Does anyone know who sings background with Diana on this song ? I rate it as one of the best songs she recorded as a a solo.
Does anyone know who sings background with Diana on this song ? I rate it as one of the best songs she recorded as a a solo.
Becky Lopez, Maxine Waters Willard, and Julia Waters Tillman.
Thanks Reese
At first I was thinking the Jones Girls but the Waters sounds dead on.
I always thought, in addition to the apparent background voices in harmony, that Diana was also singing [[in the background) the top note of the harmony [[mirroring the lead vocal) lines and also singing extra lines as the 'background' toward the end of the song. Again, to clarify, it is apparent that Diana is singing some extra lines toward the end of song; however, I am hearing her singing along with the background singers in response to her lead vocal.
I’m surprised to learn who is singing background vocals. Most Diana/Masser collaborations are damn near perfect. But on some songs I can only rate 9 instead of 10 because of the bland, generic background vocals.
A nice ish if slightly bland mor ballad was exactly what Diana did not need at this point in her career. I think the general public and many a fan were left confused by this turn of events.
With the sparkling "Boss" set and then with the funky "Diana" she appeared to have musically really moved on. Diana was setting trends and appealing to a new and much younger generation. For me the TLA album was a huge step back.
I love "Stay With Me"..........but even so.
It was made up of songs that had been recorded over the previous few years. Some were released. Others were not. It was only when Berry knew for sure that Diana was leaving Motown that this album was scheduled. Had she remained at Motown we would have got a totally new album. Don't blame Diana for this album. Blame Berry. At one point he said he would release a "new" album on Diana to compete with any new rca albums.
Once he had calmed down he realised that would not want to cause a permanent rift with Diana so he wisely decided against it. Family reasons being the prime factor.
Awful single! A wall of noise.
Cryin’ My Heart Out For You was very nice though and might have done better if released first.
I assumed the TLA album had always been in the pipeline. I wonder if motown would have allowed Diana to produce her next album had she not left the company. I really can't imagine they would have allowed such a poor quality album as WDFFIL to be released.
Probably due to Diana' huge popularity at time, i remember"One More Chance" receiving decent airplay on uk radio. Perhaps if she had performed the song live on tv it might have been a bigger hit.............There again.... perhaps not.
I don't think she would have been allowed to have released such a patchy album on Motown. Aside from Ross78 great care had been taken with Diana's albums since the mid 70's. She had become more involved with the choice of material which makes it all the more baffling that she considered WDFFIL and Silk Electric to be of an acceptable standard.
She did no promotion for TLA because she had already left the company. She was not happy with the finished album despite it being musically satisfying and wanted nothing to do with it.
I was going to stick up for WDFFIL. If you became a fan of her in the ‘80s this was a key album, and I still listen to it a lot. But I decided it simply isn’t worth the abuse and veiled ‘well you are entitled to your opinion but I suspect you’re outnumbered’. So I won’t!
Couldn't agree more - for me Chance and Eaten Alive are Diana's two worst singles, an absolute mess.
Had Cryin' My Heart Out For You been released first and given some promotion it could have been a sizable UK hit.
Also with the right promotion Stay With Me could have been a successful single.
With Diana leaving Motown they really only went through the motions.
Although there were several previously released tracks on To Love Again I think on the whole it's a good listening album.
It's a nice song. As an album track it's a really good listen. As a Diana single at this point, I just don't think it would've done her career any favors. As Ollie pointed out, she had The Boss and then Diana'80. The former didn't actually take the world by storm sales wise but it was a critical success, and the followup kept the momentum of commercial sound that kept Diana on top. Interestingly, the followups to her first two major hits of the 80s were completely different from their predecessors. But "It's My Turn" and obviously "Endless Love" were able to capture Ross among her most captivating performances and thus worked with the public.
So clearly if the question was "Okay, so Ross has gotten funky with her last two albums, why not see if the public is interested in the other side of Diana Ross again?", the answer was yes. An album of these kinds of pop/soul/AC mashups like "Turn" and "Endless" may well have been another smash album for Ross. However, as a single, "One More Chance" was out of it's league. Neither it or "Stay With Me" [[which I prefer to "Chance") had any chance of matching the success of "Turn" or "Endless". I LOVE "Cryin' My Heart Out For You" and definitely think it's a better single choice than "Chance", but even that wasn't going to do much better.
