Mary Wilson update--August 25, 2015

Mary Wilson with Mary Wilson

4 hrs · Edited ·

Hi everyone,
Just a reminder for anyone visiting the Los Angles area, to make sure and stop by the Grammy Museum where you can see the LEGENDS OF MOTOWN: CELEBRATING THE SUPREMES exhibit. On display through spring 2016, the exhibit features rare photographs and memorabilia from my personal collection, as well as an assortment of performance attire from THE MARY WILSON SUPREME GOWN COLLECTION. I have worked tirelessly over the years restoring our original gowns so they can to...ur the world. It has been a labor of love, and I hope you can enjoy seeing them in person. We had our official opening last month with a question and answer segment. It was great seeing so many friends on the special evening, including my Supreme sisters; Jean Terrell, Scherrie Payne, and Susaye Greene, who accepted my invitation to attend the event.

I hope that you will be able to share in the memories that are on display.
Touch

See More

Fifty One Years ago today...

...I lived in Chillum Heights Apartments in Chillum Heights, Hyattsville, MD & was listening to The Supremes 1st #1 Hit: "Where Did Our Love Go?" I was mesmerized by this song. I had the little transistor radio full blast up to my hear & couldn't get enough of this hit. (To this day that is probably why I have tinnitus). It was hot & humid in this Washington, D.C. suburb & how refreshing it was to hear the foot stomping & hand clapping of "Where Did Our Love Go?" I fell in love with dear Florence Ballard, Diana Ross, & Mary Wilson. I barely knew who they were that night but I knew I loved them. The love continues all of these years later. How could one song have such an impact on my life? How could these three singers have such an impact on my life? It did & they did & I will never forget the wonderful feeling I've always had when I hear this song. Over five decades of pleasure & memories that I will always cherish. Thank you dear Flo, Diana & my special Mary.  

Today in History--Diana Ross--Ausust 15, 1971

On this day in 1971: Diana Ross becomes the proud mother of her first child, Rhonda Suzanne Silberstein; Ross soon marries her manager, Robert Ellis Silberstein, a few days later to mask the fact that the baby is actually the child of Motown's currently married founder, Berry Gordy.
GARY

Baby Love--The Supremes--51 years ago today, August 13, 1964

51 years ago to the day, the group once dismissively referred to as the “no-hit Supremes” were on their way to becoming the hottest act in America.

With ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ just a week away from completing its climb to No. 1 in the US, and the need for a Supremes album becoming urgent, August 13, 1964 was the day that the ‘Baby Love’ legend was born. But, as Motown collectors know, the Holland-Dozier-Holland song was first cut the month before, when it got the thumbs down from the boss.

The first version of ‘Baby Love’ had been recorded about three weeks earlier, on July 24, but as Berry Gordy wrote in his 1995 autobiography ‘To Be Loved’: “When H-D-H finished it the first time, I said ‘It’s great, but it has no life, there’s no gimmick here…of course they disagreed with me. But they went back into the studio and re-cut it. And at the beginning, they put in the little thing, ooh-ooh-ooh – that little bit. And I said, that’s perfect!”

Brian Holland’s recollection was that the production triumvirate had come to that conclusion anyway. “When we cut ‘Baby Love’ the first time, it was a little too slow,” he said. “We wanted to add a little more pep to it.”

Apart from Diana Ross’ newly-added ad lib, the new version recorded 50 years ago to the day was now slightly faster and decidedly zippier. It also sported percussion on the backbeat, especially noticeable on that reshaped intro — not handclaps, as Tamla keyboard supremo Earl Van Dyke explains in ‘The Complete Motown Singles Volume 4,’ but planks of two-by-four, with “some guy stompin’ on them.”

The new version was completed in two takes that summer’s day, and the results issued as Motown 1066 in the US five weeks later, three weeks after ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ had finished its two-week reign on the Hot 100.

By the end of October, ‘Baby Love’ followed it to the summit, for four weeks, and then in November, three weeks R&B (although this was during the 14-month period that Billboard did not publish a separate soul chart, so chart historian Joel Whitburn’s reference books use rival publication Cashbox’s ‘Top 50 In R&B Location’ data). By mid-November, ‘Baby Love’ had bumped Roy Orbison’s ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ from the top of the British singles chart.

Listen to ‘Baby Love,’ and the discarded early version (CD2, track 19) on the 40th anniversary edition of the Supremes’ 1964 album ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ on Spotify
Explore our dedicated Diana Ross and the Supremes Artist Page