The simultaneous rise of Motown Records and The Supremes is now part of the pop culture: a fantastic story of how Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, three young ladies from Detroit’s Brewster projects, spend three years as the company’s pet ‘no-hit’ group, until a song rejected by one group becomes theirs and “Where Did Our Love Go” shoots to No. 1. The Supremes follow it with four more No. 1 hits in a row, and those three ladies rise from B-status to A-plus in a hurry, helping Motown founder Berry Gordy realize his dream of a black-owned record company making it to the top of the heap.


Gordy’s dream got wider: it not only included millions of youth but their parents too, and The Supremes helped promote the crossover. Fans know of the famous Copacabana appearances, and their tribute albums to Sam Cooke, country & western music, and the British Invasion. What many have heard, but never knew for sure, is that in 1965, in the midst of mainstream TV appearances, smash tours and that string of memorable No. 1’s, the Supremes recorded a variety of standards and show tunes associated with the likes of Al Jolson, Tony Bennett, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Perry Como. A title was announced: There’s A Place For Us, taken from a line in “Somewhere,” from the musical West Side Story, a song widely used as a euphemism for civil rights. Yet the resulting 12-track album was never released. Motown instead issued a Supremes Christmas album and a live recording from the Copa. The studio recordings, except brief appearances by a few cuts, disappeared into Motown legend.


Then came the crack producers at Hip-O Select. Yes, deep in the Motown vault, there is an album, in stereo – labeled, simply, “Supremes Place For Us” – lovingly recorded by producers Hal Davis and Marc Gordon in Los Angeles, and Harvey Fuqua, Ron Miller, Ivy Jo Hunter and Mickey Stevenson in Detroit. Everything from classics like “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody” [[a hit for both Al Jolson and Aretha Franklin) to “Make Someone Happy,” from Do Re Mi, to Motown originals like “Little Miss Loser,” co-written by Ron Miller before “For Once In My Life” hit the charts. Diana, Mary and Florence are at their diverse best. While Diana ably handles most of the lead vocals, Mary is featured on “Our Day Will Come.”


But wait, there’s more.


This exclusive Select edition of this album includes an incredible 14 bonus tracks, more than the original LP, and here’s how: we’ve added two more songs from the original LP sessions, including “People,” featuring Flo, and “I Am Woman, You Are Man,” different than the later version released on The Supremes Sing And Perform Funny Girl; three songs from another legendary ‘unreleased’ album, A Tribute to The Girls, which was discovered to be unfinished; an outtake from I Hear A Symphony, “All Of A Sudden My Heart Sings,” originally from the film Anchors Aweigh, here produced by Holland-Dozier, who also produced seven of the eight tracks included here from another unfinished unreleased album, The Supremes And The Motown Sound: From Broadway To Hollywood. Total: nearly 78 minutes of music from the Motown archives, 26 tracks, only 9 of which have been issued and spread around various collections before.