the Supremes

the Supremes, American pop-soul vocal group whose tremendous popularity with a broad audience made its members among the most successful performers of the 1960s and the flagship act of Motown Records.

Why the Supremes mattered

Not only were the Supremes the Motown label’s primary crossover act, they also helped change the public image of African Americans during the civil rights era. With their sequined evening gowns and the sophisticated pop-soul swing given them by the songwriting-production team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland from 1964 to 1967, the Supremes were the idealized look and sound of the “integrated Negro.” Indeed, the youth of America learned many of its first lessons about racial equality from teen magazines that documented every hyperglamorized move the Supremes made as they went from topping the pop chart to appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show to sold-out Las Vegas bookings.

Formation and signing with Motown

Their story began humbly enough when a group of working-class girls from Detroit’s Brewster public housing project formed a singing group called the Primettes, their name derived from their sister-act association with the Primes, a forerunner of the Temptations. The details of the group’s formation (namely, who came first) have been disputed, but, from a series of permutations of five principals (including, initially, Betty McGlown), a quartet emerged that comprised Florence Ballard, Barbara Martin, Diana Ross, and Mary Wilson. After recording briefly with Lupine Records, the quartet signed with Berry Gordy’s Motown Records in 1960. They changed their name to the Supremes before releasing their first Motown single in 1961, and upon the subsequent departure of Martin the remaining trio of Ballard, Ross, and Wilson went on to score five U.S. number one hits in a row between 1964 and 1965.

Number one girl group

But the Supremes didn’t catch on right away. It took a while to create the distinctive look and sound that ultimately made them famous. Gordy unsuccessfully paired the group with different musicians and songs for three years until he finally stumbled upon the right formula. In 1964 Holland-Dozier-Holland gave the Supremes their first number one single with “Where Did Our Love Go.” Embellishing Ross’s precise breathy phrasing with chiming bells and a subdued rhythm section gave the Supremes an intentional lack of identifiable ethnicity. Not really sounding “white” or stereotypically “Black,” hit singles like “Baby Love” and “Come See About Me” (both 1964) sounded modern, upwardly mobile, and stylishly sensual in a way that appealed equally to adults and teens of all persuasions.

In 1964 “Baby Love” garnered the Supremes their first Grammy Award nomination, for best rhythm-and-blues recording. “Stop! In the Name of Love” earned them another nomination, in the category of best group contemporary (rock and roll) performance, the following year.

Breakup

The group continued to rack up chart-topping hits but was ultimately pulled apart by conflicting individual and corporate ambitions. By the end of 1967 the Supremes had lost both Ballard and producers Holland-Dozier-Holland. (Ballard was fired after performing at a gig while inebriated. She had also been routinely criticized by Gordy for her weight. She was replaced by Cindy Birdsong.) The group continued recording for two more years as Diana Ross and the Supremes, largely to prepare the public for Ross’s solo career. Jean Terrell became the first of many new group members who helped Wilson keep the Supremes alive and recording for seven years after Ross departed in 1970.

Solo projects

Ross’s solo career was greatly aided by starring roles in films financed by her longtime mentor, Gordy. Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Mahogany (1975), and The Wiz (1978) and their soundtrack albums kept Ross in the public eye and ear for most of the 1970s. The Boss (1979), an album produced by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, and Diana (1980), produced by Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, were both hits, but aside from a controversial concert in Central Park, New York City, in 1983 and some American television appearances, Ross spent the rest of the 1980s and ’90s cultivating a foreign fan base that outstripped her popularity in the United States.

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Wilson also recorded several solo albums and singles. She published two memoirs, the first of which, Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme (1986), was a bestseller. Her book (with Mark Bego) Supreme Glamour: The Inside Story of the Original Pop Fashionistas (2019) looks at the group’s timeless fashions. Birdsong largely withdrew from the spotlight after the Supremes disbanded, except for an unsuccessful attempt at a solo career in the 1980s. After being fired from the group in 1967, Ballard became impoverished and died of cardiac arrest at age 32 in 1976.

Legacy

The story of the Supremes is mirrored in many ways in the plot, music, and characters of the hit Broadway musical Dreamgirls (1981), which was adapted into a movie in 2006. In 2018 an episode of the television series Breaking the Band looked at the group’s history and breakup.

The Supremes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. In 2015 the U.S. Library of Congress added “Where Did Our Love Go” to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The group received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2023.