Richard Street's Memoir My Life as a Temptation--Diana and the Supremes.

[BobbyC]

Hey guys--I'm about halfway through the book now. Richard gets so much just plain wrong. He talks about a song that got shoved onto the Supremes when other groups passed on it, they complained that it was childish and poppy. He also said that this song had people walking on planks of wood for the intro. He's talking about Where Did Our Love Go, right? Nope. He says those things about Baby Love. He also outlines Florence's gripes about the group, forcing her to leave, but then he really gets it wrong saying Florence KILLED HERSELF. That just isn't true. Bette Midler once famously remarked that some of her fans knew her music better than she did, and in this case she was right. Anyway, more later.

[kenneth]

Hey guys--I'm about halfway through the book now. Richard gets so much just plain wrong. He talks about a song that got shoved onto the Supremes when other groups passed on it, they complained that it was childish and poppy. He also said that this song had people walking on planks of wood for the intro. He's talking about Where Did Our Love Go, right? Nope. He says those things about Baby Love. He also outlines Florence's gripes about the group, forcing her to leave, but then he really gets it wrong saying Florence KILLED HERSELF. That just isn't true. Bette Midler once famously remarked that some of her fans knew her music better than she did, and in this case she was right. Anyway, more later.

I think it was in the book “Girl Groups” which, although it seemed to be well researched in other chapters, its chapter on Motown had lots of errors and one was the same story that the song the Marvelettes rejected which The Supremes ended up recording was “Baby Love.”

It’s odd but sometimes what gives away a writer who publishes perjured narratives and exposes them is because of the mistakes they repeat that other authors originally propagated. I believe this happened with Brian Wilson’s autobiography, because he repeated errors that other writers had made about the group because his own memory was foggy and therefore he relied on others narratives to help develop his.