Originally Posted by
sup_fan
there's a limited amount of material we can pull from but there does appear to be a difference in the approach to the show between the MSC and MSS lineups. clearly they decided that with MSS there were 3 lead singers to highlight, if by no other evidence then they added solos from the very beginning for Susaye. other than the Dream sequence, Cindy didn't really have any full solos that i know of. maybe a line here or there, plus being Marilyn Monroe.
i have 4 or 5 shows of the MSS lineup on bootleg cassettes, plus the various tv shows that most of us have seen on youtube. based on these, i'm not hearing or seeing anything drastically different or disruptive. in the studios, starting with Walking, they began adding Susaye's vocals as ad libs and color to songs. they did this on Wheel, Let yourself go, the ending of Sweet Dream Machine. they're even on Don't Wanna Be Tied down, but for some reason on this track they're very buried in the mix. so they clearly were going for a different sound that encouraged the singers to be creative with their vocals
the live show seems to be an attempt to continue this. although you can argue about how successful that was. there are obviously all of the ad libs and things they do in the live version of LYG, often in the slow My World Is Empty as Scherrie is wrapping it up you'll hear Susaye do light echoes and ad libs.
But in none of the things i've heard have i ever heard Susaye attempting to take over lead [[like ironically Mary did on Someday at the motown 25). And susaye isn't the only one doing these ad libs and theatrics. mary is doing them too. during Susaye's leads, Scherrie is also chiming in.
And in the handful of videos, there doesn't appear to be any points where Susaye is not following the general choreography. if you look at some of the LYG live clips, IMO Mary is the one with the sloppier execution of the choreography. of course i myself do actually know the full routine lolol having danced it in the house many many times lol. the full routine from the HE videos is quite complex but if done with precision, it would have been very impressive. they took parts of this for the live show, and frankly none of them were really very polished with it. especially mary. which is odd since in the 60s she was flawless with the group moves.
in the end, unless a fan has specific content they can share, we don't know really what happened and can only guess. to accuse a performer of this though is pretty serious, not to us maybe but definitely to a trained and respected performer. it's really a low blow to their professional dignity. mary says she did but susaye says she did not. given how mary really did use both books to make digs at all of the other women in the group and given how fans have shared through the years that all of these women have VERY different view points of both the group events and of mary, i'm more inclined to believe Susaye.
Bookmarks