Don't be such a wuss. If you have strong feelings for WDFFIL, by all means post it. I'll let you know right off the back that my opinion is the album sucked and most of the tunes were beneath the vocal talents of Diana Ross. But what say you? Your opinion counts as much as every single other opinion in this forum. While I do think "well you are entitled to your opinion but I suspect you're outnumbered" is a rather condescending rebuttal [[as if I give a damn about how many people disagree with me, right?), that shouldn't stop you from participating.
Frankly, I'm rather curious to see your attempt at defending such a sucky album. [[For the record I don't believe music like this ever needs "defending". We all like what we like and we don't have to all be of one accord on it.)
Ollie get with the times. You have to let the ways of the past die out. When you know better, you do better. We're supposed to be progressing, not regressing. Sure I miss the days when we could beat lovers of WDFFIL into a bloody pulp in the street. And of course I've certainly taken advantage of this a time or two way back when. But after what happened during the Workin Overtime massacre of '03...what happened to those poor people...even I had to recognize that violence directed at people with horrible tastes in Diana Ross music just wasn't worth the price that one pays with their soul. Come to the light Ollie. Come to the light.
hahaha - ok i don't think WDFFIL is a terrible album. i do agree that for her label debut it should have been stronger.
As for TLA, she had recently released It's My Turn which is a gorgeous ballad. one of her best. My understanding is that she was working with Masser on additional tracks such as One More Chance, Crying My Heart and Stay with Me. but then she left the label and they didn't have enough other new Masser tracks to finish out the lp. It's My Turn was too big of a hit to NOT have it on some sort of lp. So i'm guessing they just filled in with other Masser tracks and sort of did this as a "tribute" to him. While it's a shame that we never got a full Masser lp, i will say that the songs on TLA are [[mostly) all excellent. to hear Mahogany and the others again never disappoints me
I said "mostly" as the new Masser tracks were a bit of a mess. Turn was stunning and I like Stay. But One More Chance is one of the most overwrought songs released on the Motown label. good lord! it's just too much. especially the grunts and growls by Diana towards the end. sure there are times when this effect or sound might add something but this is definitely not one and Diana had never really employed those much before. The song totally lacks the elegance of It's My Turn, it never has the simple delicacy of Mahogany, or the sophistication of Touch me in the morning.
oh i agree that she probably could have had another hit from diana but at the same point she probably should have been moving on anyway to something newer and hotter. If she had stayed at motown, my understanding is she would have done more with Masser [[to finish out TLA) and chic was contracted to do a 2nd album.
now we saw that Richard Perry was supposed to do a 2nd one and never did. So after the internal problems with diana 80 it's certainly possible that chic would have cancelled out on the 2nd lp. although Baby it's Me wasn't a huge hit like diana 80 was. so maybe that would have helped sooth hurt feelings and egos.
And of course she then hit massive with Endless Love. And had she been on the label still, it's very possible that Dreaming Of You would have been released following EL. And perhaps that would have brought about a Lionel produced lp. hmmmmmmmm lol
Bluebrock - any insight into what Diana might have done had she STAYED at motown? wonder if Quincy would have been an option while she was on the label?
I'll always love To Love Again, if only for sentimental reasons. It was my very first Ross album. I had asked for "the new Diana Ross" album for my B-day; expecting Why Do Fools, I got To Love Again instead [[and money enough to go and by the "real" new Diana Ross album). The Why Do Fools... album worked quite well back in 1981, at least for young teenage me, but like much of 1980s music, it has not aged well in my humble opinion. Ironically, back then I did not care much about "Sweet Surrender"--now I think it is the strongest track on the album. Ross with Quincy Jones would have been interesting; the best possible comparison is the album he did with Donna Summer in 1982, which is brilliant [[and has aged very well), but rumor has it that Summer did not like the album that much. As the To Love Again album is concerned, all the "new" songs pale in comparison to "It's My Turn," which is such a brilliant track and showcases Ross at her most vulnerable yet also most powerful/empowered at the same time. And such a fitting final hit single on Motown [[not counting "Endless Love").
