THE SUPREMES 2000

 

 

Reflections...Ain't No Mountain High Enough...Stoned Love...Love Is Here and Now You're Gone...I'm Gonna Make You Love Me...Nathan Jones....Touch Me In The Morning...I Hear A Symphony....River Deep, Mountain High....Up The Ladder To The Roof...Baby Love....Love Hangover...I'm Gonna Let My Heart Do The Walking....Come See About Me....My Mistake (Was To Love You)....I Will Survive....Where Did Our Love Go...Floy Joy...You Can't Hurry Love....Do You Know Where You're Going To?...Everybody's Got the Right to Love ....Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart...Someday We'll Be Together

 

 

DIANA ROSS AND THE SUPREMES 

SUMMER 2000 ' RETURN TO LVE ' TOUR SCHEDULE

JUNE

  • JUNE 14 - FIRST UNION SPECTRUM-PHILADELPHIA, PA.
  • JUNE 16 - MELLON ARENA-PITTSBURGH,PA.
  • JUNE 17 - GUND ARENA-CLEVELAND, OH.
  • JUNE 19 - THE PALACE AT AUBURN HILLS-DETROIT, MI.
  • JUNE 22 - PHILIPS ARENA-ATLANTA, GA.
  • JUNE 24 - ICE PALACE-TAMPA, FL.
  • JUNE 25 - NATIONAL CAR RENTAL CENTER-FT. LAUDERDALE, FL.
  • JUNE 28 - COMPAQ CENTER-HOUSTON, TX.
  • JUNE 29 - REUNION ARENA-DALLAS, TX.

JULY

  • JULY 1 - ALLSTATE ARENA-CHICAGO, IL.
  • JULY 4 - AIR CANADA CENTRE-TORONTO, ON.
  • JULY 6 - MADISON SQUARE GARDEN-NEW YORK, N.Y. (FINAL CONCERT)
  • JULY 9 - MCI CENTER-WASHINGTON, D.C. (cancelled)
  • JULY 12 - CIVIC CENTER-HARTFORD, CT.(cancelled)
  • JULY 13 - FLEET CENTER-BOSTON, MA.(cancelled)
  • JULY 16 - BRADLEY CENTER-MILWAUKEE, WI.(cancelled)
  • JULY 17 - KIEL CENTER-ST. LOUIS, MO.(cancelled)
  • JULY 19 - TARGET CENTER-MINNEAPOLIS, MN.(cancelled)
  • JULY 21 - PEPSI CENTER-DENVER, CO.(cancelled)
  • JULY 24 - KEY ARENA-SEATTLE, WA.(cancelled)
  • JULY 28 - ARENA-SAN JOSE, CA.(cancelled)
  • JULY 31 - AMERICA WEST ARENA-PHOENIX, AZ.(cancelled)

AUGUST

  • AUGUST 2 - SPORTS ARENA-SAN DIEGO, CA.(cancelled)
  • AUGUST 3 - THE ARROWHEAD POND-ANAHEIM, CA.(cancelled)
  • AUGUST 5 - MGM GRAND-LAS VEGAS, NV.(cancelled)

 

 

VH1 - THE WIRE - ROADIE 1/5/2000        Back To The Top

A TOUR SUPREME:  MOTOWN GREATS PLOT COMEBACK


Diana Ross has been popping up in all the right places these days. And maybe one of the wrongs ones too. She made a splashy appearance at the MTV Music Video Awards, accompanied by two latter day divas, the regal Mary J. Blige and the sartorially splendid L'il Kim. She headlined an extravagant holiday party at Madison Square Garden thrown by the deep-pockets accounting firm of Price-Waterhouse Cooper, in which she came armed with plenty of spectacular costume changes for her ninety-minute set. And she was at the heart of a less glamorous, but major headline-making, recent brouhaha at London's Heathrow Airport over her treatment by a British Airways security guard.

So the time may be just right for a Supremes reunion. At least that's what former Supreme singer Mary Wilson thinks. Wilson, who had been quite public about her one-time estrangement from Ross, told Hollywood reporters Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith, "Diane [as she still calls the singer] and I spoke in December, and I can firmly say that it's a reality. If they can get all the plans together, we'll go into rehearsals in May, then head out on tour this summer. We're going to start in the U.S., and if that goes great, then I'm sure we'll extend it."

Singer Cindy Birdsong, who replaced original member, the late Florence Ballard, will round out the legendary trio.

If they plan to go to the U.K., Wilson may want to suggest to Miss Ross that they consider using Gatwick Airport.

It's turning out to be a Motown kind of millennial year, now that the Four Tops have also announced they're about to release a new record. They've just completed Four Tops 2000, produced by former Temptation Norman Whitfield, and featuring the elegant lead voice of Levi Stubbs.

The Four Tops have not released a new record in eight years. In that time, the group lost original member Lawrence Payton, who passed away in '97. He was replaced by Theo Peoples, who had formerly sung with the Temptations.

The quartet may be offering an updated version of some classic sounds, but don't expect the record to take a traditional route to the stores. The group hasn't been on Motown for years and they plan to do what so many younger artists have turned to in our brave new entertainment world: they want to distribute their work via the internet and through indie distribution.

 

 

PR Newswire 
(Copyright (c) 2000,PR Newswire, 01/17/2000)

Held at Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Two-hour concert is First 'Divas' Special To Honor An Individual Artist

NEW YORK, March 17 /PRNewswire/ --Superstar singers Mariah Carey, Faith Hill and Donna Summer will take the stage for "VH1 Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross," a star-studded salute to the supreme Motown legend.  Held at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City, concert debuts on the network on Tuesday, April 11 at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT)

The first "VH1 Divas" concert to honor an individual artist, "VH1 Divas 2000: A Tribute To Diana Ross" promises to be as energetic, spontaneous,and memorable as the previous two smash specials. Mariah, Faith and Donna will sing their own hits, as well as some of Diana Ross' best loved songs. Viewers also should expect the unexpected---electrifying duets and pairings that have become a "Divas" trademark.

VH1.COM

EVERYTHING'S COMING UP DIVAS
By C. Bottomley

Despite an avalanche of emails from VH1.com users begging for Janet Jackson and, er, Teena Marie to perform at Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross, it appears Mariah Carey, Donna Summer and Faith Hill have elbowed their way to the front of the line to honor the sole Supreme. All three will be appearing at the Divas 2000 show broadcast from Madison Square Garden on VH1 on April 11 at 9 PM ET.

Producers are planning for the artists to perform their own hits; songs made famous by Ms. Ross like "I'm Coming Out" and "Upside Down;" and also team up with the diva of divas herself for a series of duets.

The show will be something of a return engagement for Carey and Hill, who have both performed at previous Divas events. Carey brought the house down when she opened the first VH1 Divas Live in 1998 with her song "My All." Faith Hill officially arrived in diva-land in 1999 when she performed her hit "This Kiss."

 Since then, Hill has topped the charts with her latest album Breathe. In other good news for Faith Hill, this week she was nominated for eight different TNN Music Awards, including Female Artist of the Year and Album of the Year. In the category of Entertainer of the Year, she will be competing against her own husband, Tim McGraw. The awards will be presented on June 15 in Nashville.

You can see special, behind-the-scenes IPIX photographs of her latest video shoot on VH1.com. Just click here to experience the beautiful Faith Hill as you never have before.

It's the first time Donna Summer has played Divas, but to her fans, it's about damn time. Tony emailed us saying, "Donna has always respected Diana and it should be a great show. Don't mess this good thing up! April 11th could be a history making moment if you can get an original Donna/Diana duet and release it as a single."

Curtis had other ideas. "Let me tell ya, if Mariah's really going to be there, you've gained yourself a million viewers!!!! It would be so awesome if Diana Ross, Donna Summer, and Mariah did a Supremes song together like, 'Stop in the Name of Love' or whatever. That would be the highlight of the night. I bet Mariah will sing her powerful rendition of 'Do You Know Where You're Going To' from the movie, Mahogany." Well, you never know.

Fans of Janet and Teena - and who knew there were so many of you out there - are best advised to have a little lie down and be sure to tune in on April 11. Because you never know who might drop in to pay their respects...

Accompanying Divas 2000, or rather gritting their teeth and reeking of Brut, will be the Men Strike Back show. Scheduled to perform are the swoonsome Backstreet Boys, a fully clothed (maybe) D'Angelo, an emotion-drenched Enrique Iglesias, a nearly bald Sting, and a priapic Tom Jones. And maybe a partridge in a pear tree. No, we don't mean David Cassidy. It was just a joke.

 

 

CNN

SHOWBIZ TODAY

DIANA ROSS HAS SUPREME CONFLICT

SYDNEY: Former Supreme Mary Wilson wants Diana Ross to "stop in the name of love." And ACM entertainer of the year nominee Sawyer Brown entertains us on SHOWBIZ TODAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MORET: We are back with Sawyer Brown, a group that has been together for 18 years, which is a long time, and all of these folks are original members except this gentleman right here. Now, and -- while I'm pointing it out, because Diana Ross is getting back on the road with a group she is calling The Supremes, but one of the original members says she's been left out of the pack.

Lauren Hunter has more on that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

LAUREN HUNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's been talked about for decades, in the making for years. Now it's here.

DIANA ROSS, SINGER: I'm here today to announce and to launch the beginning of the Diana Ross and The Supremes tour.

HUNTER: With three artists who never performed together as Supremes. There were different names and faces during the group's prime years in the 1960s.

MARY WILSON, SINGER: That I'm not on it right now, my heart is absolutely breaking.

HUNTER: Mary Wilson is one of the original Supremes, now on tour promoting her new book, "Dreamgirls and Supreme Faith."

WILSON: Well, it can't be a reunion tour. I mean, obviously it can only be a reunion tour if I'm there and Diana's there.

ROSS: This was not considered to be a Supremes reunion, except these girls have been Supremes for 30 years. I don't know what else you can say.

HUNTER: The reason Wilson says she's not on tour with Ross is a lack of respect...

WILSON: I wanted very much for the reunion tour to happen. When I was contacted a year after I had heard all of the rumors last year, I was very disappointed that I was not involved in any of the planning and that I was called at such a late time.

HUNTER: ... and a dispute over money.

WILSON: Well, let's put it like this: you have 100 percent and I was offered 20 percent. I don't think it should be equal because Diana Ross is the superstar, OK, and she has the bigger career. I mean -- and that's fine, but I still think that Mary Wilson was worth more than that amount.

HUNTER: The tour's promoter says an earnest effort was made to include Wilson as part of the tour.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At Diana's urging, we approached Mary Wilson and over a period of several weeks conducted a sincere attempt to come to terms with Mary. Despite the efforts of many people and my personal best efforts, we were unable to come to terms with Mary.

WILSON: I'd rather that my soul, my integrity is intact. I will not sell out for money.

HUNTER: The "Return to Love" tour, without Mary Wilson, hits the road in June, but the new trio gave a preview of their summer sound at the VH1 tribute to Ross.

(MUSIC)

HUNTER: Lauren Hunter, CNN Entertainment News, Hollywood.
 

 

SUPREMES REUNION...ON THE ROCKS?   Back To The Top
By Rick Bueche

It has been reported by numerous trade magazines that Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong have agreed to reunite this summer for the first time in over 30 years, to tour and record once again as Diana Ross and the Supremes. Only once before had the trio adorned the stage in an ill-fated reunion on the 1983 Motown 25 TV Special. 

Rumors of bad blood between original members Diana Ross and Mary Wilson 
surfaced when Wilson published the best-selling "Dreamgirl: My Life As A Supreme" in 1986 which depicted Ross as an over-ambitious, opportunistic diva determined to become a superstar with no regard to her singing partners, which included the late Florence Ballard. (Cindy Birdsong replaced Ballard in 1967.) When Mary Wilson visited Ross backstage at a 1989 concert Ross refused to receive her.

After the car accident that claimed her son's life and nearly killed Wilson herself, Diana Ross made contact with her former singing partner. For years Mary Wilson has spoken of a reunion but Ross would never entertain the idea.

At least not until late 1999 when Ross was approached by promoters in New York. She has been in contact with both Wilson and Birdsong and it appeared all had agreed on this historic reunion.

That is until last month. When Mary Wilson learned that Miss Ross had not only invited she and Birdsong, but ALL 7 living Supremes to perform at this reunion, she apparently felt slighted. As of this past week it has been announced that both Wilson and Birdsong have ceased negotiations with Diana Ross for this reunion.

In the 70's, other members of the Supremes included Jean Terrell, Lynda Laurence, Scherrie Payne and Susaye Greene.

No official word has been received from any of the performers involved. It has been reported that Miss Wilson is unnerved at the prospect of performing with the 70's members of the group after she filed and subsequently lost a lawsuit surrounding the use of the group's name against several ladies still performing as "The Supremes." Her appeal was thrown out because she had signed away all rights to that name in 1990.

In the 1960's Diana Ross and the Supremes scored 12 No. 1 hits in a six year period along with several other top ten entries and duet hits with The Temptations. It is estimated that the group sold over 250 million records worldwide.

Various incarnations of The Supremes after Ross left in 1970 enjoyed pop and soul hits such as "Up The Ladder To The Roof," "Stoned Love," and "I'm Gonna Let My Heart Do The Walking." When it was obvious that the trio would never achieve success as it had in the 60s, Mary Wilson finally disbanded the group in 1977.

As of now it is only Ross and the seventies Supremes in negotiations for a reunion of Diana Ross and the Supremes. None of these women have worked together before.

 

 

Las Vegas Review-Journal    Back To The Top

February 4th, 2000

Ross, Wilson setting aside past differences for Supremes tour.

It's no longer a rumor.

Diana Ross and Mary Wilson, after years of being on the outs, are publicly
acknowledging a Supremes reunion tour is in the works.  We told you so in October. Wilson told Access Hollywood on Wednesday that it's going to happen. The newest development however, has Ross visiting Las Vegas this weekend, reinforcing speculation that Las Vegas will be among the tour stops. The Supremes most recent reunion was in 1988, when they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  Rehearsals are tentatively scheduled to start in May, with a late-summer tour kickoff. Details are still being worked out, including a formal press conference.

 

The Detroit News

DIANA ROSS PICKS HER SUPREMES FOR TOUR     Back To The Top

By Susan Whitall

That much-ballyhooed Supremes reunion is a go, but it looks increasingly unlikely that Diana Ross will be swapping "oo baby baby's" with Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong.  At the same time Wilson's press agent Jay Schwartz was insisting his client and Ross were still talking, two "later" Supremes -- Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence -- were already being fitted for sequined sheaths and posing for pictures with Ross last week.  "Diana Ross with the Supremes" will debut on an Oprah show in April, to be followed by 30 concert stops in North America, and then a European tour. An announcement of tour locations and dates is expected shortly.

