You can't hurry love (The Supremes) (LP 4582 - 4583)

The Supremes  The Supremes A' Go-Go (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1966) ****  

Diana Ross & The Supremes  The No. 1's (CD, Tamla Motown Records, 2003) *****  

Genre: Pop, soul

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart

Gear costume: You Can't Hurry Love

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7

Active compensatory factors: This was The Supremes' ninth album and it became a huge seller in 1966. At this point in their history the trio was made up of Diana Ross (lead vocals), Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard. 

It's got many strengths - those instantly recognisable vocals, the Motown sound from The Funk Brothers, and eight of the songs came from the genius writing trio of Holland/ Dozier/ Holland. The rest were covers of popular songs which at times don't really suit The Supremes. I'm thinking of These Boots Are Made For Walkin' and Hang on Snoopy.

Quibbles though, as the full album package delivers value for money, big time!

Where do they all belong? That's my only album by the girls on their own. I have others where they joined up with The Four Tops (see here and here). I think a quality compilation like The No. 1's is the best bet. This is a superb collection. The songs have all been digitally remastered and also remixed from the original master tapes and the songs themselves are brilliant. It also has the advantage of having a chronological approach that overviews their whole career and Diana Ross' solo milestones, plus Stoned Love is on it!

A place in the sun (Four Tops) (LP 719 - 722)

Four Tops  Yesterday's Dreams (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1968) ** 

Four Tops  Changing Times (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1970) ***

The Supremes and The Four Tops  The Return Of The Magnificent Seven (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1971) *** 

The Four Tops  Nature Planned It (Vinyl, Tamla Motown Records, 1972) *** 

Genre: Soul 

Places I remember: Chaldon Books and Records, Flashback Records, Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: I'm In A Different World (Yesterday's Dreams)

Gear costume: Hey Man/ We Got To get You A Woman (Nature Planned It)

Active compensatory factors: These albums are all later period Tamla Motown efforts. Without the genius trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland the hits dried up and the boys were searching for direction.

Which explains why they were drawn to tackling material like Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (on Changing Times), but even then, Levi Stubbs and the boys overcome any trepidation you might feel. Still...

By The Time I Get To Phoenix (on Yesterday's Dreams) is another popular song that is pretty much indelibly linked to Glenn Campbell (and Isaac Hayes) but the Four Tops sing it so well you forget those other versions. That's pretty remarkable.

To my mind, the Tamla Motown organisation (The Sound Of Young America) didn't always do right by these guys - shoddy covers (Return of the Magnificent Seven is particularly embarrassing), sloppy cover notes (they can't seem to make up their mind if it's Four Tops or The Four Tops), and material that seemed to be inclined towards populism and the schmaltzy end of the market (Daydream Believer, Once Upon A Time and The Sweetheart Tree on Yesterday's Dreams are examples) rather than quality and gritty street cred material that starts surfacing in the early seventies (which ABC eventually cashed in on).

To summarise these four as albums: Yesterday's Dreams is uneven in quality - some greatness on side one along with A Place In The Sun ending side 2 and some filler on side 2; Changing Times is a much more cohesive album, sound and concept wise and although the social activism stance at Tamla Motown is quaint, forced, worthy, embarrassing depending on your point of view, you can never question the motives of the Four Tops; Return of the Magnificent Seven is, like The Magnificent Seven, a collaboration with post Diana Ross Supremes that works well and the production values are set to high; Nature Planned It sees them in a holding pattern for the most part.

Where do they all belong? The higher quality ABC years' albums have already appeared on Goo Goo (just do a search if you're keen to read them). One to come - from the Casablanca eighties years. Eighties. Casablanca. Be afraid.

Together we can make such sweet music (LP 283)

The Supremes and The Four Tops The Magnificent Seven (Vinyl - Tamla Motown, 1970) ***

Genre: Soul  

Places I remember: Chaldon Books and Records (Caterham on the hill)  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: River Deep Mountain High




Gear costume: Stoned Soul Picnic 

Active compensatory factors: No Diana Ross on this one - she'll pinged off to her solo career by now. Instead we have the wonderful soulful team of Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong being joined by Jean Terrell. 

The Four Tops are as you were and the two groups, seven singers, mesh well together on a range of covers.

Everything sounds effortless.

Where do they all belong? They'd follow this up with The Return of...which I'll feature presently - as soon as I buy it from Chaldon Books and Records!

Yeah, don't ya hear the wind blowing mmmmmhmmmm Stoned Love (The Supremes)

They were well named weren't they? One listen to You Can't Hurry Love and how can you not be transported back to the wonderful sixties.

When a song comes on the p-pod shuffle, I sometimes need to get up and find out who it is (even though everything on the p-pod comes from my own collection). When Stoned Love came on this morning I had no such need. Clearly a Motown song (that drum/tambourine combo alone instantly recalls a few hundred other Motown songs), clearly a Supremes' song, clearly a sixties song.

Stoned Love comes from 1970 but reeks of the sixties.

 In so many ways the song  and its history (the groups last top ten hit in America) sums up that decade as well as anything does.

 The whole story of the song is suitably barking mad:

• unusually, the lead vocal is NOT sung by Diana Ross (take a bow Jean Terrell)
• the actual name of the song was NOT Stoned Love - it was Stone Love (listen carefully to the song) but mislabelled on release, unfortunately giving the song unwarranted drug connotations
• there are over 30 musicians on the song PLUS the Funk Brothers (Motown's legendary house band)
• as a plea for universal love and peace it is unusual subject matter for The Supremes
• the song appears in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump as a cipher to the sixties
• the song was written by Kenny Thomas but his writing credit is listed as "Yennek Samoht"; his name spelled backwards (with an extra "e" to aid pronunciation) 

Like I said - barking mad.

The song itself is fabulous. Those harmonies as the Supremes sing the words 'Stone Love' could only have ever come from that combination of voices (there are strong echoes of Diana Ross in the vocal delivery even though she was not on it).