Originally Posted by
RanRan79
I agree with Sup fan on this one. Would the Supremes have succeeded with Diana and two other women? Sure. Would they have achieved the same success? From my perspective, nope, because each individual component brought something special to the mix. Remove it and you're left with something completely different. The fortunes of many have been changed by a decision. In other words, how different the story of any entity, be it music group, record label, Coca Cola, if not for all the ingredients that came together to create it. As I said before, these kinds of conversations end up in a stream of questions. So if not for HDH, would we even know Diana Ross? Something to ponder.
Regarding the background singing of the singles, I thought the issue had kind of been put to bed. Flo and Mary are on everything up until "Hurry Love", when it appears that Flo may have been replaced with Marlene. The Andantes are added to "Stop". I would say "Symphony" and "My World" are the two singles where the backing vocals get a bit muddled into the mix, but everything else was pretty much a group effort. [[And then there's the mystery of why no audible Flo on "Where Did Our Love Go". I would really love for George or someone to address this.)
Unique doesn't mean automatic attraction. Lol As a kid I knew the Supremes' big hits and felt about them the same as I did the big hits of the Tempts, the Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, and the other Motown and 60s soul groups. I was that 80s/90s kid that enjoyed that kind of stuff as much as I did whatever was on contemporary radio. But I wasn't any more knocked out by Diana's voice than I was anyone else's, certainly not to the point where I wanted to collect everything she or the Supremes ever did. But then I read Dreamgirl when I was 13. Mary spoke so highly of Flo's voice that I decided to hear it as lead singer for myself and found a copy of Meet the Supremes. I loved "Buttered Popcorn" on first listen. Still today Flo's lead singing [[and backing) voice is one of my all time favorites. Anyway, of course I didn't just listen to "Buttered Popcorn" but the rest of the Meet album. A couple of the numbers do Diana no real favors, but "Your Heart", "Right Way", and "Time Changes Things", in particular show the group at their early best. I found that I really dug this group in a way that I didn't for some of their contemporaries. So from there I started collecting the other albums, which not only gave me an increased appreciation for Flo and Mary's contributions, but also the overall artistry of Diana Ross, who suddenly became more than the lead singer of some of those overplayed big hits like "Baby Love" and "Stop In the Name Of Love". [[I also knew Diana from stuff like "Swept Away" and "Missing You", both of which got constant airplay in Chicago, and songs that I loved.) Eventually Diana became one of my all time favorite vocalists period. And because of collecting the Supremes, my collecting eventually stretched to Marvin, and the Tempts, and Martha and the Vandellas, and to Motown in general. And it can all be traced back to Flo.
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