Ross had been trying to revive her legendary girl group with original member Wilson and Birdsong, who replaced Florence Ballard in 1970 -- it would have been the Supremes Mach II's first show together in 30 years. But Wilson has said that she wants a more "equitable" share of the profits with her former lead singer.

Laurence, who'd been a backup singer for Stevie Wonder, joined the Supremes in 1972, while Detroit native Payne, who is the sister of singer Freda Payne, joined the Supremes in 1974.  In recent years, after leaving Mary Wilson's Supremes, Laurence and Payne have been touring as "Former Ladies of the Supremes," and have enjoyed a warm relationship with Ross, who visited them backstage in Europe last year and posed for photographs.  "It really puts the stamp of approval on our group," Scherrie Payne told The Detroit News last year. "I appreciated the fact that she felt it was done in Supremes fashion, because that's what we do. She was very gracious, very kind."

 

Atlanta Journal Constitution     Back To The Top

Battle Supreme: Behind the scenes at Atlanta's big festival, a feud rages over who has bragging rights to Motown's 'Dreamgirls'

Sonia Murray - Staff
Tuesday, May 2, 2000


Ding! Ding!

And now glossy soul fans of the fabled Motown record label of the '60s, it's time for the main event.

In this corner, weighing in at a ticket price as high as $30 and performing Sunday as the closing act of Music Midtown, we have a founding member of Motown's premier female trio --- Mary Wilson!

And moving to the opposite corner, arms outstretched, teased hair, weighing in at a ticket price as high as $252 and performing June 22 at Philips Arena, another founding member of the most popular girl act in the country --- Diana Ross!

Both are coming to town with their own versions of the group that made them famous in the 1960s: the Supremes.

Confused?

Well, Ross and Wilson tried to do a reunion tour together. Ross told "20/20" anchor Barbara Walters she was excited about the idea of including the Supremes in a summer tour that she was planning to promote her upcoming album.

"All (Wilson) needed to do is show up," the lead vocalist for the original Supremes said. "She didn't have to pay for anything. Not a hotel room, not a car, not a gown, not a music arrangement, no set, nothing."

But those weren't the sticking points with Wilson. It was the zeroes that went along with the offer.

While Ross says she won't get into exactly how much they were going to be paid to tour, Wilson says Ross was getting between $15 million and $20 million, while she was offered $2 million. "And then, maybe, three."

"That's not enough?" a "20/20" reporter asked of Wilson in a televised interview the day before Ross'.

"What do you mean enough?" Wilson shot back.

"I don't think 'enough' is the word. I think 'fair' would be more of the better word. Or 'deserving.' "

"Sounds like your usual girl group troubles to me," notes Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, lead singer of the best-selling female group of all time, Atlanta's TLC (no strangers to inner turmoil). "Women have a hard time getting along as it is, in my opinion. But to be older, and not naive about this business anymore, oh, I know, neither one of those divas are going to be settling for anything less than what they feel they deserve."

At least not this summer.

So, sans Wilson, Ross will perform favorites from the Supremes' heyday ("Baby Love," "Stop! In the Name of Love") as well as her solo hits ("Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Love Hangover") since she left the group in 1970.

Wilson, on the other hand, does a show of Supremes songs and those of her Motown labelmates.

The only surviving early Supreme we haven't heard from is Cindy Birdsong, who replaced founding member Florence Ballard in 1967.

She's a minister in Los Angeles and presumably wasn't ready to rumble

 

BE (Black Elegance)   Back To The Top

Where Did The Love Go?
Raqiyah Mays looks at what causes the drama.

The Supremes, En Vogue, SWV, Destiny's Child - They are a few of our favorite girl groups, but when privte feuds go public, it kills the romance for the members and the fans.

Girls just wanna have fun, right? Well, sometimes that's until another girl throws cold water on your parade. As a little girl, do you remember that one child who, somehow, would be able to change the attitude of all the other girls in that circle. And every time you tried to just go about your business, she would have something to say about it. You couldn't walk past her without being talke about. If you wore a new hairstyle or a new pair of shoes, that same girl would chirp (in unison with her posse): "She thinks she's all that." Are any fond memories coming to mind yet? What's unfortunate is that even as adults, some of us never grow out of that competitive/defensive spirit.

Enter our favorite girl groups. They're attractive, talented and selling records, but with all that they've got going for them, egos, anger, frustration and other personal issues will inevitably mess up a good thing. As the Supremes, En Vougue, SWV and Destiny's Child.

"Despite our inner turmoil, the three of us never let the public know about our problems," writes Mary Wilson in Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme. "Part of the Supremes magic came from our ability to make the world and its problems stop at the edge of the stage. When we sang toether - no mattter what had happened backstage or in private - we were as close and as happy singing in the Projects or sitting in the Hitsville."

The Supremes eventually became Diana Ross and The Supremes, and later Diana Ross went on to have a successful career as a soloist and film star. Over the years there have been many versions about the breakup. Mary Wilson has often said that things started to fall apart when Diana Ross entered into a love affair with Motown head Berry Gordy. Diana has long defended her headlining position as a professional decision the company saw in the best interest of the group's growing popularity. All of that dirty water recently resurfaced when it was rumored that there would be a Supremes reunion with Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong. (Birdsong replaced the late Florence Ballard in 1967). Because of bouts over money, the tour as many fans had envisioned it, would never be. 

Birdsong declined to participate and so did Wilson, after being offered fees of $2 to $3 million compared to a reported $20 million for Ross. "I am the Supremes," Wilson told the New York Daily News. "She left the Supremes. I put too much into this to accept a measly $3 million and be reated like some sor of employee of Diana's. 

And so Ross has moved forward with two lesser known women who had never worked with Ross. Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence joined the group in the early 70's. "Change has always been part of The Supremes," offered Ross at a press conference. "This tour is about the music of the 60's. It was never intended as a Supremes reunion." The truth is, however, that while change had always been a part of the Supremes when he original members dissembled, so did their fan base. But what else could be said to save the tour? 

This setback has led to a lot of speculation and choosing of sides by fans and the media. And Wilson and Ross have each done their fair share of damage control PR to "set the record straight." But Terry Ellis, formerly of the group En Vogue, says its unfair for the public to form opinions based on rumors and some media reports. 

"In what we do, you really almost can't judge someone else's situation or organization because you're not in it," she comments. "From our experience, it's a personal thing within that organization. If you're not in it, you don't really know. Because there's two sides to every story...."

Mary Wilson, in her tell-all book about The Supremes, described their relationship as a marriage. Each partner sees and knows the other's flaws, but tolerates them out of love for the project. Divorce she says, is not an option for the success of the group. "It's an appropriate analogy, especially when most marriages end in divorce over money disputes."

There's more concerning the other groups mentioned, but I just stuck, with the Supremes.

SONICNET.COM        Back To The Top

Update: Wilson Says It's No Supremes Without Her
Diana Ross, group's lead singer, says she wishes fellow founding member had been able to join her tour.

Contributing Editor Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen reports:

Singer Diana Ross said her tour with replacement members of the Supremes isn't about the names on the bill and that it doesn't matter that founding member Mary Wilson and longtime member Cindy Birdsong won't be sharing the stage with her.

"The tour's not about me. It's not about the individuals," Ross, 56, said at a press conference Tuesday in New York. "It's really about the music and about what we represented and still represent in music as far as image and possibility."

But Wilson said that if she's not on the tour, it's not really a Supremes tour.

"If there's going to be a reunion, I'd have to be in it," Wilson said from her dressing room at St. David's Hall in Wales, where she performed Tuesday in a Motown revue. The show, billed as "Dancing in the Streets," also features "War" singer Edwin Starr and Martha Reeves of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.

The tour, which opens June 14 in Philadelphia, is being billed as Diana Ross and the Supremes. Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne, who joined the group in 1972, will sing with Ross. Wilson left the group in 1976, while Payne, Laurence and other singers continued to tour billed as the Former Ladies of the Supremes.

"I never even considered it to be a reunion tour," said Ross, who wore a metallic pink leather outfit and black T-shirt at the press conference. Ross said she was planning a solo tour, and it was suggested that she bring the Supremes along.

Wilson, 55, said she had heard rumors of a possible reunion as early as the beginning of 1999, but she said Ross didn't approach her until December. At that point, Wilson said, she thought the two of them needed to "talk things over" before she committed to the reunion. She said Ross wanted "to do the business first."

"If Paul McCartney was going to put the Beatles back together, I don't think he'd wait a year to call George [Harrison] and Ringo [Starr]," Wilson said. "Possibly, I wasn't even really wanted on the tour."

Ross said she wishes Wilson had been able to join her. "I made the initial call to her to be here," she said. "I would have been honored to be onstage with all of the Supremes." She said all seven other singers who've been members of the group since its inception were offered slots on the tour.

Birdsong replaced the other founding member, Florence Ballard, in 1967. Ballard was dismissed from the group after missing concerts, and she died of cardiac arrest in 1976 at age 32. The Supremes originated with four members, including founding member Betty Travis. Travis left in 1960 and was replaced by Barbara Martin, who soon left the group.

"Change has been a part of the Supremes from the beginning," Ross said.

Wilson claimed she was offered $2 million to join the tour, out of a total talent fee budget of $15 million to $20 million. During the press conference, tour promoter Arthur Fogel of TNA International disputed Wilson's assertions, though he declined to discuss the money involved.

Through a spokesperson, TNA President Michael Cohl said the Toronto concert promotion firm does not discuss dollar amounts regarding tours. "This is meant to be a celebration of the Supremes, and the ladies who are singing with Diana have sung with the Supremes for 25 years," the spokesperson said.

Laurence said at the press conference that she is proud to be a member of a group that "was, and still is, an incredible image for young people."

The TNA spokesperson said she didn't think the absence of Wilson and Birdsong would hurt ticket sales. Mark Hogarth, the U.S. representative for the International Diana Ross Fan Club, said he plans to go to at least one show.

"Deep down inside, I'm disappointed it's not going to be with Mary and Cindy," Hogarth said from his Arlington, Va., home. "But I disagree with Mary that it's not really a Supremes tour without her. She's not the housekeeper of the Supremes name."

The Ross-Wilson-Ballard lineup recorded a string of hits in the '60s, including "Stop! In the Name of Love." Ross was the only Supreme singing on the group's last #1 pop and R&B hit, "Someday We'll Be Together" ( RealAudio excerpt ). It was also the last song Ross recorded with the group before she left in 1970.

Tickets for some shows will go on sale next week, according to Fogel.  Ross said she's contacted songwriters Denise Rich, Diane Warren and Luther Vandross about writing a song called "Return to Love" to serve as the tour's theme.

 

 

YAHOO NEWS        Back To The Top

Mary Wilson Says She Found The Replacement Supremes

(4/19/00, 3 p.m. ET) - Mary Wilson wants everyone to know that she is the person responsible for Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence being members of the The Supremes . At a Los Angeles-area book-signing event last Friday, Wilson was asked about Payne and Laurence, and whether they deserved to be called Supremes alongside Diana Ross .

Wilson said: "I found Lynda Laurence and I also found Scherrie Payne. I auditioned, hired them, got them their record deal at Motown, taught them -- not everything that they know, because they were excellent singers before I ever met them -- but I taught them how to be Supreme.

"And for them now to be hired as the Supremes, I'm very upset about it," she added. "But I want everyone to know that I still think that they're excellent performers and entertainers and vocalists."

A Mary Wilson interview will be shown on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 tomorrow at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT), and Wilson's next live performance is Saturday at the Sandestin Hotel in Destin, Fla.

The Diana Ross & the Supremes Return To Love tour, featuring Laurence and Payne, gets underway June 14 at the First Union Spectrum in Philadelphia.

-- Bruce Simon, New York, and Craig Rosen, Los Angeles

 

The Detroit News         Back To The Top

For Supremes tour, ticket sales are anything but
By Susan Whitall



Call it Mary Wilson's revenge: Tickets for this summer's Diana Ross and the Supremes tour -- including a show at the Palace on June 19 -- haven't exactly been selling like hotcakes.

Wilson, of course, dropped out of contention for the almost-a-reunion tour when she and Cindy Birdsong reportedly were turned down when they demanded the same compensation Ross was slated to receive.  At that point, Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne, who had done stints as Supremes in the post-Diana '70s, were signed to sing backup. Reportedly, Laurence's and Payne's gowns were already being cut by Bob Mackie while negotiations went on with Wilson and Birdsong, but nobody's talking on the record.

At any rate, with the Philadelphia tour kick-off show slated for June 14, there isn't a sellout at a Supremes show yet, although tickets have been on sale for the 24-date tour since April.  It's true that these are large rooms to fill -- most of the venues are arenas seating 14,000-17,000. And the ticket prices are high -- a supreme $250 for the top seats, going down to $39 for the nosebleed section.

Fans may well wonder why they should pay $250 for what is essentially a Diana Ross show with backup singers.
But ersatz or not, Ross and her Supremes are doing better in Detroit than elsewhere, according to Jeff Corey of the Palace. Corey wouldn't say how many tickets had been sold, however, and he concedes that with just a month before the June 19 event there are tickets available in every price category.

 So what exactly does a $250 "superfan" ticket get you? You don't get to zip Ross up into her gown, although at some venues it buys you entry to a backstage reception. At the Palace, it just puts you as close as humanly possible to the trio; you'll be able to bond visually with the Supremes, but you'll also risk assault from a stray spangle or bugle bead.

 

Supremes Reunion Rumors        Back To The Top

From: "Thomas Ingrassia" <thomasingrassia@hotmail.com>

To: motown@onelist.com

I have been trying my best to stay out of most of the discussions about the proposed reunion tour of Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong.  However, for the past several days, people have been forwarding to me posts from other lists (the AOL list, FLOSmail, etc.), with all sorts of rumors, inaccuracies, innuendo about who is and who isn't going to be included on the tour and their reasons for pulling out. I must compliment the members of this list for keeping the discussion above board, out of the mud and on a fairly even keel. However, since I am a member of this list, and not the others, I thought I'd share my perspectives on the tour here. If you are members of any of the other lists, please feel free to share this post with those lists.

Many people have been pointing the finger of blame at Mary Wilson for the demise of reunion tour negotiations, saying that she was being difficult, demanding to sing lead, refusing to perform with Jean, Lynda, Scherrie and Susaye, wanting all the glory for herself. Nothing could be further from the truth. How do I know? I know because I was working in Mary Wilson's office on February 2, when she received "the call" from Diana Ross' negotiator. I want to emphasize here that I am not speaking for Mary Wilson, and I do not 
intend to divulge all the details of that negotiation. However, in light of all the innuendo and outright accusations and gloating on the part of some people, I feel it is important for people to know what the issues were.


