Originally Posted by
BayouMotownMan
Most of the Heavyweights stage act were songs made famous by other people, as Jean told me, "we weren't acclaimed to have our own hits." Jean did sing Come See About Me as part of a Supremes medley the first year or two.
Gordy had no problem with the name Jean Terrell. Tammi Terrell was actually Tammi Montgomery, she changed it to Terrell. That is when the rumors started that she was once married to Ernie, and then the rumor that she was a sister to Jean.
As far as 60 people auditioning for Smokey's position, that seems a bit far fetched. Motown always tried to pull from their own pool of talent for replacements. In Smokey's case, they did have a lot of guys in mind and may have auditioned some, but Damon Harris, the newest member of the Temptations, recommended his friend Bill Griffin for Smokey's position. Similar to the Jean situation, the guys met him, heard him, and then accepted him.
I don't think the months it took for BG to contact Jean had anything to do with any insecurities abut Jean. During this period, Gordy was releasing more product on DRATS in an attempt to get them back to No. 1 so that it would help in launching Ross as a soloist while the group was on top. His top priority was launching Ross, and then the J5. The fate of the Supremes was down his list of priorities. Unfortunaly, a big hit eluded them until SWBT went out. It was while SWBT was scaling the top of the charts that the announcement was made that Ross was leaving. That was the way he wanted, her to leave with the group hot again. He was right about that. When Smokey left the Miracles, the group was cold, had not had a big hit in over two years. So it took a lot more to establish Smokey and the Miracles as seperate entities. In fact, Smokey, aside from the Quiet Storm lp, did not have huge success again until 1979.
I think the difficulty in replacing Ross was lying in getting the right person who had a similar, yet different sound so that the group could have some hits while Ross was establishing herself as a soloist. Face it, if Ross was having major hits while the Supremes faded away, it would have looked very egotistical on Ross's part. Public image then was very different than now where none of this would have mattered. So they needed a few hits on the Supremes before letting the group fade as Ross ascended. This proved to have been the case, even though in the first year the public went more for the new group. Therefore in the second and third year with Jean, promotion was pulled to keep their popularity at bay until Ross's movie came out. Once LSTB came out and was such a smash, the Ross-less Supremes' fate was sealed. Jean Terrell knew this and admitted it to me in my 1978 interview. She said, "By this time [[1972) we had given the company an ultimatum to give us better material and promotion. But Diana was making her comeback and ...." When I asked if she felt Diana Ross's comeback played a part in the declining popularity of the Supremes, she quickly replied, "Oh I think it probably did." Later in the interview she said "apparently I did the right thing [[leaving). Because as it stands now [[1978), there is no Supremes. But I saw it coming."
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