Which they did — until 1977.

What We Said Then: "New lead singer Jean Terrell proves too smart to imitate her predecessor and in the space of only a year and a half has succeeded in making the group over in her own image. Gone is the cooingly adolescent sexuality of Miss Ross and in its place is a fuller and more adult approach to both music and life. The hallmark of Miss Terrell's style, like that of so many of the best Motown artists, is an enormous sense of dignity, pride, and class." — Jon Landau, RS 87 [[July 22nd, 1971)

In This Article: R&B, Seventies, The Jackson 5, The Supremes

[TheMotownManiac]

The wonderful Ness of this album escapes me, and I’m actually a little jealous of the people that love it because I feel like I’m missing out. Once Jean stopped singing like diana ross, she occasionally got a little too shrill for me. And as others have mentioned, Touch was a radio disaster because of the way Jhené comes in after Mary. I’m not all that wild about Mary’s vocal either, but it doesn’t scare you out of your seat. I love Jean when she’s singing things like I guess I’ll miss the man. I don’t think she has a voice for radio Because when she is singing full out, there is no warmth or depth to her voice in my ear. And I think that’s why their albums didn’t sell, I think the general public did not connect with her sound.

[TYK1986]

As much as I like Jean she does sound shrill on some songs. Not all but there are definitely a few that I can't listen to. Songs as up the Ladder, Stoned Love, But I love you more and here comes the sunrise are just a few where she sounds great. But then there's Touch, some of the Jimmy Webb cuts and unreleased songs like remote control and travelling light OUCH!!! But we need to remember that Diana also did not record every song in 1 go. Some songs Jean recorded definitely needed to be re-recorded because she can sing without sounding shrill.

[sup_fan]

much of the earlier songs are mostly in jean midrange. Stoned Love, ladder, etc. Same with the lp tracks. with Touch, you have more tunes pushing Jean into her upper range - TITS, Touch, It's so hard. Jean's voice does have a natural brightness to it. this helps give it a piercing sound that helps it break through dense orchestration. but it can also give it a shrillness.

when done right you get a passionate track like This Is The Story. jean's really going for it her and the strain and stretching, along with her dynamic singing, makes the song amazing. but she doesn't start that way in the song that way. she starts warm, soft and mellow "of my life to be filled with pain..." the song and the melody builds to the climax

with Touch, all of jean's lines are mostly in the upper range. so you basically only get that sound. it's like the producer said "mary you have a low voice - so you sing the low range. jean you have a high voice and so you sing the high range" rather than pushing either into other areas or allowing someone to sing all the way through the part, from the low/soft to the high/emotional

[TYK1986]

With Touch the voice change is just too big. I always find Jean a bit annoying on Touch "the song not the album". Besides that I like all the other songs on Touch. I had to get used to This is the story but now I can listen to it without skipping half way through. She also sound great on Together we can make such sweet music and shine on me from New ways. Maybe one day, as if by magic, they find the solo versions of Touch from both Mary and Jean. I would love to hear Jean doing Mary's parts and visa versa.

[jobeterob]

If they had chosen a different first single, one that did better than Touch on the charts and stayed a little bit closer to the sound The Supremes were identified with, it might have drawn a little more attention to the album which then might have sold somewhat better. My memory is Touch, the album only sold around 100,000 copies which might have been good compared to Red Hot but it was just the continuance of a downward spiral in sales.

[sup_fan]

exactly. other than the fact that motown had the duet junk out there too, i can't really get why it failed so hard. sure there was SOME decline in promotion. But they did issue a special dj-promo interview version of the album, which i have. I'm missing what must have been the question sheet but the girls pre-recorded answers to interesting questions that a dj could have used on his show.

Right On had the tear away poster. NW was a dumb looking cover but still was a gatefold and die-cut style. all 3 of these lps had some money invested in them in order to generate interest. they weren't throw away album designs [[like DRATS GH 3 or the poor packaging on Marvelettes Full Bloom).

As i've mentioned on other posts, NW didn't chart high but it did remain on the charts quite a decent time. and rose and fell, rose and fell. RO was more straight forward. not the longest chart run of a Sup album but better than Together, Sunshine or Cream.

But Touch really bombed. there's no other way to describe it. It had a 10 week run which is very poor. entered at 125 and then 3 weeks later was only at 93. then fell to 101. then to its peak of 85 two weeks later. a couple weeks after peak, it was gone.

Touch was released in June and Return Mag 7 in July. both entered the Top 200 album chart on the same day. that's the only reason i can think of

[jobeterob]

The promotion didn't fall away until Touch or thereafter and there were even Billboard and Cashbox ads for the Jimmy Webb album.

And promotion is a double edged sword. No record company is going to pump dollar after dollar into promotion when it didn't work the first time or the second time and there's little hope after the third time and the decline continues. And by then, Pedro and/or Mary were running things too poorly to continue working with them. So Motown pretty justifiably let things go from 1972 to 1975 - or was it the Supremes that let things go?

[sup_fan]

i don't remember seeing billboard ads for the Touch [[single or lp) but i do remember NJ. new Ways got multiple ads which was unusual. of course i might have missed it. and there's much more to promotion than just a 1-page ad in Billboard.

I think motown's move to LA hurt things and Berry was so preoccupied with Lady that he had turned over the music business to others. I don't know if those people lacked qualifications or had ideas that didn't include the Sups or what.

in 71 and 72 you had:

Stevie releasing Music of My Mind
Michael doing solo work
Tempts doing My Imagination and Superstar and Papa
Marvin released what's going on
Diana doing lady


i think they just weren't paying attention enough to the group, looking at trends in the market and finding new ways [[no pun intended lol) to position the group and grow. they weren't massive hot like these others and so attention waned