Mary Wilson wanted this reunion to happen more than anything in the world right now. She wanted the world to see that, despite their differences, she and Diana Ross are still sisters and could still create the magic known as The Supremes. Mary Wilson negotiated in good faith and was willing to make some concessions. She was not demanding to sing lead. She approved of the 70s replacement members being involved in the reunion tour in some way and at some point. However, while there was some flexibility in Mary Wilson's financial requirements to participate in the tour, Diana Ross was not willing to negotiate a fair compensation package. (It is important to note here that, as I understand it, the financial backers of the tour charged Diana Ross with negotiating the deals with Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong--which seems like a conflict of interest to me...). Mary Wilson asked for the same level of compensation that she received when she was a member of Diana Ross and The Supremes, plus a percentage of any merchandising deals. What she was offered was far below the percentage she received as a member of Diana Ross and The Supremes, with no cut of any merchandising deals. In light of the way in which Mary Wilson has maintained The Supremes' legacy since 1970, I believe she was entitled to a percentage at least equal to that she received as a member of Diana Ross and The Supremes in the 1960s--as well as a cut of any merchandising deals that would have capitalized on the image she helped to create and maintain of The Supremes. My understanding is that Cindy Birdsong, too, was not happy with the compensation package offered her--which also did not include any cut of the merchandising. If, indeed, both have closed the doors to any further negotiations, I think they are within their rights to refuse such a lopsided deal. Under those circumstances, they would have been not much more than employees of Diana Ross.

I sincerely hope that the final chapter has not been written to this continuing saga. The level of media speculation and the buzz generated at the recent concert promoters trade show in Las Vegas indicates how much interest and excitement there is for a reunion of Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong. If Diana Ross chooses to go ahead with a summer reunion tour, I hope she will find a way to insure the participation of her two singing partners from the 60s--the only grouping that the American public will recognize as Diana Ross and The Supremes.

And if the time is not right this summer, then maybe sometime in the future....

 

GO.COM         Back To The Top

  Wall of Sound

April 4, 2000  Diana Ross Announces Supreme Tour

June 13, 2000  SUPREMES' PAYNE SPEAKS OUT ON TOUR

June 15, 2000  Diana Ross, 'Supremes' Begin Tour

 

 

 

JET MAGAZINE        Back To The Top

MARY WILSON REVEALS WHY SHE WON'T TOUR WITH DIANA ROSS AND THE SUPREMES

Mary Wilson says no one wanted the Supremes reunion tour to work out more than she did.

But unfortunately, negotiations could not be worked out.

"I am very hurt and disappointed," she says. "It hurt me more than anybody that it didn't happen. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I wouldn't be part of a reunion. I didn't even contemplate that. It was very devastating."

The Diana Ross and the Supremes reunion tour is touted to be "the" No. 1 tour of the millennium.  


The tour was slated to feature original Supremes, Ross, Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, who replaced the late original member Florence Ballard who left the group in the late '60s.

Now dubbed "The Return to Love" tour, it features Ross and two singers, Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence, who were hired by Wilson to sing with the Supremes in the '70s after Ross left for her superstar solo career.

The Supremes rose to fame in the 1960s with such classics as "Stop! In The Name Of Love," "Where Did Our Love Go" and "I Hear a Symphony."

Wilson reveals that the reason she is not doing the tour is not based on money as many may have believed. She says it is a matter of respect and being treated fairly.

In a recent telephone interview with JET, she set the record straight about the controversial tour.

Throughout the interview, Wilson frequently referred to Diana as "Diane" as many of the superstar's friends call her. "Diane is just the person I love and know and I say it with love actually. But people think I am being defiant. It's just my way of holding on to the person I love."

Wilson was offered $3 million for the tour and said Ross was slated to receive $15-20 million.

Birdsong, who is now a minister in Los Angeles, was made an offer that "wasn't even a million," Wilson said.

Wilson explains, "They offered me $2 million, then they went up to $3 million and that was the take-it-or-leave-it stage." Then they came back with a little more, she says. Wilson accepted that last offer, but the next thing she knew she received a call that said it was too late. "The train had left the station, the deal was off the table," she recalls being told.

Wilson explains, "This was never about the money. I have much more in my heart and soul. I think too many of us sell out for money."

She emphasizes, "It was about respect, dignity, equality, creative input, etc. All anyone focuses on is the money. That's all they came and offered me. They told me to take it or leave it; there was no room for discussion or compromise. When Diane and I spoke in December, I said to her, 'What took you so long to call?' I knew discussions were going on with her,
discussions that I should have been included in. I suggested to her that we get together to talk about it, and her response was, 'No, let's get the business done first.' If she and I had gotten together, we would be rehearsing for the reunion right now."

Wilson reveals that some people told her she should have taken the $3 million offer and ran to the bank. But Wilson, who reveals that she easily makes more than $1 million a year, says she is not driven by money.

"I make that kind of money anyway," she says of the tour offer. "I may have to work a little longer, just a little longer, not much. People don't realize that I do very well. They're probably seeing me more on TV now than they had before, but I am still doing as much as I am doing, it's just that people don't know it," she notes. "It has taken me all these years to build my name up to where it is, but I've done it."

Wilson, who continues to tour widely here in the States and in Europe, adds, "I have a book out. I am an author. I do off-Broadway plays. I do musicals all over the world, so I do very well."

Wilson also said she wasn't invited to be part of the planning of the reunion. As a founding member of the legendary group, she felt she should have been asked to be more involved in the planning stages. Wilson resented comments Ross made on "20/20" with Barbara Walters.

Ross said, "I think if we had offered her the moon, she would not have been happy. I doubled this offer so that she could come and do this tour. She didn't have to pay for anything. Not a hotel room, not a car, not a gown, not a music arrangement, not a set, nothing. All she needed to do was show up."

Wilson told JET: "That was the last straw. Why would I just want to show up? I love doing what I do. I know more about the Supremes than she ever could because I am a Supreme and I've lived it. I know the people out there. I know what they want. I know the songs, I know the lead and the background. I know the gowns. I know everything. So why should I have to
'just show up?' I should have been involved. I wrote the book," she says, referring to her best-seller "Dreamgirl: My Life As A Supreme," which has just been republished. Her second book, "Supreme Faith: Someday We'll Be Together," was combined with the first book. The updated book, "Dreamgirl and Supreme Faith: My Life As A Supreme" includes a new chapter and, once again, has become a hot seller.

Wilson says of the tour plans, "It's like they planned my life and did not even involve me, did not even ask me what I thought. SO, if this is indicative of what my treatment will be and the money is indicative of how I will be treated, then I can not accept that offer. So that's why I am not on the tour."

Wilson maintains that the world fell in love with three Black girls from Detroit at a crucial time in American history. The Supremes represented class, glamour, sophistication and the epitome of success and inspired a generation of Black Americans. "We, the Supremes, dared to dream when Black people weren't even citizens. You have people like Oprah Winfrey and all kinds of people who say we were their inspiration. And then you are going to treat me as if I am not a part of that? You are going to rewrite history? You are going to rewrite me out of history? I don't think so."

Referring to the financial deal she was offered, she explained to JET that she does not "need the Moon" as Ross said on "20/20." "I don't need the moon; maybe she does, I don't know ... I have a good life. I don't need any more than I need. And I'm not going to sell out for that."

Wilson said all she wanted was a fair deal indicative of her status as a founding member of the legendary group. She said "a third" of the total pie would have been a fair deal.

Wilson also takes issue with Ross' comments on "20/20" with Walters that she is just "unhappy" and portrays herself as a "victim."

"I am very, very happy ... I think life is about ups and downs. I have a very complete life and from the downs I've learned. I am a better person for it. So I am not unhappy. I might be unhappy about events, but I am not an unhappy person."

And as far as portraying herself as a victim, Wilson allows, "I am not a victim. They are trying to make me a victim ... Why? Because I stand up for what I believe in."

Turning her attention to the new Supremes hired for the tour, she notes, "It is a slap in the face. I hired those women in the 1970s. I found them. I hired them and got their record deal at Motown. I taught them; I invested in the gowns; I did everything."

She believes, "Diane already had those ladies waiting in the wing. And I think they are in for a rude awakening. They are taking this as a career opportunity. Well, if Diane was not treating me right, I don't know how she is going to treat them right. I saw them having to walk in behind policemen. [Diane] was in front and the policemen were behind her and they
were behind them. I think they are going to find out that sometimes you just can't do things for money."

TV anchor Bryant Gumbel, co-host of "The Early Show," noted that some news reports indicate that ticket sales are not doing well for the Ross tour.   During and interview with Wilson, he reported that ticket sales for the tour have been "less than splendid."

Wilson notes, "I don't wish bad on anyone. That doesn't make my good any better, doesn't make me any better. My only concern was about the reunion tour and the reunion tour is not a reunion tour, so I am out of it. Now that it is not a reunion, it's going to have a different kind of feel.  People who wanted a reunion probably won't come because it is not a reunion.  But obviously, people who are Diana Ross fans, and she has million, they're going to be there. Diane is a great performer and I need to say that so that people won't think that I am downing her, because I'm really not. She should have her tour."

Ross stated on "20/20": "I've basically, in my heart, know that it would be very hard for me to work with her on stage."

Asked if there is still a chance that the reunion tour with her, Birdsong and Ross could still happen, Wilson says, "Everybody keeps asking that. I told my publicist, 'you guys are just dreaming,'" she laughs. "But as I told everybody, I am not saying all of this to get on their tour. This is Diane's tour and that's what she wants. Possibly in the future if I am asked, yes I will, but Diane has already said she does not want to be on the stage with me. Whatever Diane wants, Diane gets. She's a superstar. All I know is that Diane is a very powerful woman, and if she wanted me on this tour, I would be there. But, she has already said she didn't. I have said openly after the tour, next year or whatever, if we are not too old," she laughs, "and they still want us to do it. I think we will come to the table in a much equal and equitable situation."

Wilson thanks her fans for their support. "People walk up to me on the street and say 'I just want to give you a hug and say thank you for standing up."

 


SONICNET.COM        Back To The Top

Diana Ross To Launch Summer Tour With Supremes
The soul-pop legend will unite with two former members of the Motown girl group for a tour beginning in Philadelphia on June 14. Ross will tour with Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne, who joined after Ross' departure in 1969. 
[Fri., March 31, 2000 7:00 PM EST]

 

Update: Wilson Says It's No Supremes Without Her
Singer Diana Ross says her tour with replacement members of the Motown girl group isn't about the names on the bill. Founding member Mary Wilson says she wanted to address personal issues before talking business. 
[Tues., April 4, 2000 11:32 PM EDT]

 

Diana Ross To Appear On '20/20'
The singer will appear on the ABC-TV news program at 10 p.m. EDT. She will respond to criticism from her former Supremes bandmate Mary Wilson, according to the television network.
[Fri., April 21, 2000 8:59 PM EDT]

 

VH1 ONLINE - The Wire        Back To The Top

GOD SAVE THE QUEENS: MADONNA, ARETHA FRANKLIN, DIANA ROSS, AND SCARY SPICE TREAT THEMSELVES ROYALLY

....Diana Ross may not have been described as a queen, but she's a diva second to none. Engaged by the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCooper -- you know, the folks who tally the Academy Award votes, among other activities -- to perform at their '99 holiday extravaganza at Madison Square Garden, Ross changed outfits 11 times during her ninety-minute show. That means she dazzled partygoers approximately every 8 minutes and 10 seconds with some new fashion display. There's been no word if Miss Ross was sartorially inspired by her recent close encounter with the happily half-dressed L'il Kim at the MTV Music Awards.

 

A TOUR SUPREME: MOTOWN GREATS PLOT COMEBACK

Diana Ross has been popping up in all the right places these days. And maybe one of the wrongs ones too. She made a splashy appearance at the MTV Music Video Awards, accompanied by two latterday divas, the regal Mary J. Blige and the sartorially splendid L'il Kim. She headlined an extravagant holiday party at Madison Square Garden thrown by the deep-pockets accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCooper, in which she came armed with plenty of spectacular costume changes for her ninety-minute set. And she was at the heart of a less glamorous, but major headline-making, recent brouhaha at London's Heathrow Airport over her treatment by a British Airways security guard.

So the time may be just right for a Supremes reunion. At least that's what former Supreme singer Mary Wilson thinks. Wilson, who had been quite public about her one-time estrangement from Ross, told Hollywood reporters Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith, "Diane [as she still calls the singer] and I spoke in December, and I can firmly say that it's a reality. If they can get all the plans together, we'll go into rehearsals in May, then head out on tour this summer. We're going to start in the U.S., and if that goes great, then I'm sure we'll extend it."

Singer Cindy Birdsong, who replaced original member, the late Florence Ballard, will round out the legendary trio.

If they plan to go to the U.K., Wilson may want to suggest to Miss Ross that they consider using Gatwick Airport.

It's turning out to be a Motown kind of millennial year, now that the Four Tops have also announced they're about to release a new record. They've just completed Four Tops 2000, produced by former Temptation Norman Whitfield, and featuring the elegant lead voice of Levi Stubbs.

The Four Tops have not released a new record in eight years. In that time, the group lost original member Lawrence Payton, who passed away in '97. He was replaced by Theo Peoples, who had formerly sung with the Temptations.

 

 

 

WALL OF SOUND        Back To The Top

April 4, 2000

Diana Ross Announces Supremes Tour Dates

Saying she was "very excited" and "very thankful," Diana Ross today announced her 30-date, two-and-a-half month "Return to Love" tour with the Supremes, which kicks off June 14 in Philadelphia and is scheduled to wrap up Aug. 5 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Tickets for the first few dates of the tour are slated to go on sale Monday.

"I decided to do this again for the fans. This tour will really be dedicated to all the songs from the early days," Ross, 56, said during a press conference at New York City's Grand Central Station, ticking off Supremes favorites such as "Stop! In the Name of Love," "Baby Love," "Come See About Me," "The Happening," "You Keep Me Hanging On," and others. "My intent is to go out and have fun and sing the songs."

There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the tour, however. Ross has been criticized because she'll be performing with Detroit native Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence, two latter-day Supremes who joined the group after Ross left in 1970. Many fans feel that she should be touring with Mary Wilson — who co-founded the group in 1959 in Detroit — and Cindy Birdsong, who replaced original member Florence Ballard in 1967 and sang on many of the group's hits.

Wilson has said that she and Birdsong were unable to come to financial terms with Ross and the tour's organizers, Toronto-based TNA/SFX Productions. TNA's Arthur Fogel appeared at the press conference, denying the validity of artist fees that have appeared in published reports.

