Originally Posted by
BayouMotownMan
I rarely participate in what-ifs, but myself and several other fans years ago had this discussion.
I am of the opinion that had Gordy taken the group over again he just would have used them as pawns to keep Ross under his thumb. He did this to Thelma Houston and to High Inergy. They would have possibly had another couple of mid-level pop hits, much more dance hits, but after he got whatever he wanted out of Ross he would have dropped them to flap around the way Thelma and High Inergy did.
Gordy was a master manipulator. Diana Ross was in her thirties and was tired of his dictatorial management process. She felt she knew more than she actually did and showed this by signing on for The Wiz, a collosal bomb. She then let Gordy re-establish her recording career long enough to get top dollar offers from other record companies. While this was happening, Gordy would "punish" her by getting major hit records on these other ladies to show what he could do either for her or to her.
Insofar as production, while I love Brian Holland's talent as a writer and producer, those last two lps were glorious but they were not what was commercial at the time. I was a DJ and the business was supporting state-of-the-art music like that of Earth, Wind & Fire, the Commodores, the BeeGees and Donna Summer was emerging as the Diana Ross of disco. It would have been hard enough on Gordy to push Ross as the disco diva because Summer had the market. While it was expensive promoting Diana Ross's music in the late 70s, she had cooled considerably and the Wiz didn't help, it would have been three times harder to re-establish the Supremes. And had Mary put Pedro out of work this would have meant harsher problems for her.
America fell in love with Diana, Mary and Florence. They accepted Cindy and Jean and then got tired of the ever-changing faces. While it was important to have enough change so as not to compete with the original grouping, the last incarnation of Supremes was simply too much change all at one time.
History has shown that while we fans desperately held on to the group, and some of us still do, going into the late 1970s the Supremes had their run and their audience grew up and was not as interested in buying lps. The newer audience, which DID buy lps, had their own artists. The glamour image and sophisticated presentation just didn't align with what the buyers wanted at that time.
Perhaps if Scherrie and Susaye had taken over writing and producing chores this might have led to a new invention of the group. But judging from the Partners lp, it is doubtful that this would have worked either.
It was simply easier all the way around, for Gordy, for Motown and for the ladies in the group to simply bury that act and go on to what was commercial for the times.
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