I'm pretty sure Ivey & Woodford were with Motown before they worked with The Supremes. They had also produced two albums on Motown for a white soul singer named Reuben Howell, whom they likely brought to the label, released in 1973 and '74, respectively. Going by the liner notes on
The Final Sessions, The Supremes were probably the first in-house act they produced for.
One of the songs they did for The Temptations on their
House Party album was another version of the same one they did for The Supremes - "You Can't Stop A Man In Love," which also appears on the first Reuben Howell album. Howell's second album,
Rings, has an early version of "You Turn Me Around," also.
I recall on one of Midnight Johnny's [[RIP) shows back in 2011, when he had Andy Skurow on to discuss The Final Sessions box, Andy talked about his interviews with, I believe, Terry Woodford. Apparently Ivey & Woodford had been in talks to start a "Motown South" sub-label at the time, which never came to fruition. I recall another anecdote in that interview - when Ivey & Woodford expressed interest in working with the Supremes, Motown apparently refused to cover their costs to go see their show and make their introductions.
I do wonder if working with The Supremes served as a kind of trial run for them, before they put together their own girl group,
Hot.
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