Quote Originally Posted by sup_fan View Post
actually that's not totally true. in very, very few instances were any of the men replaced by background singers. yes, in some cases the andantes were added to male group records, most notably on the Four Tops. But almost never were Duke, Obie and Lawrence replaced by, say, the Contours or the Spinners. Same with the Miracles. Smokey didn't record without Bobby, Ronnie and Pete.

So why was it ok that the women background singers at motown were interchangeable but the male background singers were not?
Why? Because they wanted to achieve three-part harmony in the background. That's very difficult to do with just two backing vocalists. That is main reason. In other cases because the Andantes were always in town and available to do sessions. It had nothing to do with the ability of the group singers. The Marvelettes were a little rough when they were first starting out, but even they became smoother over time. The Originals were used on many of the solo male recordings for the background.