Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Mary Wilson in Australia--Mackay Entertainment & Conventions Center-June 6, 2015

Entertainment From Australia's The Daily Mercury June 10, 2015

Bringing Motown to Mack-town: Supremes singer Mary Wilson

Lucy Smith | 10th Jun 2015 7:19 PM

THE longest-running member of iconic Motown band the Supremes, Mary Wilson, is fresh off the plane from Las Vegas and performed at the Mackay Entertainment and Convention Centre yesterday.

The Daily Mercury conducted an interview with Ms Wilson backstage, as she prepared for the show.

Ms Wilson opened up about life on the road, being a grandma and her views on rap music and reality music television shows.

She even discussed her friendship with US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Pick up Saturday's Daily Mercury to read the transcript of a chat with a true star of the 1960s.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Billboard's most successful female group, The Supremes--Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, Diana Ross

1. The Supremes
Aside from being the most successful girl group of all time, the Supremes are among the most popular musical artists ever, with Diana Ross and co.'s songs sounding as timeless as ever. "Baby Love," "Stop! In The Name Of Love," "Come See About Me," "You Keep Me Hangin' On," "Where Did Our Love Go"… the list of Motown classics goes on and on, and although there have been many girl group smashes in the decades since the Supremes ruled the Billboard charts, no collective has yet to challenge their, for lack of a better word, supremacy.

"TOUCH" by The Supremes 1971, From album "TOUCH"

Touch (The Supremes album)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Touch (Supremes album))

Touch

Studio album by The Supremes

Released

June 1971

Recorded

1970–71

Soul, pop, R&B

Motown
MS 737

The Supremes chronology

The Return of the Magnificent 7
(1971)

Touch
(1971)

Dynamite
(with Four Tops)
(1971)

Singles from Touch

"Nathan Jones"
Released: April 15, 1971
"Touch"
Released: September 7, 1971

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link

Touch is the twenty-third studio album by The Supremes, released in the summer of 1971 on the Motown label. It was the third and final LP under the supervision of Frank Wilson, who had been the group's main producer since 1970, when Jean Terrell joined as lead singer. The album also marked the first Motown contributions by composer-producer Leonard Caston, Jr. and writer-lyricist Kathleen Wakefield: "Nathan Jones", a hit single sung by all three members, which was later recorded by Bananarama, and "Love It Came to Me This Time".
The album included contributions by several Motown artists and staff writers: "Here Comes the Sunrise" by actor-composer Clifton Davis (who had written "Never Can Say Goodbye" for The Jackson 5); Billy Page's "Johnny Raven" (recorded by Kiki Dee in her 1970 Motown album), and "Have I Lost You" by Pam Sawyer and Gloria Jones. Wilson also recorded Jean Terrell's vocals to the backing track of a cover of Laura Nyro's "Time and Love" that Bones Howe had produced for Diana Ross, but that was shelved and remained unreleased until 2002.
The other tracks were written by Sawyer and Wilson, including the opening and closing numbers, "This Is the Story" and "It's So Hard for Me to Say Goodbye"; "Happy (Is a Bumpy Road)", released as flip side of "Nathan Jones"; and the album title track, "Touch", the first charting Supremes single to feature lead vocals by both Terrell and founding member Mary Wilson. The song missed the US top 40, peaking at #71, and it was later recorded by The Jackson 5.
After this release, producer Frank Wilson went on to work with Motown artis Eddie Kendricks. This album also contained liner notes written by Elton John, and sold over 100,000 copies in the USA.^[1]

Remembering The Supremes' "Nathan Jones", 1971 Post Diana Ross Hit by The Supremes

"Nathan Jones"

Single by The Supremes

from the album Touch

B-side

"Happy (Is a Bumpy Road)"

Released

April 15, 1971

Format

7" single

Recorded

Hitsville U.S.A. (Studio A): December 17, 1970

Genre

R&B, pop rock, Soul Music

Length

3:04

Label

Motown
M 1182

Writer(s)

Leonard Caston
Kathy Wakefield

Producer(s)

Frank Wilson

The Supremes singles chronology

Touch track listing
"River Deep – Mountain High" (with Four Tops) (1970)	"Nathan Jones" (1971)	"You Gotta Have Love in Your Heart" (with Four Tops) (1971)

"Nathan Jones" is a hit single recorded by The Supremes, released in spring 1971 (see 1971 in music) on the Motown label. Produced by Frank Wilson and written by Leonard Caston - aka Leonard Caston, Jr. - and Kathy Wakefield, "Nathan Jones" was one of eight Top 40 hits the Supremes recorded after its original frontwoman, Diana Ross, left the group for a solo career.

Overview

The song centers around a woman's longing for her former lover, a man named Nathan Jones, who left her nearly a year ago "to ease [his] mind." Suffering through the long separation ("Winter's past, spring, and fall") without any contact or communication between herself and Jones, the narrator is no longer in love with Jones, remarking that "Nathan Jones/you've been gone too long".

