Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

I’m Jans you Mnemonic Man and today's episode will be on Diana Ross & the Supremes.

I was thinking of maybe just doing Diana Ross and her own, successful solo career, but I couldn’t quite find enough hit songs that everyone knew, and then I thought of just doing the Supremes who obviously had a number of hits, and even at one stage considering maybe just doing The Primettes, which is where it all started from.

One thing for sure it is extremely confusing to line up all the collective hits and align them with which entity they were performed under, let alone keep track of all the lineup changes along the way.

So, in the end, I went with Diana Ross & the Supremes, whose classic lineup consisted of Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard.

While they were an amazing trio, there was also another trio working behind the scenes writing and producing these hits, which are some of the most recognisable songs in music history, who, to this date are barely known or talked about.

Today’s mnemonic is on Diana Ross & the Supremes top five songs.

So, with that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Supremes_1966.JPG

Wikipedia Summary

The Supremes was an American girl group and a premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Founded as the Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, the Supremes were the most commercially successful of Motown's acts and the most successful American vocal band, with 12 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Most of these hits were written and produced by Motown's main songwriting and production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland. It is said that their breakthrough made it possible for future African-American R&B and soul musicians to find mainstream success. Billboard ranked the Supremes as the 16th greatest Hot 100 artist of all time.[1]

Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross, and Betty McGlown, the original members, were all from the Brewster-Douglass public housing project in Detroit. They formed the Primettes as the sister act to the Primes (with Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks, who went on to form the Temptations). Barbara Martin replaced McGlown in 1960, and the group signed with Motown the following year as the Supremes. Martin left the act in early 1962, and Ross, Ballard, and Wilson continued as a trio.

During the mid-1960s, the Supremes achieved mainstream success with Ross as lead singer and Holland–Dozier–Holland as its songwriting and production team. In 1967, Motown president Berry Gordy renamed the group Diana Ross & the Supremes, and replaced Ballard with Cindy Birdsong. In 1970, Ross left to pursue a solo career and was replaced by Jean Terrell, and the group reverted the name to the Supremes again. During the mid-1970s, the lineup changed with Lynda Laurence, Scherrie Payne and Susaye Greene, joining until the group, after 18 years from its foundation, disbanded in 1977.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Supremes]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diana_Ross_en_The_Supremes_tijdens_persconferentie_in_Hiltonhotel_te_Amsterdam,_Bestanddeelnr_920-9905.jpg

Mnemonic

Diana Ross & the Supremes – Top 5 Songs Mnemonic – Ross’s BaBYS

(Picture Diana Ross and a nest of baby songbirds)

1. Reflections

2. Baby Love

3. Buttered Popcorn

4. You Keep Me Hanging On

5. Stop! In the Name of Love

Five Fun Facts

1. Diana Ross owes her start to one of her neighbours in the low-income housing facility named the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects where she grew up. Her neighbour who just happened to be Smokey Robinson introduced her to Berry Gordy of the Motown record label.

2. In the early days of Motown, The Supremes who were once The Primettes before the name change, struggled for a hit. So much so, that they became known as the “No-Hit Supremes”. However, when they finally broke through with their first hit “Where Did Our Love Go?” it was then followed by four more consecutive number-one singles.

3. After Diana Ross ventured out to a solo career her star was on the rise, performing to an estimated 350,000 to 400,000 people at Central Park’s Great Lawn on July 21, 1983. The performance was to raise money for the City Parks Department and a children’s playground. Unfortunately, it was washed out 20 minutes into the performance, so Ross came back the following night and performed another show for around 350,000 fans, along with donating $250,000 of her own money to the playground.

4. Diana Ross’s most notable acting role was as Dorothy in “The Wiz” which was a rethinking of “The Wizard of Oz”. Berry Gordy produced the movie and Diana Ross recorded a tie-in album which was meant to be released in 1979. Unfortunately, the movie flopped and as a result, Motown cancelled the album’s release and it wasn’t until 2015 that it was made publicly available.

5. Diana Ross and Steve McQueen were originally supposed to star in the movie “The Bodyguard” which was written in 1976 by screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. This didn’t happen for various reasons and was eventually made with Whitney Houston and Kevin Kostner in 1992. Ironically, one of Diana Ross’s former bodyguards ended up a big name in movies and TV and that man was MR T (Lawrence Tureaud) from the movie Rocky III and the TV series “The A-Team”.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zanggroep_The_Supremes_in_Hilton-hotel_aan_pers_voorgesteld,_v.l.n.r._Florence_B,_Bestanddeelnr_918-2472.jpg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. Diana Ross has been nominated for 12 Grammy Awards. How many has she won?

Q.2. Other than Diana Ross, name the other two original members of the Supremes? Options are Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson or Florence Dullard and Carey Wilson

Q.3. Who was the founder of the Motown record label?

Bonus Q. Diana Ross announced that she was leaving the group to pursue a solo career in 1970. Which extremely successful band announced their break up the same year?

Mnemonic Recap

Diana Ross & the Supremes – Top 5 Songs Mnemonic – Ross’s BaBYS

(Picture Diana Ross and a nest of baby songbirds)

1. Reflections

2. Baby Love

3. Buttered Popcorn

4. You Keep Me Hanging On

5. Stop! In the Name of Love

Three Question Quiz Answers

Q.1. Diana Ross has been nominated for 12 Grammy Awards. How many has she won?

A. Just one, when she received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012

Q.2. Other than Diana Ross, name the other two original members of the Supremes? Options are Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson or Florence Dullard and Carey Wilson

A. Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson

Now just speaking of beautiful voices, believe it or not when I was younger I once had quite the voice reaching pitch levels to a countertenor, which is the highest pitch. But unfortunately, I missed my opera-tunity when my voice broke!

Q.3. Who was the founder of the Motown record label?

A. Berry Gordy, who wore many hats, some of which included record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer, and television producer

Bonus Q. Diana Ross announced that she was leaving the group to pursue a solo career in 1970. Which extremely successful band announced their break up the same year?

A. The Beatles

Word of the Week

en masse

[ ahn mas ]

adverb

all together; as a whole.

Example

Fans turned out en masse at New York’s Central Park Great Lawn to watch Diana Ross perform in 1983.

Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]

https://www.themnemonictreepodcast.com/

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-mnemonic-tree-podcast/id1591795132

https://open.spotify.com/show/3T0LdIJ9PBQMXM3cdKd42Q?si=fqmaN2TNS8qqc7jOEVa-Cw