http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2010/0...-supreme-sham/
By Abdul H. Azeez
The much publicised ‘The Supremes’ concert held yesterday did not, in fact, feature ‘The Supremes’ at all.
The group purported to be ‘The Supremes’ was in fact a cover/tribute band known as ‘Sounds of the Supremes’. The band that performed, is headed supposedly by a former member of The Supremes known as Kaaren Ragland, when in fact Ragland had never performed with the original line up of The Supremes at all.
Gold FM together with its print media partners, however, billed the band as ‘The Supremes’ giving the impression to long time fans of the band that it was in fact the original Supremes and not a tribute band that was performing. Speaking to The Sunday Leader, the General Manager Programmes – Gold FM, Nilan Kaluaarachchi said that “the band billed is the original Supremes, it is not a cover band.” When asked about the web notification on the website of a band named ‘Sounds of the Supremes’ billing them to perform in Colombo on the same day as Gold FM’s purported ‘Supremes’, he said that “The name ‘Sounds of the Supremes’ must simply be a tagline that they use.”
Such ignorance on the part of the very organisers of the concert is highly unlikely and we are forced to face the possibility that Gold FM actively sought to defraud its customers by giving them false information about the concert. Correct information as to the status of The Supremes and Ragland’s cover band is amply available on the internet to anyone willing to go to the trouble of Googling their name and one wonders if the people that attended the concert forking out their hard earned cash for tickets even realised that they were seeing a diminutive tribute band that was far from the real thing.
Their assertion that Kaaren Ragland performed with the band during its latter stages would also be open to debate among loyal fans. The band known as The Supremes no longer exists. The famous Motown records group broke up in 1977 with its infamous lead singer branching off to a successful and controversial solo career. Original member of The Supremes, Mary Wilson then started a world tour and it was as a back-up singer for this tour that Ragland was hired. Mary Wilson continued to tour with Ragland and another back up female singer until the mid-’80s. It was at this point that Ragland started the band Sounds of the Supremes, in 1989. The move sparked a bitter lawsuit between Mary Wilson and Ragland with the former insisting that any artist who hadn’t performed with The Supremes and wasn’t signed by Motown should not be allowed to use the name The Supremes. Ragland however, insisted that the group ‘carried on’ after its break up and was billed as The Supremes even during Wilson’s tour. The court ultimately decided in Ragland’s favour, but only allowed her to use the name Sounds of the Supremes. The website for the Sounds of the Supremes, together with the date listing their performance in Colombo can be found at this address: http://www.soundsofthesupremes.com/appearance.htm.
Tribute bands have performed in Sri Lanka before, but they have always been billed as such and not the original thing. The fraudulent nature of Gold FM’s publicity for this event must be taken seriously by the authorities and concert-goers alike.
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