Ross, meanwhile, deflected responsibility for the schism with Wilson and Birdsong, placing it on TNA/SFX and its New York-based partner, Scott Sanders Productions. Of Wilson, Ross said, "I wish she was here. I would have been honored to be on stage with all eight of the Supremes. Sometimes there are obstacles. I don't think anybody was willing to go as far as [Wilson] thought they should."

But, Ross added, "Change has been part of the Supremes since the beginning … This was never called a reunion tour. I never even considered it a reunion tour." Ross added that she initially planned to do her own tour this summer to promote a new album but was convinced to use the Supremes name by promoters.

She did manage to take a shot at Wilson, though, by saying that Payne and Laurence — whom Wilson hired, trained, and subsequently sued when they continued to perform as the Supremes after leaving the group — "really are the ones who kept the legend alive by singing Diana Ross and the Supremes songs for a long time.

"When I decided to do this tour, I though the music was more important than the individuals," Ross said. "To me it's all about the music."

Ross said she had spoken to Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. about the tour and received "his blessing." She added that while the show would concentrate on Supremes music, she would also perform some hits from her solo career and a new song, "Return to Love," written especially for the tour by Luther Vandross.

The tour's costumes, Ross said, will be "fresh and not retro. We are going to wear our gowns, but it's still fresh and new." The group will offer a preview of the tour on Wednesday's Oprah show, which was taped last week in Chicago.

The tour is being sponsored by E*Trade and VH1, and a portion of ticket revenues will go to three charities: City of Hope, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the youth foundation A Better Chance.

Ross said tour rehearsals will begin in May. As for further dates beyond the 30 that are scheduled, she said, "I don't know. This may be it, just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

For fans who just can't wait until June, Ross, along with Payne and Laurence, will appear on VH1's Divas 2000: A Tribute to Diana Ross, airing on the cable network April 11. — Gary Graff

 

20/20   

BARBARA WALTERS     Back To The Top

"The offer for her was [that] she didn't have to pay for anything,"
Ross said in a recent Barbara Walters interview. "All she needed
to do was show up." 

"She didn't have to pay for anything. Not a hotel room, not a car, not a gown, not a music arrangement, no set, nothing."

"But it was never enough.  I think if we had offered her the moon she would not have been happy.  She's coming from a place of being angry, envious and jealous.  We've got to send her a lot of love and give her our prayers."

 

ABCNEWS ( original link )

Battle of the Divas
Diana Ross Responds to Former Supremes Member

In an interview with ABCNEWS’ Barbara Walters that airs on 20/20 Friday tonight, Diana Ross sets out to respond to original Supremes member Mary Wilson’s allegations about the “Return to Love” tour and the break-up of the original trio.


     On 20/20 Downtown Wilson added fuel to the controversy over the Supremes’ Reunion tour which Ross is headlining this summer — along with two former Supremes she had never sung with before. Wilson says Ross did not want to work out their differences before they discussed the tour.


     “She did not want to talk first… she wanted to do the business first,” Wilson says. She adds that while she thinks Ross would make much more money than her on the tour, she says that is not the reason she will not be participating.


     “I think it’s about what my significance is to the group as a founding member. It’s not even about the money,” she says. “It’s about how degrading [it is].”


     Wilson also talked about what she says are the reasons for the bad blood that rose among the original Supremes. She describes her frustration with the Ross’ emerging role as the group’s leader.

 

     “She really wasn’t the spokesperson. We could all talk. But we were taught at home never to air your laundry in public,” she says. “We’d get on these shows, and all of a sudden, people would stop talking to Florence [Ballard] and I, and they would direct all the questions to Diane,” she adds.


   Wilson says the subtle maneuverings by Motown’s decision-makers had a devastating effect on her and Florence Ballard.


     “They were doin’ a great job… of elevating Diane. Yes. At the expense of the other Supremes,” she says. “Everyone was afraid to offer Florence and I any songs… you have all the songs to Diane. Period.”


     In a live chat on ABCNEWS.com, Wilson said that speaking out has helped lift a weight off her shoulders.


     “Because I have remained quiet about so many things over the years… it did feel good just to be able to voice my feelings,” she remarks. “I felt I was taking the blame for something, for the reunion not happening,and I felt that I had to do speak out to clear my name.”

 

 

 

 Billboard - 6/30/00    Back To The Top

Diana & Supremes Tour Averaging 50% Capacity

 While its producers admit that the Diana Ross & the Supremes "Return To Love" tour is performing below expectations, the outing -- which has drawn ire for its lineup of Ross and former Supremes Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne -- is not stiffing as badly as some industry insiders have speculated.

Arthur Fogel, president of tour producer SFX/TNA International, describes it as doing "reasonably well," averaging between 7,000 and 8,000 attendees per night, mostly at arenas that can accommodate double that capacity. Less than halfway into the tour, some markets are drawing fewer than 5,000, while others are doing significantly better.

Successes include the June 14 tour opener at Philadelphia's First Union Center, which drew about 10,000 and grossed $692,859, and a June 19 date at the Palace of Auburn Hills (Mich.), which drew about 10,000 and grossed $584,449.

Others are not doing as well, including a June 24 stop at the Ice Palace in Tampa, Fla., where sales were below the tour average. Meanwhile, the act could gross as much as $1.3 million on July 6 from a sellout at Madison Square Garden in New York.

All in all, the tour's success in major markets may offset its lackluster performance in smaller markets. It wraps Aug. 5 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

-- Ray Waddell, Nashville

 

THRILL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP

Supremely Qualified; Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne Worthy Indeed of Diva-esque Praise


   Certified "Diva" vocalists, Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne are both formerly and currently of The Supremes.  Unfortunately in the line of fire, they became live fodder for the unrelenting, bleeding-edge humor of stand-up comedians, print journalists and talk show hosts.  These Supremes were unceremoniously raked over the proverbial fiery coals of media gossip,   Ridicule and speculation, as well as jealously insulted for simply being selected to tour with the legendary Diana Ross.  Undaunted, these two show-business savvy professionals remain imperviously poised, fearlessly loyal -- to the fans, each other, the legacy, and Ms. Ross -- and are, and remain -- Supremely Qualified.

    The Diana Ross and the Supremes "Return To Love" Tour ended in mid-stride
with very little explanation.  So be it.  In time, the Tour will be defined by what it was as well as what it was not.  Though Laurence and Payne were slighted in the press, no one could deny them praise for their personal solo vocals.  They have earned their gowns the hard way, on stage and in the courts.

    On Stage -- they re-united with former Supreme, Jean Terrell, in 1987 to form a group called -- what else -- "Former Ladies Of The Supremes" (FLOS).  Though Terrell eventually departed in pursuit of other goals, Laurence and Payne carry on appearing globally in concert with such Motown household names as the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Commodores, and Martha Reeves & the Vandellas.  Outside the Motown ranks, they have been billed with a plethora of other major acts from Tom Jones to George Benson to James Brown, to name a few.

    In the Courts -- the FLOS were sued by Mary Wilson -- another former Supreme -- for trademark infringement, among other thins.  Motown yawned.   The Court issued a Summary Judgment in favor of the FLOS.  The lower court ruling was upheld upon Summary Judgment in favor of the FLOS.  The lower court ruling was upheld upon Wilson's appeal:  then the court slapped Wilson with a decision to award Laurence and Payne attorney's fees.  With the court's blessing, they continue as the Former Ladies Of The Supremes.   In the end, elegant, graceful, seasoned, and talented, they too, breathe the rarified air of "Diva" performers.  The Former Ladies of The Supremes always perform in "Supreme" fashion, sustaining the legacy and perpetuating the Diva image while enhancing and entertaining fans the world over.

    As with any legacy, there are those who sustain and perpetuate, and then those who imitate and emulate.  Those who will always be, and those who wish they were.  Though they prefer to do their talking on stage and in costume, being dubbed "fakes" could not go unanswered.  As for Laurence and Payne, they are -- by legal standards among the eight, count 'em, Supremes delivered to the world by Motown as "The Supremes" (a Motown trademark).  Between 1961 and 1977, The Supremes reigned supreme, with Laurence (71-73) and Payne (73-77) clear participants.  They are rightly recognized as among The Supremes and thus -- also -- heirs to the continuing legacy which they honor in style.

Since Motown -- and Ms. Ross -- selected Laurence and Payne -- then and now  -
to be Supremes, then they are, were and will always be Supremely Qualified.  

THE TOUR...    Back To The Top

 


THE TOUR

DETROIT NEWS

June 16, 2000 - Diana Ross Coming Home to Motown with 'Love' Tour

June 20, 2000 - Hometown girls Ross and Payne Wow the Crowd

June 20, 2000 - Ross Reigns Supremely

June 20, 2000 - From All Over the World, Fans Flock to see Diana

June 20, 2000 - "Love" Tour Costumes are Supremely Sensational

June 20, 2000 - Mary Wilson's Supreme Memories

June 20, 2000 - Diana Ross Tour Brings Back Fond Memories of Yesteryear

June 20, 2000 -  Supremes Set the Standard for Onstage Glamor and Elegance

 

June 22, 2000 - If nothing else, Diana Ross is still Supreme

TAMPA

June 26, 2000 - Ross proves she still can steal a show

 

July 15, 2000 - Die-Hard Diva

July 20, 2000 - Fiasco Turns Ross' Image Upside Down

 

 

 

PHILADELPHIA    Back To The Top

 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS    Back To The Top

Diana Ross Still Singing In the Key of Me
Philly show skimps on sisterly love

By JIM FARBER
Daily News Music Critic

PHILADELPHIA
You could have landed a small jet in the space left onstage between Diana Ross and her two "Supremes" at their splashy "comeback" show.

At the tour's opening night Wednesday at the Spectrum, Ross kept a huge and telling distance from the two other singers. Seldom did she make eye contact, and only once did she reach out and touch them. While the early Supremes wiggled and cooed shoulder-to-shoulder, this time the spangled backup women knew their place.

There's something honest about this. Before this tour, Ross had never sung with these women (Linda Laurence and Scherrie Payne), though the star made sure to mention twice that Laurence's association with the post-Diana group dates to 1972 and Payne's to '73 (after the hits ran dry).

I'm sure there's enough blame to go around in the breakdown of negotiations between original surviving Supreme Mary Wilson and Diana. But the resulting, high-profile catfight cast a pall over the tour, which surely helps account for the hundreds of seats that went vacant in Philly. (Tickets likewise remain for the tour's stop at Madison Square Garden, July 6.)

The fact that the top ticket price is $250, and lots of seats go for $85, probably hasn't helped move things along.

So what do the fans get for their big cash payout? Some worthy musical bits and campy theatrics amid the usual Diana weirdness.

Of course, true fans consider Diana's weirdness a draw.

The fun began even before the show did. A generous assortment of drag queens showed up in full '60s regalia. Apparently, cross-dressers are to a Diana Ross show what panty-throwers are to a Tom Jones tour. One trio, decked out in hot-pink miniskirts, won the "realness" prize hands-down.

Ross divided the night into two one-hour segments. The first was devoted to 16 Supremes hits. The second featured just Diana on her solo smashes, plus a group return — the latter a letdown, since by then they had run through the hits.

In the first Supremes section, Ross never sounded fuller of voice. She soared through some of her most-exuberant hits, such as "Come See About Me" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On," with conviction. It was a pleasure to hear the songs in their full form, free of the usual, cynical, Vegas-style medleys. The group even served up such second-string hits as "Forever Came Today" and the post-Diana winner "Up the Ladder to the Roof," which was sung with real power by Laurence after Ross left the stage.

Meanwhile, the video screens provided some mystifying moments. During "Reflections," the visuals centered on protest marches and Martin Luther King, as if Ross were Angela Davis. During the socially conscious "Love Child," we were treated to a visual history of Diana's hairstyles.

Ross had her own visual aid in the show: The largest TelePrompTer in history, hung from the roof. She made good use of it, even reading lines like "I'm so thankful" and "Love is all I ever hoped for." When the screen failed, during "Touch Me in the Morning," Ross stopped singing cold.

But the star turned more blabby in her solo segment. Mainly, she gushed over fans: "I believe in you!" "I knew you would be here!" At one point, she had the audience breathe with her. Ross also enjoyed one big diva moment, staging a sit-in when she couldn't hear the band. "I'll wait until you get it right," she told an unseen, and no doubt cowering, sound man. The crowd gave this moment a special cheer.

Even if such ego fits helped nix a real reunion of the greatest girl group in history, fans know that's part of what makes Diana Ross supreme.

 

DETROIT    Back To The Top

 

The Detroit News

Diana Ross coming home to Motown with ‘Love’ tour

By Susan Whitall 

    PHILADELPHIA

With the current mania for game shows, here’s one to topple Regis from his throne: Fans try to out-diva Diana Ross .

    It can’t be done, as proven Wednesday night at the opening date of the Return to Love tour, with Ross and the “Supremes 2000,” as she called them.

    The tour continues Monday night at the Palace of Auburn Hills, and if Wednesday’s show was any indication, the fans will be getting in on the act.

    In the front row alone of this city’s First Union Spectrum arena, there was a fellow in a head-to-toe silver-sequined cowboy outfit; a tall man wearing a tasteful black cocktail sheath with veiled hat, and nearby, three enthusiastic gals dressed as “Supremes,” one of whom, playing “Diana” with a feathery, flowing hairdo, almost certainly was born a male.

    The real Diana’s hair was still bigger. Her makeup was immaculate; her gowns were spanglier and more fabulous, the bangles and sequins on her Bob Mackie-designed gowns lighting up the hockey arena all the way up to the nosebleed $50 seats.

    She didn’t skimp on the outfits for her co-Supremes either; Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence almost matched her sequin for sequin. A troupe of dancers who frugged, did the jerk and swim behind the divas was right out of Shindig — or Austin Powers — with their day-glo orange and lime hip-huggers, mini-skirts and long swingy hair.

    The co-Supremes were more polished vocally and visually than in their recent Oprah appearance, dressed in identical cut-to-flatter Mackie glitter, and belting out lead vocals when Diana ran off to change costumes.

    While performing as Supremes, Payne and Laurence both shimmied and swayed off to Diana’s left, their movements as feminine and sinuous as if famed Motown choreographer Cholly Atkins, who liked girl singers doing graceful movements, had put them through their paces.

    Philadelphia native Laurence is proud and stately, while the diminutive, Detroit-born Payne is flirty and clearly delighted to be there. The affection that flows from Supremettes to Diana, the Supreme goddess icon, seems genuine and flows both ways. Ross, after all, befriended Laurence and Payne while they were out on the road in Europe playing as “Former Ladies of the Supremes.”