I bet Quincy was a bigger possibility at RCA than Motown. I suspect that, given the success of "Endless Love" and the commercial potential of "Dreaming Of You", had Diana remained with Motown, Lionel might have been given the opportunity to take on the next album. I think Lionel would have had a great read on how best to couple Diana and his compositions. No doubt in my mind that a Lionel produced Diana project would have given her some immediate classics.
June 6, 1989, the day it was released.
No, I don't think so.
Really Ollie? You didn't know about that? Well I guess you can be forgiven. It was the most recent act of violence I could recall surrounding the work of Diana Ross. Of course you're probably more familiar with the Red Hot Rhythm and Blues riot of '91. There was more damage and people killed than the '03 massacre, it's just that the massacre was...well...a massacre. The WO defenders didn't stand a chance.
i don't disagree that Lionel would have most likely had a chance to work with Diana. but given his songs and style, is it really all that different from her work with Masser? I would have been interested in a full Masser album just to hear how he might have done some non-ballad things. So much of his work with DR is heart-wrenching ballads. Sure Last Time, No One's Gonna be and Together are a bit more uptempo.
After the amazing heights of The Boss lp and the urban hipness of diana 80, the lush Masser work fit the bill. and Endless Love continued this. But it was a new decade and the sounds that were about to emerge with the Brit Invasion, Madonna, rap and heavier r&b, would have meant she needed something new and fresh pretty quickly
It definitely would have been interesting if Ross would have done a whole Lionel Richie album. Now personally, I'm not a big fan of Richie [[quite the contrary, I find most of his solo work quite saccharine, generic, and basically boring), but his first album is actually quite nice. Moreover, although not my personal favorite, "Missing You" is undoubtedly one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of Ross's RCA years. I can imagine Ross singing songs like "Hello" or "Say You, Say Me" and turn it into better versions than the Richie ones. So a Richie pairing could have been interesting... one with Quincy Jones or--obviously--Luther Vandross would have been even more interesting. Then yet, that all never happened.
Lionel was the choice of Berry to produce her had she stayed at Motown, but Diana favoured Quincy. She did her best to get Quincy on board for the rca debut , but he was busy producing Patti Austin which would have meant a 6 month delay . Neither Diana or rca were willing to wait that long so she produced it herself. Quincy was rather miffed and took the demos he had given to Diana to Donna Summer who used several of them on her self titled Quincy produced album which for me was far more listenable than WDFFIL.
although Diana has often misjudged elements of her career, in this case i think she was right. most of Lionel's stuff at motown [[although i'll admit i've never really listened much to his catalog) seems like Mini-Masser. Quincy seemed much more in tune to what an 80s version of r&b/pop would be.
and i'll just go ahead and say it lolol Patti Austin??!?!? really??!?! now i'll admit i'm biased but if i was working with Patti and then DIANA ROSS not only approached but sounds like practically begged me to work with her, i would have wrapped up the Patti stuff asap. and i would also think that working on simultaneous projects for artists should be that big of a challenge for a producer of his caliber.
Quincy's productions always sound a little to clean and clinical for my own personal taste. If not Nile and Bernard, i think Lionel Richie would have been the perfect producer for that all important rca debut. If not, just replacing her solo "Endless Love with "Love Lies" would have helped A LOTl.
Getting back to Masser, i actually like the fact that he really pushed Diana in the studio. Her voice sounds really powerful towards the end of "WMC". I would have liked to have heard a little of that drama in more of her rca recordings.
oh i agree that Masser was a wonderful producer for Diana. as important [[or at least almost) to her solo career IMO as A&S. A&S certainly had a range of production numbers and style. and of course just more actual songs with Diana than Michael did. And while most fans might say Mountain really is THE definitive DR song, Touch me in the morning and Mahogany are very, very close.
And you're so correct. Diana's vocals at RCA paled in comparison to what her motown producers delivered. From a track production, she was pretty good. many [[if not most) of the tracks on WDFFIL, SE, SA are strong sounding tracks. But she just didn't push herself vocally
Last edited by sansradio; 09-19-2019 at 05:33 PM.
There was no way that Quincy was going to do the dirty on Patti Austin. As you rightly say she is his Goddaughter, and they were incredibly close from her being a child.
You are also right when you say that Patti is an incredible talent. Her tone is similar to that of Streisand. Her vocal range is quite astounding and she is an amazing talent on stage. If anyone deserved to be a superstar it is this lady. There is no way Quincy would try to wrap up this project early in order to work with Diana or anyone else for that matter.
