I've said this for years. There has to be a ton of video footage from appearances in foreign markets. Well, this one has just surfaced. I don't know the name of the show, but it appears to be in the U.K. The Supremes and "He's My Man"!
I've said this for years. There has to be a ton of video footage from appearances in foreign markets. Well, this one has just surfaced. I don't know the name of the show, but it appears to be in the U.K. The Supremes and "He's My Man"!
Last edited by marv2; 05-27-2019 at 12:07 AM.
Already posted
I think they sound and look great!
Is it me or did Cindy Birdsong seem a bit aggressive when she grabbed the guy? LOL!
I think it was very smart of Mary to add Scherrie Payne to the group.
Actually the variety of Mary taking leads and her natural charisma helped the group continue through the 70s . The public had tired of typical girl groups.
Not sure if Pedro was managing at this time but I would have ditched the hats, the elevated stage and mikes with cords were distracting, even the host almost tripped over it. When Scherrie started singing you could tell she was the Supreme to keep your eye on.
it was in Mary's book, Supreme Faith. according to the story, she and smokey met around the time that L and J were quitting. Mary said she told Smokey that she wanted to step up and take over the lead, to which he supposedly agreed. But when this was discussed with Motown, she states that they didn't feel she could handle the full lead but might be ok to share lead duties.
i like the shared leads concept and wish they'd even incorporated Cindy into more of it.
the FJ set had some of the best suited material for mary IMO. I adore her smokey sound [[no pun intended lolol) on Automatically Sunshine. that's possibly my fav Mary lead. many of the others are rather bland but how she sings and interprets the lyrics here is just perfect. FJ is almost as good - i just like AS better as a song to FJ.
watched this again. Mary does ok the first verse but sorry , I am hearing a mess. I prefer Scherries lead.
agreed. i think Scherrie should have started the song and done the majority. then mary would join in and a few lines for Cindy too. probably a 60/30/10 split
plus the 3-part harmony on the record was sensational. but live it's lacking. they [[and not sure if it's the girls, management, the tech guys running sound) should have tried harder to really blow people away with their singing. there's no question that they had it but they didn't show it live often enough
I think Mary did a great job. I preferred her on lead for this song. She sounded great and such a pro.
Thanks Marvin !! Cindy is a lot of fun to watch in this clip!
Best live performance of this song.....The MSC combo had the best live blend....and Cindy just BELONGS there! Unfortunately, both these and the MSS line up had to deal with over the top, way too brassy TV studio orchestra's when they did live TV.
The last line up was all over the place...between the loud brass, too speedy pace and Susaye's often screeching for the stratosphere, it was very hard to take.
there was basically no vision or direction on how the Supremes should present themselves outside of the studio. On vinyl, the group during the Scherrie years was wonderful. some of the best recordings.
But live - good lord
the look of the girls was stuck in the past. the reuse of old gowns, the enormous ballgown styles for many of the new dresses, all just combined to read: not contemporary. and it's not that glamour wasn't in. actually it made a significant comeback with the disco era and people wearing their best polyester to a club. versus the dirty, grungy, hippie look. But no one was wearing some massive chiffon Scarlet Ohare dress to do complex disco choreography.
set list - also stuck in the past. too many showtunes. and frankly they did little to innovate their stage act. Although the Genie concept was a fun idea and worked well
too much focus on Mary - she and pedro were attempting to launch her solo pop career which was a bad idea. perhaps launching her solo career in a different genre of music, like jazz, could have worked. but mary should have recognized that she was not going to be a mega pop star and should have worked to keep the concept of the Surpremes alive as that would have been her path to ongoing major success. And proof is in the pudding - she's basically kept going with her pseudo-Supremes act for all these years. even billing herself as Mary Wilson & The Supremes.
The Supremes in the 70s were more interesting to watch on stage and television than they were in the 60s in my opinion. They put more effort into their performances in the 70s.
the 70's groupings are very under rated, and very much unheard...whenever I play a JT or SP era Supremes cut, people like it a lot. Most know Stoned Love....that's as current as non fans get.
I've seen Diana Ross trip in mid performance with the Supremes on the Ed Sullivan Show. I've seen her loose earrings on television several times while in the Supremes. She's forgotten lyrics singing live and while lip synching. There was nothing wrong with this performance. In fact, it was great! Give it a rest until you can find me a totally perfect human being.
The Historical value of this performance is perhaps of more value to Supremes fans than the actual quality of the performance which is not very good at all. The girls look sensational, but the performance itself is anything but. I vaguely recall their performance of He's My Man on Top Of The Pops was even worse than this!
Mary's pause and look around that you're faulting is part of the performance [[for better or worse). The point they were making between trading leads between Mary and Scherrie was, "he's MY man... no he's MY man." When Mary pauses and turns, it's because Mary was just singing and then Scherrie walks forward toward the camera as she has belted out "he's my maaa-aaaaaa-aaaaan!" The choreography of the performance may not be the most classy with the choice to do "wait--YOUR man? what?" double takes, but I think they were purposely doing that choreography/bit from the beginning. Even in 2019, a recent video of Scherrie, Susaye, and Joyce has surfaced online where they are doing the whole, "he's MY man, no he's MY man... NO, he's MY man," onstage bit.
To each his own, but I think this is a good performance by MSC.
yeah i never cared for that stage patter around the "no he's MY man" "nope - he's MINE!" that routine just didn't work for me. in the bootleg live shows i have, it just drags on and on. and frankly i just don't find it that funny.
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