    Original Supreme Mary Wilson, who’d hired Payne and Laurence to tour with her Supremes, had sued them for using the name “Supremes” at all, but lost. Clearly the bad feelings weren’t going to go away overnight. Wilson and the promoters couldn’t come to financial terms, so we have “Supremes 2000” instead of a reunion tour.

    But A Return to Love is aptly named — it really is an unabashed love fest for Ross herself. The audience was an Oprah-friendly sort, a smattering of couples, many gays and hordes of high-fiving girlfriends out for a night on the town with their favorite primal goddess icon.

    It was the Diva Supreme from the Brewster-Douglass projects they came to see, the skinny, striving Cass Tech girl in the middle of the three Supremes who is now a lush, womanly figure who towers over her colleagues.

    The first segment of the show is mostly ’60s-era Supremes, with a nostalgic, retro feel to the costumes and arrangements. Ross wiped away tears as she did the requisite diva arm movements to “Stop in the Name of Love,” (tapping her head on the “think it over” line).

    The crowd sang along to “Can’t Hurry Love,” “Love Child,” “Where Did Our Love Go?,” “The Happening,” etc. But the audience was every bit as enthused about Ross’ solo segment, which included a moody “Love Hangover,” as well as “Endless Love,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (billed at the time as Diana Ross and the Supremes, although only Ross was on the song), “Reach Out,” and a smattering of covers, like “Somewhere” from West Side Story (a regular in the original Supremes’ show), the Barrett Strong Motown classic “Money” and, most apt, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

    Ross seemed to take particular joy in the lyrics to the latter, which have a woman triumphantly rejecting the lover who had previously mistreated and rejected her. The star of the show seemed more vulnerable than in previous concerts past, and it wasn’t just opening-night jitters. But she was most effective at such moments, reacting on the spot — twirling around with a toddler or hugging Luther Vandross as they sang “Amazing Grace” — instead of reading a scripted prayer, however heartfelt (wishing her fans every blessing she has received in life).

    There were some frayed edges; times the orchestra didn’t end when Ross did, and vice versa, which detracted from the Technicolor punch and polish of the evening. Despite the advance rumblings about slow ticket sales, and trash talking from Mary Wilson’s corner, Ross was clearly buoyed by the hyped-up audience on the main floor, at one point jumping down to personally hug each one in the first row.

    Somewhere, Oprah was smiling.

 

Hometown girls Ross and Payne wow the crowd    Back To The Top


By Susan Whitall / The Detroit News

    AUBURN HILLS -- Diana Ross revealed her Supremes 2000 and the Return to Love tour to a hometown crowd promoters estimated at 10,000 at the Palace last night, several dozens of whom were her family and friends, whom she introduced to the audience. She also twirled around with her youngest son while singing the encore, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive."

   Her fellow hometown girl Scherrie Payne, who became a Supreme in the post-Diana mid-'70s, was well-represented by kinfolk too, with her big sister, Freda Payne ("Band of Gold"), and father, Sam Farley, out in the crowd. Also in the house: Esther Gordy Edwards and Detroit Police Chief Benny Napoleon. Edwards, who is Motown boss Berry Gordy Jr.'s sister as well as Ross' former manager, waved when Ross introduced her.

   "Am I proud?" Freda Payne said, laughing nervously. "I am. That's my sister up there! Scherrie isn't nervous, though, just excited and thrilled. I think I got nervous for her."

   Uh oh, ex-Supreme Mary Wilson: Many fans gave the new-model Supremes a thumbs up.
   Said Tom Adrautas, 44, of Chicago: "Honestly, I think the new lineup is better. They're both very accomplished singers, and they have a good understanding of the Supremes legacy, and an appreciation of Diana's talent."

   Another fan came prepared for "Stop! In the Name of Love" -- Debbie Jenkins, 27, of Detroit, who wore a pair of black over-the-elbow, formal evening gloves.

   "I've only had a chance to wear these gloves once, so I figured tonight would be a great opportunity to wear them again," said Jenkins.

   Freda Payne confided that her sister was going to get to sing a solo on "Stone Love," the '70s Supremes hit, and indeed Scherrie Payne did, several songs into the show, unleashing a gospel wail that almost cracked the foundation of the arena.

   Not to take away from Ross, whose voice sounds more robust than in her Motown heyday -- for years she's famously taken heat for having a light pop voice. But as Esther Gordy Edwards always said, Ross' cooing, girlish tones were perfect for the lush pop Berry Gordy was fashioning for the Supremes in the early '60s.
   She has an effervescent quality to her voice, too, redolent of youth and freshness, that pierced through even the cheapest AM car radio to enthrall teen-agers.

   It still is a voice that commands attention, although today it sounds buttery and lush, just as Ross' silhouette is more womanly and full-bodied now.

   "I can remember listening to the Supremes on my brother's transistor radio back in '66," said Kim Delange, 39, of Grand Rapids. "I have no reason to believe that Diana's vocal prowess has diminished. She's definitely the star."

   Out in the crowd, Maxine Powell's pert yellow hat could be seen bobbing to the beat of "Back in My Arms Again." Powell headed up Motown's famous charm and etiquette school, and she taught kids from the projects like Ross how to dress, use the right forks and comport themselves in high diva wear like the low-cut, high-slit gowns she wore Monday night.

   Further along Row 3 was a proud Fred Ross, Diana's father. "I'm excited," he conceded. Although pressed for his favorite song by his daughter, he threw up his hands. "I like them all!"

   The dance troupe accompanying the tour was a potent visual plus, giving the arena audience -- especially in the rear -- intense citrus colors and authentic '60s dances to focus upon, as if the Technicolor glitter emanating from Ross, Payne and Laurence wasn't enough.

   Right smack in the front row was Derek G. Thornton, who oversees the tours at the Motown Museum, holding Derek K. Thornton, age 6.

   "I don't know what people expected -- Diana Ross always gives a good show," Thornton said.
   Ross was ably assisted by Scherrie Payne, who makes up for her petite stature in full-on diva attitude. There is only one Miss Ross, but Payne is a super Supreme, frisking and flirting around the stage as if it was the happiest day of her life.

   In a more perfect world, Ross might have a revolving cast of Supremes, smoothing it over with Mary Wilson for one tour, then going off with Scherrie and Lynda for another. It would defuse some of the bad publicity and maybe fill more seats for what is actually a worthwhile show.

   Maybe in some parallel universe: for now it was Ross and her later-model Supremes, infusing the frothy Supremes songbook with a womanly gusto.

   "It's real nice to hear them do all the old songs," said Hugh Conahan, 50, of Brighton. "For me, it's a trip back -- convertibles, summertime and Motown."

   Detroit News reporter Adam Graham contributed to this report.

 

Ross reigns supremely    Back To The Top
Diva returns to Motown to share memories of the way life used to be

By Susan Whitall The Detroit News

 As Diana Ross looked out into the audience at The Palace of Auburn Hills Monday night for her "Return to Love' tour with Supremes 2000, there surely must have been some bittersweet reflections by the woman who is Cass Tech's most glamorous graduate.

   In the concert, Ross called her life story a "rags to riches" tale as black and white film of the singer frolicking with her original Supreme-mates, Mary Wilson and the late Florence Ballard, flickered on a screen at the rear of the stage.

   Ballard, known to Wilson and Ross as "Blondie," left the group in the late '60s for a solo career that was supposed to launch her as a soulful legend, but her career sputtered and she ended up on welfare in Detroit, where she died in 1976. At least one of her daughters was set to attend Monday's show.

   Yet, when Ross sang the lines in Back in My Arms Again that refer to the former Supremes, Wilson and Ballard, she didn't mention their names. Instead of "How can Mary tell me what to do/when she lost her love so true," Ross sang "How can people tell me what to do. ..."

   While Wilson, who couldn't come to financial terms with the promoters, definitely wasn't in the audience, Ross surely saw Esther Gordy Edwards, her manager and sister of the boss, Motown's Berry Gordy Jr. The bandbox-fresh Maxine Powell, Motown's famed etiquette teacher, was no doubt sitting right up front to see if her star pupil remembered how to walk gracefully in those cut-to-there Bob Mackie dresses. Friends and family were rubbing shoulders in the front row with the dime-store Dianas, packs of rowdy girlfriends and Motown colleagues.

   The show wasn't a sellout, but the crowd was alive. Ross gave away 400 tickets to the Broadstreet Parade Band.

   The show started, aptly, with Ross and her two latter-day Supremes, Lynda Laurence and Detroit's Scherrie Payne, singing Reflections, about a woman dreaming about "the way life used to be."
   At The Palace, ghosts of the past were right there in the front row, smiling and applauding their hometown diva.

From all over the world, fans flock to see Diana
By Nicole Volta Avery / Detroit News Style Editor

AUBURN HILLS -- Well folks, you just can't out-diva Diana.

   That's why in spite of all the Supremes' background drama and speculations of poor ticket sales, Metro Detroiters turned out in force last night for the Return to Love concert at the Palace, giving major props to the queen of pop.

   The effervescent crowd (estimated at 10,000) held a love-in for Ross, nouveau Supremes, Sherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence, and the Motown sound.

   It became clear early on that the evening's main attraction was Diana; most fans agreed that they didn't care who backed her.

   "I have 7,666 pictures of Diana," said Phillip Calloway of Detroit, while waiting to take his seat. "I have been a fan for 38 years. Diana is the ultimate diva, and the No. 1 female entertainer. It's her eyes. Her expressiveness.

   "Oh, and those gowns. You know she changes like 12 to 13 times a show?" (Well, actually Phillip, Monday night Ross changed six times.)

   "I grew up with Diana," said Ronald Wilson of Detroit. "We went to Cass Tech together."
   Wilson was with a clique of concert-goers that included Sherrie Payne's father, Sam Farley, and her aunt and uncle Lee and Costella Winbush.

   "Diana Ross and the Supremes are Detroit," said Costella Winbush. "They are unbeatable. And being that we are relatives, this was something we couldn't miss."

   "I love Diana," said Francine Gardner of Lathrup Village, who came with a dapper Jimmy Jackson of Detroit. "She is a superb artist. She is well-bred, and I just think she is marvelous. "I grew up with the Supremes," Gardner, 60, added. Then Jackson chimed in: "This is the oldie, but goody."

   The fans were dressed in everything from denim shorts and nondescript T-shirts to sherbet-colored dress suits (worn Detroit-style with matching gators, of course). As for the audience, it wasn't exactly the diva-inspired fashion fest one might expect. And surprisingly, Miss Ross' typical drag queen posse was conspicuously absent. But still, the faithful came from all over -- the world, that is.

   Paul Bignell and his brother, Tim, traveled from north England to catch a glimpse of Ross. The Bignell brothers dropped $125 each for concert tickets, not to mention what it cost them to fly into Detroit.
   "The last time I saw Diana Ross and the Supremes, I was in Manchester in 1968," said Paul Bignell, who heads back home Wednesday. "We came over because we wanted to go to the Motown Museum and we couldn't miss the concert. This is a dream come true.

   "For me, the draw is Diana Ross. She has style. She has presence," he said. "Plus, she loves London."
   Ernie Toth of Ann Arbor was another big spender. Perched in the front row with Alan Dowdy, Toth had no problem spending $250 for his prime spot.

   "I bought the tickets at 10:01 the first day they went on sale," he said. "It was either make a house payment or see Diana Ross -- Diana won."

   Toth didn't come to the concert empty-handed. He brought two-dozen long-stemmed red roses to give to Ross. Upon spying the flowers under his seat, Palace security told Toth he could only hand them to Diana if she reached for them. If not, security would bring them to her backstage after the show. (A major drag for a die-hard fan.)

   "She'll reach for them," said Toth, confidently. And true to his words, during "Baby Love," Ross walked to the edge of the stage and graciously took the flower from Toth's outstretched hand.

   When the hair stops blowing and the sequins have stopped sparkling, that is why fans will always love Diana Ross.

'Love' tour costumes are supremely sensational    Back To The Top

By Nicole Volta Avery / Detroit News


    Sufficiently turned-out in sequins and sparkle, the Supremes 2000 are as baroque as they wanna be. One would expect nothing less from the now curvy Miss Ross, and her full-bodied cohorts, Sherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence.

    "The audience is getting New Year's Eve. The gowns are all standouts," said Michele Knepp, a costumer with the Return to Love tour, which rolled into the Palace of Auburn Hills Monday night. Knepp is the lucky lady in charge of dressing Diana Ross.

    "The opening looks are just drop dead. They're breathtaking," she said.

    Looking like shapely disco balls, Ross, Payne and Laurence, first took the stage swathed in huggy, side-slit slinks covered with cut mirror. If this is what middle age looks like, sign me up!

    And how long did it take to craft such confections?

    "Oh, please, it was Herculean! And then, there were three of them," said Ray Aghayan, who has designed Supremes costumes with the legendary Bob Mackie since 1968.

    "Of course, I did one of my usual stupid things and said they could be made in five days," he added.
   A team from Bob Mackie started seriously stitching-up the seams on the Supremes 2000 tour less than a month ago. "Diana is famous for deciding at the last minute," Aghayan said, during a recent telephone interview. "We talked about it four or five months ago, but the guts of it happened in the last two weeks."
   Finding inspiration for the costumes (six changes for Ross and four for Laurence and Payne) wasn't a problem, Aghayan said.

    "Diana is very involved," he said. "She always comes with something in mind."

   The onstage vibe is vintage Supremes with a modish, cabaret bent … green sequin gowns edged with ostrich feathers, and one bright yellow feathered coat. (Guess who wore that?) The hot pink, bell-bottom jumpsuits dotted with rhinestones? Amazing. And of course, let's not forget Miss Ross' trademark red "I Will Survive" pantsuit.

    "These are not just dresses, they are a little bit more," Aghayan said. "When little girls close their eyes and imagine that they are glamorous, this is what they think about."

    And when adults reminisce about by-gone days, Diana Ross and the Supremes is what they see. ... Survive, indeed.

 

Mary Wilson's Supreme memories    Back To The Top
The former Supreme talks about the group as reunion tour goes on without her

By David Yonke / Toledo Blade


    In 1959, 15-year-old Mary Wilson and three friends from Detroit's Brewster housing project managed to finagle an audition for their vocal group, the Primettes, with Motown Records and its founder, Berry Gordy, Jr.

   The girls didn't get the recording contract they had dreamed about. "Seeing that there were four of us young teenagers who weren't even out of high school rather scared Mr. Gordy," says Wilson from New York City. "He said, 'Listen, after you guys graduate, then come back and see us.'