So agree, though i have never thought of her voice as being similar to Streisands.
I myself enjoy Patti's non Quincy Jones albums a great deal more. "That Secret Place" being my favourite album of hers as it really showcases her vocal versatility. I played "Stars In Our Eyes" an awful lot when i broke up with my ex after many years. Such a beautiful, poignant song.
Ollie9, I love the adjectives "clean" and "clinical" which you use to describe Quincy Jones' productions. I am on the other side of the spectrum: it's Quincy's productions which captivate me with that sound. It started for me with his "The Dude" album. I was in tears as to how good it sounded when I first played it. I believe he had the ultimate studio engineer in Bruce Swedien who we all know spearheaded the recording of many of Michael Jackson's albums which have that clean and clinical sound. I recall one of the complaints many had about Quincy's Donna Summer album was that it was too Quincy Jones' sounding.
Regarding Diana's RCA output, I found that most of the productions lacked the needed depth. I realize she may have been striving toward another sound, however, this was quite abrupt when it came to the Why Do Fools Fall in Love album. She chose to use an airy light voice which, in my opinion, was placed in a key [[pitch) where her voice lacked depth. The mixes were too thin sounding for my particular tastes.
hehehehe - i knew i'd raise a ruckass lolol
just teasing about Patti. didn't realize the family connection. and of course i'm a selfish fan and wanting as many hits for Diana as possible. As much as i love Thelma's version of Don't Leave Me This Way, i do wish Diana had had it.
and of course the actual RCA output was hit or miss. so the idea of her launching her new career with a massive album that was a critical AND artistic AND commercial success is my dream. WDFFIL was certainly a commercial success. and a decent critical one. the lp wasn't totally panned by reviews. but artistically it could have most certainly been more
If you listen to her CTI albums from the 70's there is a definite similarity to Streisand's tone. I remember discussing this very thing with John E.Abbey who was the founder of Blues and Soul magazine. We were listening to her albums Havana Candy and End of the Rainbow and we both thought the same thing. Take a listen to those albums.
I have all of Patti's albums in my collection, and i would be hard pressed to pick a favorite. That Secret Place is indeed excellent. She never fails to deliver a top notch vocal performance.
She is one of the craziest people i have ever met. She could have been a comedienne. I am so happy that she has become a wealthy lady due more to her prowess and demand as a session singer rather than her own singing career which has had its peaks and troughs. Anyone who is anyone wanted Patti singing backing vocals on their albums including Diana Ross.
I took a listen Bluebrock and yes, i can hear some similarity, particularly on Havana Candy. The quality of those albums made me ponder what might have been had Quincy, Lionel or just about anybody other then Diana produced those first two rca albums. H/C as an album makes WDFFIL sound sadly rather vacuous. At least things did improve........eventually.
Glad you can hear the similarities Ollie. I agree that anyone but Diana would have been a better choice to produce Fools and Silk. Her half hearted vocal performances could have been enhanced if she had hired an experienced producer to push her more in the studio.
On the other hand producing that pair of lightweight albums saved her a lot of money. The likes of Quincy, Lionel and Masser didn't come cheaply!!
Interesting that everything I have heard and read was Diana wanted more creativity with the production and writing of her music and releases and Berry Gordy was not up for that. I am curious how Quincy Jones or Lionel Richie or Michael Masser would have done that. Just food for thought.
With any luck they would have allowed minimal interference from Diana leading to better quality albums. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer on this subject, but it very much appears at that point in time Diana was more interested in making money then getting creative and involved with her music. Garry Katz and Barry Gibb both testify to this and the results kind of speak for themselves.
I'm sure at the time she had her reasons and if nothing else Diana proved herself to be an astute and successful businesswoman. One of the reasons she has ended up a very wealthy lady today.
Last edited by Ollie9; 09-22-2019 at 05:35 AM.
Whether it was true or not it was always rumoured that Motown underpaid royalties to its artists.
J Randy Taraborrelli claimed it was a royalty figure for sales only in the 400ks for It's My Turn - a top 10 hit - which caused the final rift between Diana and Berry Gordy and decided Diana to go to RCA.
Diana believed Berry was lying to her.
It would be understandable at this stage if she decided to try and put some money in the bank.
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