Diana Ross & The Supremes: Reflections - 1968
From March 1968 came this last Diana Ross & The Supremes album with Holland-Dozier-Holland as the main songwriters (they wrote five of the songs). It was also the first album to be credited to Diana Ross & The Supremes and on the rear cover she is pictured alone, with autobiographical reflections on her life printed below the picture. It was now increasingly all about her.
It is an album of increasingly mature songs, including the choice of covers, paving the way for the Love Child album that would break considerable ground later in the same year.
It kicks off with a classic hit in Reflections, with its psychedelic-style spacey keyboard introductory interjections. While it had a typical Motown sound in its percussion, there was something contemporary about it that fitted with 1967-68.
A Temptations-ish keyboard intro heralds in I'm Gonna Make It (I Will Wait For You) and once more it showcased a slightly different Motown sound as the decade progressed. Incidentally, the stereo separation and deep bass is notably impressive throughout the album.
Another hit single is up next in one of my favourites, Forever Came Today, a track also covered by The Jackson 5. It is a brooding, yearning love song with a strong build up and a great chorus. It features one of Diana Ross's finest vocals for the group. She did it alone, however, none of Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard or Cindy Birdsong appeared on the track, something that would unfortunately become more common in the last few years of the group's existence.
I Can't Make It Alone is also a quality song but it doesn't quite have that je ne sais quoi that some of the others undoubtedly had. It is followed by another hit, the slight throwback to earlier year's in In And Out Of Love, which has always sounded very 1964-65 to me, both in its backing and less powerful vocal. There is something Drifters-ish about the intro and the overall melody. Bah-Bah_Bah, written by the Holloway sisters, Brenda and Patrice, despite is unpromising title, is an atmospheric slow grinder.
As with many Motown albums, the hits were packed on to side one and then side two contained some cover versions. We got them here in Bacharach/David's What The World Needs Now Is Love, Jimmy Webb's very sixties hippy-ish song Up, Up And Away and Bobbie Gentry's iconic Ode To Billie Joe. all of these are handled well, particularly the latter (a song that needs a strong performance), but the first two are a bit "supper club", keeping that section of their customer base happy.
The string-driven smoochy ballad Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things) was a Holland-Dozier-Holland song originally done by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, their version is the better one, with a less syrupy string-dominated backing and Martha's stronger voice. Two Smokey Robinson-penned songs make up the album - the melodious Then with its multiple references to artistic and literary figures and the pleasant, upbeat and the so very Robinson Misery Makes Home Its Heart. Although side two is not quite up to the glittering standard of side one this was still one of the group's best albums. It hailed in a period of transition, however.