   "But we fooled him!" Wilson adds with a laugh.

   Wilson, Diane (not yet Diana) Ross, Florence Ballard and Betty Martin refused to give up, hanging around Motown's Hitsville USA studio until they landed occasional jobs singing backup for such established Motown stars as Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson.

   They went on, of course, to form the Supremes, one of the most successfulMotown groups. On Monday night, Diana Ross brought the Supremes' new Return to Love tour to the Palace of Auburn Hills for a hometown concert -- without Wilson.

   Wilson says she was always interested in singing and had been active with her school choirs and glee clubs. One place she did not sing during her childhood was in the church, because it was intimidating, she says.

   "At one point, my family attended the church that Aretha Franklin's father was the pastor of," Wilson says. "On any given Sunday, we could hear her and her sisters singing, and you didn't want to get up there and sing with them!"

   In January 1961, while the persistent teen-agers were still in school, Gordy finally relented and signed them to his label, but by then, Martin had quit the group under pressure from her parents to concentrate on her studies.

   The trio of Diane Ross, Mary Wilson and Flo Ballard never did finish high school. Gordy suggested a name change, and Ballard came up with the Supremes -- a moniker that Wilson and Ross initially resisted.

   The group became a household name around the world, one of the most famous vocal groups in history, recording 12 No. 1 hits and 33 songs that reached the Top 40, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

   But success was not instantaneous. It took three years before the trio's tunes received national airplay.

   "Originally, we recorded about 10 or 11 songs and released them locally," Wilson recalls. "Many of them were either written or produced by Smokey Robinson or Berry Gordy. But we did not get anywhere until Mr. Gordy put us with the Holland Brothers and Mr. Dozier. That's when it all clicked."

   The pairing of the Supremes with the songwriting trio of Brian and Edward Holland and Lamont Dozier provided the first breakthrough, a Top 30 hit in January 1964, titled "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes."

   It was the beginning of a solid-gold relationship, although it took a while to blossom. The second Holland-Dozier-Holland song recorded by the Supremes, "Run, Run, Run," only made it to No. 93 on the charts, and the songwriters had to push hard for the Supremes to give their next composition a try.

   "We didn't like it at all," Wilson says of "Where Did Our Love Go," which linked a sad story to a lilting melody that took full advantage of the trio's fluid, tightly woven harmonies. "The Holland Brothers were really determined that that was the record that would put us over the top," Wilson says. "We said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' We said we wanted a hit record like the Marvelettes or the Vandellas. They had come to Motown after we did, and they had hit records before we did. We were not happy with that. We said we wanted something more soulful, but we had to take it."

   The songwriters' instincts were proven right. "Where Did Our Love Go" topped the charts for two weeks and sold more than 2 million copies, putting the Supremes at the top of the pop music world.

   By the end of 1964, the group had two more chart-topping hits penned by Holland-Dozier-Holland, "Baby Love" and "Come See About Me." Over the next several years, the Supremes were averaging one national television appearance or major concert per week, with each single virtually guaranteed to be a hit.

   How did the three twentysomething friends, reared in a Detroit housing project, adjust to the overwhelming fame and fortune?

   "I don't want to answer for Diane," Wilson says, still using her famous friend's childhood name, "but generally speaking, for Diane and me, it was fabulous. It may have been a little more difficult for Florence. She was a more down-to-earth person than me and Diane."

   Furthermore, Motown's staff had initiated programs to teach social skills to their recording artists, most of whom had grown up in poverty, and worked with their artists to prepare them for the pressures of fame.

   Ballard, however, resented the increasing attention placed on Ross by the public, the media and Gordy. She started to miss concerts, later attributed, by her colleagues, to mood swings and alcohol abuse, and Motown was forced to recruit a stand-in, Cindy Birdsong, of Camden, N.J.

   In 1967, Ballard was fired after missing a show in Las Vegas and was replaced permanently by Birdsong. Ballard went through a lot of personal struggles in the following years and died in 1976, in poverty, of a cardiac arrest at age 32.

   Ross, meanwhile, was on her way to superstar status as a pop-music diva and entertainment icon. Gordy elevated her status within the group by rechristening the trio Diana Ross and the Supremes, but she left to pursue a solo career in 1970.

   "When Florence left, for me, as far as I was concerned, the group was kind of over," Wilson says. "And then, when Diane left, it was all over. It was really just myself. But once you're a performer, you're always a performer."

   Despite the loss of two original members, Wilson tried to keep the Supremes going for seven more years. She said it wasn't until 1977 that she felt confident enough to disband the group and step into the spotlight as a solo artist. She has since recorded several solo albums, acted on Broadway, on television, and in several minor Hollywood movies, and has written two best-selling autobiographies.

   "I haven't had a lot of success as a solo recording artist," she acknowledges. "But it really has been wonderful to have emerged from all this, and to have the name Mary Wilson be known around the world."
   She performs between 75 and 90 shows a year as a solo artist, although she is currently highlighting the songs of the Supremes as a tribute to the group's 40th anniversary last year.

   Wilson says she has spent "millions" in legal fees trying to keep bogus vocal groups from calling themselves the Supremes, even though she does not own the trademark.

   "I was the first person to trademark the name 'the Supremes,' " she says, "but somehow the old Motown got the rights to that name. It's one of those not-too-nice stories."

   When she's not flying around the country performing, Wilson usually can be found with her nose in a book -- a textbook, that is.

   She enrolled at New York University three years ago and plans to become a "professional student."

 

Diana Ross tour brings back fond memories from yesteryear
By Betty DeRamus / The Detroit News

  Even in the days when she bussed tables in Hudson's basement and ironed her orlon sweaters to make them look classier, Diana Ross always had some special, hard-to-place magic.

   Of the original Supremes, she wasn't the stop-and-stare beauty. Mary Wilson had the face that made boys and men Stop in the Name of Love.

   And Florence Ballard had the voice that reminded you of heavy-bosomed church ladies with sweat-shiny foreheads and mouths that pleaded, "Jesus, won't you come by here."

   Yet, Diana's trembling cooing-dove voice captured the sound of teen-aged heartbreak, and she had the hunger, too. The nonstop pursuit of a goal that some people call single-minded and others called ruthless. Maybe it's because in her head, where dreams start, she always saw herself wrapped in satin and sweat-free.

   By the time you read this, Diana Ross and the Supremes' Return to Love tour will be history around here. But the Auburn Hills show stirred up many memories for people with first-hand knowledge of that supreme diva, Diana Ross, and other Motown grads.

   The Supremes weren't my favorite Motown act. Sure, I liked to hum their songs and sip their success, but their soda-pop sound, with just a hint of grit, never hit my heart like Marvin Gaye's rendition of Distant Lover.
   I never screamed for them as I did for the spinning, leg-splitting Temptations, each one as perfect as a slice of my mama's chocolate cake.

   But the Supremes had the patent on gloss and glamour, and they were pioneers, too, the first exponents of the Motown Sound to reap the rewards of mass popularity. They brought elegance to pop music and opened up the night club circuit to contemporary entertainers.

   And like Motown itself, they represented the '60s, the dream of justice and the reality of young people coming together for something as simple as a good time. They made little girls everywhere think that maybe they, too, could shine and shimmer.

   In 1970, Diana Ross left the Supremes to become a solo singer and actress. Jean Terrell became the lead singer. She was the sister of heavyweight boxer Ernie Terrell and a member of his singing group, Ernie Terrell and the Heavyweights. Terrell, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong recorded hits such as Stoned Love.

   In 1972, the lineup changed again. Cindy Birdsong left and was replaced by Lynda Laurence, a member of Stevie Wonder's backup group and the daughter of Ira Tucker of the legendary Dixie Hummingbirds.

   In 1973, both Laurence and Terrell left. Cindy Birdsong returned and Scherrie Payne joined the group in 1974. In 1976, Birdsong was replaced by Susaye Green.

   Now, it's Ross, Laurence and Detroit's own Scherrie Payne, the Supremes that never were but might have been.

   I didn't see their sequin-splashed show last night, but just thinking about them took me back to a time when you could hear the whole Motown gang booming the company song around midnight on West Grand Boulevard.

   For those memories alone, I thank them.


Betty DeRamus writes for The Detroit News on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Call her at (313) 222-2620 or write to her at 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226.  

 

 

Supremes set the standard for onstage glamor and elegance

By Nicole Volta Avery / Detroit News


    In 1960, four Detroit teens -- Diana Ross, Barbara Martin, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard -- formed a singing group called the Primettes. By the mid-'60s the group had dwindled to a trio, changed their name, and with the help of Berry Gordy's well-oiled Motown machine, were well on the way to super-stardom.

   Tagged the hottest girl-group of all time, the Supremes' ascent had as much to do with their signature sound as it did with their unique style -- a perfected blend of elegance and sass, funk and refinement.

   Here's a glimpse at some of the Supremes' most memorable looks:

   1965 -- Frosted lips, kohl-rimmed eyes and modish wigs -- can you say drama? The diva-trio, better know as the Supremes, have '60s glam down pat -- and four gold records to boot.

   1966 -- Under the tutelage of Motown's legendary etiquette mistress Maxine Powell, the Supremes are a well-wrapped package of elegance and poise.

   1967 -- A measure of mod meets a splash of innocence, and the signature Supremes look is born. The group achieves fashion icon status, and now it's "Diana Ross and the Supremes."

 

ATLANTA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 6.23.2000    Back To The Top

Stop! Something's missing from these Supremes

By Sonia Murray
Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

Reflections of the way Diana Ross & the Supremes used to be were kind of hard to make out Thursday night at Philips Arena.

Sure, the trio cranked out all the hits in the efficient and mechanic way of a jukebox.

And the black and white images on three of the four wide screens were of such '60s moments as a thin James Brown patting his process and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., reminding the half-full crowd of the epoch when Detroit's Motown machine unleashed arguably the most renowned girl group in the world.

But hold the mirror up to Diana Ross and these Supremes.

Not only were these not founding members Mary Wilson and the late Florence Ballard by Ross' side, but how could this really be the "Return to Love" tour when there was so much publicly-aired trouble with staging Ross' return to the group (in name only) she left in 1970?

If you didn't catch the "20/20" interviews, Ross asked Wilson and Cindy Birdsong (who replaced Ballard) to reprise the Supremes for about $2 million each, Wilson says, while Ross was reportedly getting between $15 million and $20 million.

(Clearly organizers were planning to sell plenty of tickets as high as $252, plus $18 coffee mugs).

Anyway, they both passed on the invite.

Then to make things even more prickly, Wilson hit the road with her own Supremes, who came to Atlanta last month during Music Midtown and gave a more huskily-delivered take on "Baby Love" and other signatures.

So Thursday night it was Ross' turn, the real, chirpier, voice of the Supremes, with post-Ross Supremes Lynda Laurence (who joined in '71) and Scherrie Payne (who joined in '73). Capable vocal accompaniment though they were, you got the feeling they were just going through the motions, maybe following along with the lyrics rolling on the fourth screen, hanging in the center of the venue, and making sure they weren't the object of a pre-"VH-1 Diva" moment.

Which happened right after opener, "Reflections."

"More band please," Ross curtly instructed.

And after the second admonition right after, the 40-piece orchestra cranked up and too often overpowered Ross' still-recognizable voice. But the well-dressed crowd of people who mostly looked to have grown up with 56-year-old Ross, just clapped and motioned along to the soundtrack of their younger days - pushing their hands out, palm forward, on "Stop! In the Name of Love."

 

TAMPA    Back To The Top

 

Ross proves she still can steal a show    Back To The Top

Undeterred by a small turnout, Diana Ross and her entourage put on a truly memorable performance.

By GINA VIVINETTO

St. Petersburg Times, published June 26, 2000

The year's most controversial concert tour may turn out to be its most enjoyable. Diana Ross' Return to Love show Saturday at the Ice Palace in Tampa was two hours of non-stop fun, despite woefully low ticket sales. An estimated 5,000 fans filled a fraction of the Palace, which has the capacity to seat 20,000.

Billed as a reunion of the Supremes, the 1960s Motown trio that made Ross a star, the tour has received harsh criticism for including later members of the act, with whom Ross herself has never sung. Ross initially offered Mary Wilson, the Supremes' other surviving original member, just $2-million to participate. (Ross is rumored to be making $15-million for the tour plus a percentage of ticket sales.)

Of course, all of the commotion only adds to Ross' reputation as a difficult diva. But Saturday night, the 56-year-old legend could not have been warmer.

Accompanied by a full-piece orchestra, backing band, three additional back up singers, 10 dancers and a video screen depicting famous images of the 1960s, Ross still managed to steal the show. How? With charisma and costumes, including one floor-length yellow feathered boa that made her look like Sesame Street's Big Bird, only far more fabulous and sexy. Ross' voice, too, still has plenty of oomph, despite her lamenting about singing the tunes in their original key.

Ross encouraged the crowd to sing along, an easy task for those who could spy the lyrics on a video monitor hanging from the arena's ceiling to help Ross' memory. (Hey, these hits started back in 1962, people; that's almost 40 years.)

Ross promised a night of nostalgia, and from the opener Reflections fans got a dizzying string of hits, including My World Is Empty Without You, Where Did Our Love Go? and You Can't Hurry Love.

Don't forget Come See About Me, Love Child and You Keep Me Hangin' On.

Later in the show, Ross treated fans to I'm Comin' Out, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, a super funky Upside Down and other hits from her 30-year solo career.

Though she's known to be a rigid perfectionist, Ross was refreshingly loose, giggling when she flubbed lyrics and chatting with the audience. (One exchange with an overzealous fan: "I love you, too. No, I love you more. Well, I love you to infinity.")

During Stop! In the Name of Love, the singer strolled through the audience, letting the crowd sing into her microphone. Ross laughed, kissing and embracing fans who swarmed at her from every direction.

The singer joked about the lack of an intermission, although previous shows contained one. She said she got caught up in the fun. Did Ross really forget to stop? Who knows? She asked the crowd if anyone needed a break, but there were no takers.

After a tepid start to the Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going to?), Ross asked the audience and the band if she could try again. At one point Ross -- Diana Ross -- even took requests, which led her into a gorgeous version of Touch Me In the Morning.

As for those "faux" Supremes? Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne, Ross' "two best new girlfriends," provided smooth backup vocals, coy go-go dancing and one show-stopping solo number each.

The performance closed with a breathtaking, slowed-down soul version of the Four Tops' Reach Out I'll Be There. Ross and her entourage encored with I Will Survive, the disco hit made famous by Gloria Gaynor.