Supremes version

"Nathan Jones" is an unusual entry among the Supremes' singles repertoire for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that all three members of the group (Jean Terrell, Mary Wilson, and Cindy Birdsong) sing the song's lead vocal in unison. Clydie King was asked to sing along with the group to give the song a fuller vocal sound. While working on the song, producer Frank Wilson had in mind a rock music style of phrasing for the song, resulting in the unison vocals. The unison vocals would repeatedly be dubbed to create a layered harmonic tone similar to that present in the production of vocal group ABBA^{[original research?]}. In addition, Wilson had his engineer, Cal Harris, use what can (now) be considered classic studio sensibilities to take The Funk Brothers' backing tracks for "Nathan Jones" and give them a phase shifting sound at various points during the song. This was accomplished by either using a second recorder (as the Beatles would have done) or (less likely) an outboard processor such as the blue faced MXR flanger.^{[original research?]}
Released as a single on April 15, 1971 with "Happy is a Bumpy Road" as the B-side, "Nathan Jones" peaked at number sixteen on the Billboard Pop Singles chart, number-eight on the Billboard R&B chart.^[1] Overseas, the single went to number-five on the UK Singles Chart. "Nathan Jones" was the most successful single released from the Supremes' fourteenth regular studio album, Touch.

Personnel

Lead and background vocals by Jean Terrell, Mary Wilson, Cindy Birdsong
Additional vocals by Clydie King
Instrumentation by The Funk Brothers
Arranged by Jerry Long and David Van De Pitte
Engineering by Cal Harris
Mixed By Russ Terrana

Charts

Chart (1971)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	16
U.S. Billboard R&B Singles	8
UK Singles Chart	5
Canadian Singles Chart (RPM)	15

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Grammy Museum to Open with The Supremes

(from the L.A. Times)

Grammy Museum to Open First Motown Exhibit Celebrating the Supremes

By Gail Mitchell, Los Angeles | June 05, 2015 9:00 AM EDT

Courtesy Photo

The Supremes -- the biggest girl group of all time on Billboard's Hot 100 -- will be the focus of a new exhibit at The Grammy Museum. Opening June 25, Legends of Motown: Celebrating the Supremes will chronicle the trio's legendary reign through rare artifacts from the private collection of founding member Ms. Mary Wilson.
In addition to photographs, the exhibit will feature concert posters, tour books and fan memorabilia. An array of performance gowns dating from the Supremes' start in the early '60s as the Primettes will also be on display, including the "Turquoise Freeze" dresses the ladies wore during their 1967 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Backbeat: Grammy Museum Honors Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson

On June 24, one day prior to the exhibit's launch, Wilson will take center stage for the museum's interview/Q&A series, "A Conversation With." Legends of Motown: Celebrating the Supremes will run through spring 2016.
In a release announcing the first-ever Motown exhibit, Grammy Museum executive director Bob Santelli said, "We've been eager to feature an exhibit celebrating Motown since we honored Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson at our inaugural benefit gala [Architects of Sound Awards] in 2013."
"As you look at all of these wonderful treasures," added Wilson in the release, "please be reminded that three little black girls dared to dream and made their dreams come true."

Diana Ross Joins Twitter

Founded as the Primettes in Detroit by Wilson, Diana Ross and Florence Ballard, the Supremes became the most popular female group of the '60s thanks to a string of No. 1 R&B and pop hits. Among those classics are "Where Did Our Love Go?," "Baby Love," "Stop! In the Name of Love," "Back in My Arms Again," "You Can't Hurry Love" and 'Someday We'll Be Together." All told, the Supremes scored 12 No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 -- the most of any American group in history. Following Ballard's and Ross' exits, later members of the Supremes included Cindy Birdsong, Jean Terrell, Scherrie Payne, Susaye Greene and Lynda Laurence.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

"Back In My Arms Again" released 50 years ago this week!

Fifty years ago this week, April 15, 1965, The Supremes' "Back In My Arms Again" was released. It was their fifth Holland-Dozier-Holland release. The song was recorded on December 1, 1964 before "Stop! In the Name of Love". "Back in My Arms Again" entered Billboard's Top 100 at #68. Six weeks later it became the Supremes' fifth consecutive number one single on Billboard magazine! Cash Box magazine had "Back in My Arms Again" as the #1 Record of the year! To date The Supremes are the only AMERICAN group to have five consecutive chart toppers. The Beatles & The Bee Gees each have 6 consecutive #1s. The Supremes would headline at one of America's top venues, the Copacabana in Manhattan. The critics loved the show. The Supremes once again had catapulted to the top of another history making move--being three black girls didn't matter. America, & the world, didn't think of them as sounding black or sounding white. We were mesmerized by their sound, presence, & showmanship. The Supremes weren't done charting yet as they still had SEVEN more #1 hits to go!

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Diana Ross turns 71 today--March 26, 2015

Today, March 26, 2015 Diana Ross turns 71 years old--exactly 20 days after fellow Supreme Mary Wilson turned 71. Happy Birthday to her.

Supremes Reflections 4-Ever