Ready For a Brand New Beat by Mark Kurlansky

Author:Mark Kurlansky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2013-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

We worked at home, Hitsville, where we all felt at home. We had the kitchen working—chili cooking. You could go back and get a cup of chili so you didn’t have to run home. Don’t lose your spot. You lose your spot, they look for you, you’re not there, you lose your spot. We were going round the clock. Instead of going home, you be in the kitchen with the chili.

Now even beyond the usual competition was the competition for which producer with which song was going to make which female singer the next Mary Wells. Mickey Stevenson’s idea for the Mary Wells replacement was his wife, Kim Weston, but she did not do well with the Smokey Robinson song she was given, “Looking for the Right Guy.” Later in the year Mickey did produce a number of hits with the help of Holland-Dozier-Holland, with Kim replacing Wells on Marvin Gaye duets.

Martha Reeves was also in contention, but Gordy had another idea. The Supremes’ last song had been their first hit in eight recordings, and on the road their amateurism next to the Vandellas was obvious. Yet they were the group Gordy focused on. Gordy’s idea was that rather than having the strongest voice, Flo Ballard, as the lead he would bring up the skinny, big-eyed girl with the soft voice who mugged and hammed her way through the songs. Diana Ross would carry the group with charisma. Lamont Dozier, who often supervised the backup, started moving the microphone farther away from Ballard, lest even in backup she overpower Ross. Gordy became fixated on developing Ross to the point that the other female singers, including Kim Weston and Martha Reeves, were growing resentful. Ivy Jo Hunter recalled once suggesting to Gordy that someone else could sing a song better than Diana, “and Berry turned a different shade of dark” and asked if he meant the phrasing. Ivy said, “No, she just has a better voice.” And Berry was silent.

There were unconfirmed rumors of a sexual romance between the two. At least it was unconfirmed until 1994, when Gordy detailed their lovemaking in his autobiography—apparently he was unsuccessful on their first night—and Ross gave the book possibly the weirdest blurb ever to appear on the back of a book: “I also wish he had told me he loved me, as he says in the book. Maybe things would have been different—and maybe not.”

Gordy was famous for his several marriages and various affairs. His brother-in-law Marvin Gaye called him “the horniest man in Detroit.”

But there was not a great deal of complaining because at Motown, even more than most places, there was no arguing with success. In the spring of 1964 the Supremes released “Where Did Our Love Go,” which reached number 1 on the Billboard chart. Their next four songs all hit number 1: “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and “Back in My Arms Again.”

Like “Where Did Our Love Go,” all of them were Holland-Dozier-Holland songs.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.