 

If nothing else, Diana Ross is still Supreme    Back To The Top

By Rod Stafford Hagwood, Sun-Sentinel Fashion Columnist
Posted June 22, 2000

"It's about the music," Diana Ross laments in the lead. "It's about the respect (i.e. the money)," Mary Wilson sings out in the background.

Cindy Birdsong, the only other surviving member from the '60s pop iconic girl group the Supremes, mouths something, but no one can hear her. Her microphone was never really turned on.

That's the cacophony coming from one of the most controversial concert series of the summer: the Diana Ross and the Supremes Return to Love Tour.

The tour hits National Car Rental Center at 8 p.m. Sunday.

It's all about Miss Ross; it always has been and it always will be. That's why being a diva is so difficult: It's always about you, even when you really don't want it to be.

Take this tour, for example. If it is about the music, you'd never know it from the lambasting Ross endured for hiring Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence - women who everyone on the planet now knows joined the group after Ross departed in 1970 - instead of Wilson and Birdsong, with whom the Motown legend shared billing with in the later '60s (after original member Florence Ballard got booted in 1967).

Ross might have fared better if she had simply hit the road as "Diana Ross Sings the Supremes" and avoided the muck and mire. But she gamely went on with the tour, promising her fawning fans the hits written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr. that made the terrific troika second only to the Beatles in record sales during the turbulent era.

"I think Diana miscalculated the public's emotional connection to the Supremes, and that's because she doesn't really have an emotional connection to the Supremes," J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of the 1989 unauthorized biography Call Her Miss Ross, told Philadelphia's Inquirer newspaper. "She didn't have an emotional connection with them when she was with them. Her connection has always been with the audience." Taraborrelli was an enthusiastic member of the opening-night audience in Philadelphia's First Union Spectrum June 14.

If it were about the music, you'd hear only song titles like Where Did Our Love Go?, Baby Love, Come See About Me, Stop! in the Name of Love, Back in My Arms Again, I Hear a Symphony, My World Is Empty Without You, You Can't Hurry Love, You Keep Me Hangin' On, The Happening and Reflections. All of those hits were written by the Holland/Dozier/Holland team. It is a body of work worthy of some major props: infectious crossover hits that made the call-and-response in black music sound natural to white kids who had no frame of reference for the Afrocentric sounds. The Supreme sound is all about Ross' yearning, plaintive "call" to the Supremes' "response" of ooh, aah, and baby.

But this was sophisticated soul, often as ambitious as its lead singer. With Ross' thin-textured but laser-intense delivery and precise phrasing, the Supremes went on to record everything and everyone - from the Funny Girl Broadway score to a country album. Ross' voice is at its best crystalline and unmistakable. You know it's her. It can't be anyone else. And back then, the young ladies could truly harmonize better than the McGuire Sisters in their sleep or even current girl group knockout TLC.

When the Supremes returned to their light r&b-tinged pop records, you could actually hear the distant rumbling of a soul storm gathering.

Listen to the Berry Gordy-penned Try It Baby, sung with the Temptations in 1968, or the soaring melodrama of Love Child and follow-up with the church-flavored Someday We'll Be Together (which was recorded and released with nary a Supreme in the studio).

Because they were so glitzy with their image, the Supremes never got the recognition they deserved for their music (Baby Love in '64 and Stop! in the Name of Love in '65 were the only Grammy nominations). Or for their leadership.

The Supremes also introduced many in the United States, Europe and the Far East to other Motown artists. They introduced a slew of black fans to standards written by Rodgers & Hart, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin as well as France's Frank Singer/Gilbert Becaud/Pierre Delanoe.

The Supremes sang everything. Ross' voice was extremely malleable with styles, giving Fats Waller the robust sounds he needs and Sam Cooke the stirring soul shout he needs.

And little other than Ross' voice has changed. Despite some solid singing with her thicker, smokier sound (a process that started with the recording of the Lady Sings the Blues soundtrack in 1971), the Supremes Return to Love Tour is getting generally favorable reviews and healthy crowds (despite inaccurate reports), but little respect.

Even with a 40-piece orchestra and an enormous video screen projecting everything from faces in the audience to vintage footage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights struggle in the '60s, there are few props for Ross, Payne or Laurence. They will have to make do with their campy Bob Mackie costumes, a bevy of hyperkinetic dancers and a state-of-the-art sound system, because it clearly isn't about the music.

A portion of the proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to three charities: A Better Chance, City of Hope and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

 

Ross finds where love went    Back To The Top

By SEAN PICCOLI      
Web-posted: 11:33 p.m. June 25, 2000



   SUNRISE --
Twentieth-century diva Diana Ross never disguised her motives for coming back: Relive some glory; make a mint. It was her methods that came under fire on the Motown queen's "Return to Love" tour -- a "reunion" with the concept, if not the actual people, known as the Supremes.

Those methods were immediately suspect on Sunday night at the National Car Rental Center in Sunrise.

Ross and the new Supremes, in glittering silver gowns, and a massive orchestra arrayed in tiers behind them opened with Reflections. They positively blundered the song's wistful, R&B-pop elegance at every turn, even with Ross singing off a Teleprompter mounted above the floor, while pictures of the late civil-rights hero The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., flickered on a screen above the bandstand.

It looked as if it was going to be that kind of night: Performers selling edited memories to a highly suggestible audience; artists admitting their failures up front by trying to invoke the credibility of greater figures than they. Wasn't there a more honest way to make nostalgia pay?

Yes, and Ross eventually found it. A performance that threatened train wreck for openers improved as the evening went on. It wasn't Ross' singing that suddenly improved; at age 56, she carries her flamboyance more effectively than certain notes. What she did was make people love her again, or remind them why they had in the first place.

Ross plunged into the crowd to dispense and accept hugs. She brought audience members on stage.

She turned the spotlight over the stand-in Supremes Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne, who sang more forcefully and more in tune than Ross but without her fragile, ethereal style.

Appealing directly to her fans, Ross also surprised them with her choice of songs. For every expected hit -- Love Child, Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love -- the "Return to Love" cast reached back: I Will Survive, done Gloria Gaynor straight; a smoky version of the Motown classic I'll Be There; and a sassy cover of Money, a hit for the Beatles but written by Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr.

Only a blind person would have missed Ross poking fun at her own diva mythology, strutting in lamé to a lyric like, "Money don't get everything, it's true/What it don't get, I can't use."

The two-hour show covered some 40 years of pop history, and as the songs piled up -- the sad sweet grandeur of Ain't No Mountain High Enough, the disco hustle of Upside Down -- the easier it became to forget the balky opening, admire the orchestra for respecting the Motown sound, and salute Ross for taking ownership of her past. They are, after all, her reflections.
   

DALLAS

 

Reigning Supreme    Back To The Top

Ross-era hits prove highlight of reunion

06/30/2000

By Thor Christensen / The Dallas Morning News

Diana Ross and the Supremes taught us you can't hurry love. But you also can't hurry hits, which was the major problem with the group's lopsided concert Thursday night at Reunion Arena.

The first 35 minutes of the flashy two-hour show were pure serendipity, as Ms. Ross and company hammered out 10 Supremes gems from the '60s in a row: "Reflections," "Baby Love," "Come See About Me," "Stop! In the Name of Love" and on and on until the sheer melodic joy (combined with the heavy dose of nostalgia) was overwhelming.

A 40-piece orchestra tried to warm up the crowd with a cheesy Vegas-style overture medley of hits, but once the show actually got started, the Supremes' 11-piece backing band nailed the songs on the head. The jubilant Motown bass line was perfect. The rhythms were insistent and airtight.

And while Ms. Ross' voice was a bit lower and raspier than it was in her heyday, the songs carried her. Reunion Arena might have been two-thirds empty - a result, perhaps, of those jaw-dropping $250 top ticket prices - but the fans who were there responded to "Back in My Arms Again" and "Where Did Our Love Go" by dancing furiously.

Yet once the barrage of Supremes hits ended, so did the magic. The show became a poorly paced grab bag of cover tunes and Ms. Ross' solo hits, and the illusion that this was a special Supremes "reunion" quickly faded.

Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence - who actually joined the Supremes after Ms. Ross quit in 1970 - sounded just fine, especially with the support of an additional backing vocal trio.

But it was painfully obvious they were just Ms. Ross' hired help. The singer rarely came within spitting distance of her two bandmates, and they appeared as separate entities on the video screens (Ms. Payne and Ms. Laurence occupied one camera shot; Ms. Ross had her own).

And while Ms. Ross seemed to be having a ball - strutting through the crowd and inviting fans to sing as "honorary Supremes" - she also seemed ill-rehearsed at times. Although she boasted, "I remember every song I did in the '60s," she certainly didn't remember the lyrics: Despite the presence of a huge video TelePrompTer for every song she sang, she still briefly botched the words to "You Can't Hurry Love" and one other tune.

But the show's biggest drawback was the skimpy number of Ross-era Supremes hits after the first grand barrage. For the finale, we got hit-and-miss covers of "Money (That's What I Want)," "Reach Out I'll Be There" and "I Will Survive," as well as two of Ms. Ross' tunes: the sugary solo ballad "The Best Years of My Life" and a tentative version of "Love Hangover." I would have traded all of those for a show-closing snippet of "Someday We'll Be Together."

 

Houston Chronicle    Back To The Top

June 30, 2000, 8:48AM      MUSIC REVIEW

Supremes take fans back in time

By MICHAEL D. CLARK
Copyright 2000 

As impressive as a number like 70-plus hit singles is, Diana Ross' impact on American rock music can only be seen in person.

At the Compaq Center on Wednesday night, where Ross reunited with the Supremes, middle-aged white women stood with three generations of a black family on one side and men dressed in gaudy Diana drag on the other. All had an attachment to, a history with and an affection for the original diva of Motown.

All knew the words to every song. All felt that what they were watching was a piece of them.

Numbers also don't explain why Diana Ross can unite with former Supremes for the first time since she left them 30 years ago and fill only half a venue. True, these Supremes -- Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne -- are not the girl group Motown mogul Barry Gordy formed around Ross in 1959 (originally known as the Primettes).

One original Supreme, Florence Ballard, died in 1976. The other, Mary Wilson, along with Cindy Birdsong (who replaced Ballard in 1967), decided against participating. Laurence and Payne, however aren't exactly stand-ins. Both have been associated with the Supremes for three decades and helped continue the hit machine after Ross left.

Some pundits have thought that the lack of original Supremes may have caused a backlash for the 23-date Return To Love tour that began two weeks ago. A more positive spin would be that this formation shows where the Supremes might have gone had Ross stayed on board. Though Laurence and Payne both became Supremes within years of Ross leaving, until now the three woman had never performed together.

In all this politicking, the one thing that never changes is the validity and sanctity of the R&B songbook Ross etched into the American consciousness with her delicate, sympathetic whispers.

Backed by an orchestra of strings, brass and woodwinds in addition to a modern band of guitar and percussion, the crowded stage looked ready for an Oscar ceremony. When the sheer curtain parted, the three women, gowned as shimmering disco balls, marched forward.

In their '60s heyday, the Supremes rivaled the Beatles as the biggest rock 'n' roll force in the world, but their mystique always pressed further than radio play. At a time of civil unrest, the Supremes represented how three black women could overcome. Enveloped in ball dresses, they boldly and successfully mixed tales of racial and gender equality into a recurring theme of love.

That spirit was captured on this stage. Highlighted by historical films of Martin Luther King Jr. preparing to speak in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Reflections began a 27-song, two-hour, six-outfit tour back to Motown's Detroit roots. On Come See About Me and Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart, Laurence and Payne swooped and whirled in unison like, as Ross described them, her "two new best girlfriends."

The second-generation Supremes have aged marvelously, but Ross has simply defied the gods. Toned and thin with that wild mane of relaxed dark hair, she sets an impossible Barbie-like standard for physical beauty among mature women. She flattered every outfit, be it a pink bell-bottom jumper or a casual orange pant suit.

Even more amazing is how her voice has retained the adolescent idealism of her youth. Stop! In the Name of Love and Baby Love still sounded like a sock hop, while Love Hangover (Do You Know Where You're Going To) still wept with hopeless caution.

Most precious was watching Ross dance like a teen-ager to I Will Survive followed by a trip into the audience to shake hands during the telling Best Years of My Life. To watch grown men, tears streaming down their cheeks, clutch at this waif of a woman is to absorb Ross' personal power.

Few cared that a large screen in the rafters ran the words to all the songs above the heads of the audience to aid Ross, or that she slipped a dance step or botched a lyric. For the gathered, this was a testament to the music that laid the foundation for all of rock 'n' roll.

They were right.

 

Chicago,

July 1.

From The Sun-Times

DIANA ROSSAND THE SUPREMES AT THEALLSTATE ARENA

By DaveHoekstra

When it comes to star-spangled showbiz, all of theweekend's fireworks can't
compare with Diana Ross' Saturday night extravaganza at the Allstate Arena
in Rosemont.

She da bomb.

The diva is headlining her "Return To Love" reunion tour with the
Supremes--and headlining is not a term to be used loosely. Flaunting
choreagraphed smiles,several costume changes and relying on a Teleprompter
mounted from the ceiling, Ross had to take center stage because the other
Supremes weren't really THE Supremes.

Ross recruited ringers Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne, who joined the
trio in 1971 and 1973, respectively. Payne is the sister of Freda "Band of
Gold" Payne.Laurence is a former member of Stevie Wonder's Wonderlove.Ross
left  The Supremes in 1970.

This"reunion" tour marks the first time she has sung with them.

The divine Miss Diana is reportedly being paid $15 million (plus a box
office percentage) for the tour.She offered between $2 and $4 million to
Mary Wilson,the other surviving original member of the act, and $1 million
to original substitute Cindy Birdsong. They both declined.(The third
original Supreme, Florence Ballard, died of a heart attack in 1976.)

Still, it wasn't as bad as if Moe were touring without Curly and Larry. In a
Vegas inspired show that clocked in at over two hours, Ross gave the
less-than-capacity house much bang for the buck.She fronted a 32 piece
Chicago based orchestra, her own band that incorporated a three piece horn
section, three backing vocalists and 10 sizzling dancers.

Ross rolled through her hits, covering theSupremes and her solo career. She
opened with 1967's "Reflections" as black and white civil rights footage of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. flickered on a backstage screen, and she proved
her voice is still as sweet as ever on chestnuts such as "Come See About
Me", "Back In MY Arms Again," "Baby Love," and "Stop in the Name of Love,"
the latter acvcented with the Supremes trademark hand choreography.

The two other Supremes took center stage only for one song each.
Laurencesang "Up the Ladder to the Roof,"theSupremes' first post-Ross era
hit, and Payne did a compelling gospel-influenced reading of "Stoned Love."

