Originally Posted by
TheMotownManiac
I don’t believe anyone paid any attention whatsoever as to what kind of albums Supremes were putting out. I don’t believe there was even a conscious effort to do a socially conscious album or singles for that matter. Various producers ran across various songs that they would try to sell to various recording groups and if they came up with that track that made its way to the Supremes they would record it and it would go on the pile. I have no idea who sequenced those albums, but it might have been an octopus grabbing a bunch of tapes and throwing them into the box. I do think they listened to the songs and tried to find things that were presentable, not always succeeding in my opinion, but that’s the amount of effort I think was put into them. And then when you had someone like Frank Wilson was going to do an album on the Supremes in Temptations, he relied basically on covers and just hoped for the best. I think it’s sad that they didn’t have a Norman Whitfield, a Marvin Gaye or a Stevie wonder or someone with actual vision to put together a cohesive album that could stand the test of time instead of 50 years plus later people talking about the incongruity of Motown‘s flagship act putting out lukewarm albums.
I think part of the problem is that he had the girls on the road so much that they didn’t have time to take care of their health is the lead singer‘s voice or their emotional stability, so why take time off and actually sit down and record an album that might mean some thing? I think Gordy was too interested in the almighty dollar to see past that. He had to fly out to Boston to check out Diana in person before he would cancel the gig at Blinstraubs. She passed out on stage in front of a packed house and that wasn’t enough for him to cancel a show. Instead, he invested in a plane ticket which he would charge to the group, to see for himself because he had a lot invested in their live performances. I have nothing to back this up, but I would bet my unplayed first pressing I hear a Symphony 45 that he made more money on their gigs than they did.
I don’t really consider country Western and Pop, or Rogers and Hart or Sam Cooke concept albums. Country western Pop is able to at least claim a somewhat cohesive sound, the others are just tribute albums.
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