(Diana Ross &) The Supremes: Where Did Our Love Go - 1964

 

This review is for the download of the Hip-O-Select remaster features additional bonus and live tracks. It is the original album that I will concentrate on, however.

Firstly, the sound on all of these releases (Meet The Supremes; I Hear A Symphony; this one and Supremes A Go-Go) is absolutely superb. With all of them you get both the MONO and STEREO versions of the original album plus a further CD's worth of "extras" - unreleased material and live cuts. As a confirmed stereo man, I much prefer the stereo versions. They are simply wonderfully remastered. As good as I have ever heard this material. 

The original album contains Supremes gems in Where Did Our Love Go, the massive hit of Baby Love and the upbeat, insistent Come See About Me. Also the underrated and singalong When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes, the jaunty Run Run Run and Ask Any Girl.

Here are some of the songs in a bit more detail -

Now - get those feet stomping. Yes, that sound is done by a guy stomping on the floor of the studio. Where Did Our Love Go was originally offered to The Marvelettes but they didn't want it, so the (then) lesser in the pecking order Supremes got the song and the rest is history. The song needed the subtle, nuanced lead that Diana Ross gave it. Diana didn't like the key she had to sing in, the others didn't want the song but it worked all round for The Supremes - it was number one in the pop and r 'n' b charts and number three in the UK charts. What did they know, huh? Interestingly, the song was never covered by another other artist at Motown, something extremely rare in those days of regular song-sharing.

Run Run Run was The first appearance on 45 rpm in 1964 from The Supremes and it is a catchy little saxophone-enhanced and lively number that you would imagine would have been a hit, but wasn't. 

Following on from the successful Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love was number one everywhere, and possibly remains to this day as the archetypal Supremes song. It is the one everyone knows. The song was re-cut several times and the "early version" appears on the double CD release of the Where Did Our Love Go album that I am looking at here. I have to say that this is my favourite version of the song - it is slower, gutsier, more bluesy. longer and has a great, deeper saxophone solo. It wasn't chosen, though, and the eventual, more handclappy, poppier and more shimmery release has gone down as one of the most influential pop singles of all time. There is also a "jukebox single version" that also sounds slightly different. Confusing, huh?

Although When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes is really catchy and should possibly have been a bigger hit, it is also a bit of a strangely-backed song - full of big brassy breaks and a circus-style percussion sound. I can't be denied that it is impossibly vivacious, however, and it is the first song of theirs that really caught the ears. The notes to the Complete Motown Singles Volume 3 collection say this too - "a memorable moment comes at about 1:49, just when you're expecting a traditional sax solo, one of the Hollands lets out an almighty roar and the rhythm section bounds on relentlessly. Unorthodox, but it makes you want to listen again". So true.

On Come About Me the girls got bluesy on this gutsier number than the previous two singles (Where Did Our Love Go and Baby Love) had been. It notably "faded in". Within a few months The Beatles Eight Days A Week did the same and they were said to have "invented" the technique. Yeah, right. Anyway, it remains one of my favourite Supremes stompers. It was unsurprisingly, a big Northern Soul hit. Listen to it, you can hear why. 

I'm Giving You Your Freedom was a smooth, sultry ballad of the sort that would appeal to The Beatles in 1963-64. A Breath Taking Guy is a sort of gently swaying bossa nova from The Supremes that is just so unlike the material they would soon be releasing. The girls' harmonies and different parts on the chorus is impressive, however. 

He Means The World To Me is a ballsy Supremes ballad, with lots of shimmering pizazz. Standing At The Crossroads Of Love is a pleasantly swaying, very early sixties-style number, featuring a very high pitched vocal from Diana. Ask Any Girl is a staccato-sounding and quite quirky number. Chris Clark also recorded the song and it is available on Chris Clark: The Motown Collection. 

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