Ross closed the show in a fury. Most of the hit songs were played note for
note theway they were recorded, but "Reach Out and Touch(Soebody's Hand)"
was rearranged with a blues downbeat that built into a cresting gospel
finish. And Ross' pulsating cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" turned
the arena into a late 70's disco as confetti shot out of cannons and
streamers tumbled from the ceiling. The only thing missing was amyl nitrite..

Underneath the glitzy surface, the "Return to Love" tour is alot about
community.Ross'success wasparked by acommunity of incredible talent that
includedsongwriters Smoky Robinson and Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and
Eddie Holland, who wrote most of the Supremes hits, and session players
including the late bassist James Jamerson, whose in the pocket precision
shaped the Motown Sound.

The folks who turned out to see Ross came from the West Side,the South Side,
the suburbs, Rush Street and Boys Town.It'll be awhile before I forget the
image of the four guys and seven women Ross brought onstage to dance with
her on her 1980 solo hit "Upside Down." They all wore long feathered pink
boas, which truly made for a colorful taste of Chicago.

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, NEW YORK    Back To The Top

 

LA DOLCE MUSTO    Back To The Top
by Michael Musto, The Village Voice

Published July 19 - 25, 2000

...Another 1973 cult item, that queen of queens Diana Ross, dazzled with her "Return to Love" concert at Madison Square Garden—again, you must believe me—and with my eyes half-cocked, that was Mary and Cindy and even Flo up there. Things started unpromisingly with an overture consisting mostly of Miss Ross's solo hits, but then Diana and her two "best friends" emerged, singing "Reflections" in silver sequins, and we were all thrown back to "the way life used to be-uh" in the flash of an upswept arm gesture. It was a gorgeous opener, and though Ross seemed to be on autopilot for some of the night—maybe she'd just found out the tour was going to be canceled—she sounded record-perfect and at least minimized her usual order-giving and needy "I love you" displays. A vessel of pure showbiz enchantment, Diana glittered through her trademark contradictions, performing her ghetto song, "Love Child," in pink bugle beads and blithely ignoring the reunion-debacle irony as she rollicked through "Money, that's what I want."

The backup girls were more than serviceable, though they could just as well have been Vandellas or even Pips, and seemed to have their own backup girls helping out in the wings. But critics were wrong to complain that there was no interaction between Diana and the Supremes—there never was! For added authenticity, Diana brought up Luther Vandross for an impromptu duet on one of her recent releases—he didn't know it—after which her little son came up to moonwalk (oh, no, has Jacko been to visit?). By the end of his routine—I swear—Mommy was in a whole new outfit!

The evening even came with a sideshow. In the crowd, drag performer Princess Diandra was spilling booze all over me and yelling at the stage, "You hideous has-been woman!" Security had to drag her down from dancing on a box, where she was trying to upstage the diva who gave us all birth. I worship you, Diandra, but the extra dr in your name is starting to stand for drama queen.

 

Philadelphia Inquirer    Back To The Top

July 15, 2000  Die-Hard Diva

By Annette John-Hall
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Die-hard diva

Diana Ross' latest tour is sputtering and people are making jokes about her "Sub-premes," but this is one lady you don't count out.

FOUND! MROGERS144 for STEPHANIE20904

Touring with Diana Ross were Lynda Laurence (left) and Scherrie Payne. (John Costello/Inquirer)

Last we checked, that was Diana Ross' picture accompanying the word diva in the dictionary.

So nobody should be surprised - not the skeptical promoters, not the disgruntled fans, not even onetime singing mate Mary Wilson - that Miss Ross is blissfully oblivious to the criticism leveled her way over the demise of the Supremes' reunion tour.

They can all shout "I told you so" until Motown runs out of lyrics. Divas like Diana may hear it, but they don't process it. What they look for is the next spotlight to bask in, the next audience to woo.

When the plug was pulled last week, the much-ballyhooed "Return to Love" tour, launched in Philadelphia last month, was drawing only 3,000 diehards in 20,000-seat arenas. Detractors dubbed Ross, Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne the "Sub-premes" and "Diana Ross and the Replacements." Yet Diana still wanted the show to go on, still wanted to put on the hair and the gowns and to sing to please.

Her mistake was that she miscalculated the sentimental place the original Supremes - the group that included Wilson and Flo Ballard, later replaced by Cindy Birdsong - held in the hearts of fans. That's because Diana herself has never felt very sentimental about the group she cofounded. She always intended to use the group as a springboard to personal success. Even in the early days, before she received top billing, Diana would take the diva route straight to her hotel suite while Wilson and Birdsong hung out after performances. Once, Motown chief (and Ross' lover) Berry Gordy scolded Wilson: "You're out too much. Why don't you act more like a star, like Diana does?"

Had Diana taken a more objective tack, maybe she would have tried harder to appeal to Wilson's battered ego, or worked harder to bring Birdsong on board. In true diva fashion, however, Diana believed that her star power was enough to carry the act and to draw fans. She's quick to remind everyone, "That's my voice on those songs."

It was Diana's distinctive voice that made such tunes as "Baby Love," "You Keep Me Hanging On," and "Come See About Me" crossover classics. Those songs, and by extension Diana's voice, continue to make money for Wilson - she reportedly pulls in a cool $1 million a year by touring as Mary Wilson of the Supremes.

The irony is that Diana's voice has done more to keep the Supremes alive than any torch-carrying and award-accepting Wilson claims to have done on the Supremes' behalf over the years. While Mary is stuck, like a scratched record, in a 30-year warp of anger, bitterness and jealousy, Diana is looking for the next opportunity to reinvent herself.

So don't bash Diana. Divas live hard, they fall hard - Tina Turner, Cher and Bette Midler come to mind - but once they're up, they re-powder their noses and move on to bigger and better things.

In 1972, it seemed Diana was floundering with a so-so solo career after leaving the Supremes. What did she do? She recast herself as an actor with a stellar turn as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues, earning an Oscar nomination in the process.

She dropped out of the limelight to give birth to two sons well into her 40s, and has spent the last decade raising them. From all indications, her five children (including three grown daughters) are all well-adjusted and thriving. That accomplishment alone speaks more about Ross' character than all the fits she reportedly has thrown.

All I know is that, at age 7, one of my favorite things to do was to get my sister and my best friend and play Supremes. We'd push open the accordion closet doors in my room, hairbrushes doubling as microphones, arms outstretched in the signature pose, ready to belt out "Stop in the Name of Love" to my well-worn 45.

Though she wasn't necessarily the prettiest or the most technically sound, there was something about the way she carried herself that made us yell out all at once:

"I want to be Diana!"


Annette John-Hall's e-mail address is ajohnhall@phillynews.com

 

USA TODAY   Back To The Top

Fiasco turns Ross' image upside down 

By Arlene Vigoda

What's a diva to do after being dissed?

The Diana Ross and the Supremes tour was a disaster, aborted in midstream by abysmal ticket sales, half-filled arenas and a public unwilling to shell out up to $250 to see a "reunion" trio that had never performed together.

So what happens now? To paraphrase Ross' Theme from Mahogany: "Does she know where she's going to?"

"Diana needs to retrench," says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, a concert industry trade magazine. "She can go back and do a Diana Ross tour and play smaller facilities at a ticket price that's more palatable to the public."

Or, Bongiovanni says, Ross can "make peace with Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong and do a true tour." Wilson was a founding member of the '60s pop trio; Birdsong joined the group in 1967 after the departure of original member Florence Ballard. Months of behind-the-scenes negotiations for a projected reunion of Ross, Wilson and Birdsong broke down because of financial disagreements. Enter Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence, who briefly joined The Supremes after Ross left for a solo career.

As for the likelihood of reuniting with Wilson and Birdsong, Bongiovanni says, "We've historically seen deep divisions between group members be mellowed by age and the lure of being able to make more money. Sooner or later, everybody seems to get back together."

Not these three, says Tony Turner, who wrote All That Glittered: My Life With the Supremes. He says he was associated with all the members of the group from 1965 to 1988, eventually becoming Wilson's road manager. "Miss Ross will never work with Mary again. There's too much bad blood," Turner says. "I expect she'll take this same tour with Scherrie and Lynda over to Europe and Asia in October, where she'll get a better reception and she'll reinvent herself and go on with her solo career."

Turner says Ross is in talks to be involved in a TV miniseries based on her life. No word on whether she'd be in front of or behind the camera.

"Diana is a modern-day Norma Desmond who still believes the public is waiting," Turner says. "She has a point to prove now — that she is a bankable superstar and that what happened to this tour was not her fault."

But Ross spokesman Paul Bloch says he's unaware of plans for overseas concerts or a TV project. In her only public comment, Ross last week expressed "severe" disappointment in the promoters for canceling the tour.

The fallout could hurt Ross' career, says Carl Feuerbacher, president of the Mary Wilson International Fan Club, which has close to 3,000 fans worldwide. "Unless she gets a hit record, this could be difficult for Diana to recover from," he says, "and even though she's always had a solo career, that's not going great, either." Her most recent solo album, 1999's Every Day Is a New Day, sold poorly.

J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Diana and Call Her Miss Ross, says the diva may be down, but not out. "The fact that the tour got so much attention speaks to the notion that we still care about her," he says. "She'll do another album, another tour, and it will just go on and on and on.

"I'd like to see her write her life story and do an album of more contemporary music. I'd also like to see her give an honest, in-depth, soul-baring interview to someone like Barbara Walters, where she really defends herself against some of the unfair allegations about her."

Does he envision a Wilson-Ross reconciliation? "You have to first get them in the same room before you can get them on a stage," he says with a laugh, "but I've heard that Oprah Winfrey (who had the reconstituted Supremes on her show before their tour) is trying to get them together."

Winfrey spokeswoman Lisa Halliday says Oprah hadn't heard the rumor, but "I just spoke to her . . . and now that she's heard it, she thinks it would be a fabulous idea."

 

 

 

 

Boston Herald (newspaper)

 
You'll just have to wait: For a real Supremes reunion, that is
 by Larry Katz
 Friday, June 2, 2000



 
Unless she's more egomaniacal and a lot dumber than suspected, Diana Ross is learning some supreme life lessons.

 It turns out that people aren't as stupid as Ms. Ross thought. And, at this late stage of her career, they are not nearly as infatuated with her as she is with herself.

 This Supremes tour is shaping up as this summer's entertainment industry version of the Titanic's maiden voyage. It's a disaster in the making. And you don't have to be Mary Wilson or Cindy Birdsong, the two snubbed Supremes left out of the tour, to take satisfaction in seeing haughty Ms. Ross humbled.

 Ticket sales are lagging badly for the 24-date tour, which is
 supposed to open in Philadelphia on June 14 and come to the
 FleetCenter on July 13. Don't be surprised to see it scaled back or
 scrapped entirely.

 It seems fans are not eager to pay from $39.50 up to $250 to see a
 sham Supremes show. Which is exactly what Ms. Ross is presenting. A
 sham.

 The original Supremes consisted of Ross and her two Detroit girlhood
 friends, Mary Wilson and the late Florence Ballard, who left the
 group in 1967 and died of a heart attack in 1976 after enduring all
 manner of personal and professional problems.

 Not coincidentally, Ballard left the Supremes shortly after the name of the group was changed to the more Ross-centric Diana Ross and the Supremes. Her replacement was Birdsong, a former member of Patti
 Labelle and the Bluebells.

 Even that change wasn't enough for Ross, who officially became an ex- Supreme in 1970 when she went solo. Birdsong stuck until 1972. But Wilson kept the Supremes going with a series of stand-ins, among them
 Lynda Laurence, a member of Stevie Wonder's Wonderlove, and Scherrie Payne, sister of Freda ``Band of Gold'' Payne. What was left of the group disbanded in 1977, though Laurence, Payne and others continued
 to perform sporadically as bogus Supremes.

 There was one attempt at a true Supremes reunion, but it turned ugly.  In 1983 at the taping of the ``Motown 25'' TV special, Ross reportedly pushed Wilson's microphone away from her face. Not nice.
 And, to protect the guilty, not aired on TV.

 Ross' reputation as a stage hog was further cemented in 1988 when she opted to skip the Supremes' induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame rather than share the limelight with Wilson.

 This history of bad blood between Ross and Wilson only would have made a reunion, whether warm or frosty, that much more poignant and alluring to curious fans. Birdsong's presence would have been an
 added bonus, the icing on the deal.

 But such a reconciliation was not to be. Given this splendid opportunity to demonstrate true graciousness and generosity, Ross acted every bit the spoiled prima donna instead.

 She decided to undertake the current Supremes tour before bothering to talk to either Wilson or Birdsong. When she did get around to it, Wilson and Birdsong balked at the short money offered: $2 million, later upped to $3 million for Wilson, and a measly $1 million or less for Birdsong - measly when you consider Ross' projected take of $15 million-plus.

 So an unperturbed Ross breezily went ahead and hired two experienced ringer Supremes instead, Laurence and Payne, neither of whom had ever worked with her. Meanwhile, a war of words broke out in print and on TV between Ross and Wilson.

 While proclaiming her love for Wilson, Ross told Barbara Walters that her old friend was ``unhappy,'' ``vindictive'' and ``angry, envious and jealous.''

 While proclaiming her love for Ross, Wilson - who still likes to irk Ross by calling her by her given name of Diane - said the problem was not money, but that her old friend didn't really want her or Birdsong on stage with her.

 You can believe what you want. The upshot is that this Supremes tour is a fraud and we know it. Diana Ross plus two other singers does not  equal the Supremes.

 Calling this a Supremes tour is blatantly dishonest. That's why ticket buyers are staying away in droves.

 Ross is operating under the delusion that she is all that counts in  this enterprise. She couldn't be more wrong. She says she never claimed this was a reunion tour, which is scarcely believable when  you've named your tour ``Return to Love.'' What return is she talking about?

 Imagine if Paul McCartney announced he was launching a Beatles tour  without Ringo Starr or George Harrison and was calling it ``Return to  Liverpool.'' He'd be universally condemned. Or committed to the
 Strawberry Fields Home for Mad Musicians.

 What Ross is attempting is not any different. When negotiations with Wilson and Birdsong didn't work out, she simply should have retitled her tour ``Diana Ross Sings the Supremes.'' Which would be no more than truth-in-packaging.

 But no-o-o-o. Instead she's once again playing the big-headed diva by  insisting the Supremes are all about Ms. Ross and who she decides are  the Supremes.

 No wonder ticket sales are weak for these Dupe-premes. Fans will put  up with all kinds of weird and bad behavior from stars, but no one  likes being lied to.

 Diana Ross' ``Return to Love'' concert is scheduled July 13 at the  FleetCenter. Tickets are available. A lot of them, in fact.

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