Diane Ernestine Earle Ross was born in Detroit, Michigan,
and formed her first group, The Primettes, at the
age of fifteen.It comprised
the vocal talents of Florence Ballard, Betty McGlown,
and Mary Wilson.In 1961, they
were signed by Motown and changed their moniker to The Supremes.Barbara Martin replaced McGlown for a short time, then left.The Supremes would be a trio, with
Diana Ross supplying all the lead vocals with the exception of
"Buttered Popcorn", sung by Ballard.They were not exactly an overnight
sensation.In the early days,
Ross also worked as a secretary for Motown's head honcho, Berry Gordy, Jr.Her typing days would be numbered, however, as The Supremes garnered
their first hit, "When The Lovelight Starts
Shining Through His Eyes", penned by hitmakers
Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Edward Holland, Jr., in 1963.A flood of hits would follow,
including "Baby Love", "Come See About Me", and
"Stop! In the Name of Love", all of which charted in the top
ten.Between 1964 and 1969, The
Supremes would top the charts a dozen times in the U.S.,
second only to The Beatles.In
spite of this success, Berry Gordy had other
plans for Diana Ross.In 1967,
he had renamed the group Diana Ross & The Supremes.By the late '60s, he was using
The Andantes in place of Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, who had joined The
Supremes midstream.In 1969, he
swapped out Ross for Jean Terrell, and Diana Ross and The Supremes went
their separate ways.Ross
embarked on her solo recording career in 1969 with what might have been her
first #1, but it was mysteriously released as Diana Ross & The
Supremes' last, the ironically titled "Someday We'll Be
Together".That day
turned out to be 14th January 1970, at Las Vegas's Frontier Hotel.It was the last time Diana Ross
& The Supremes would perform in a public concert together until an
ill-fated reunion tour in 2000.A few months later, Ross's self-titled debut solo album would
finally hit the shelves.Produced
in large part by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie
Simpson, it yielded Ross the first of many solo successes. " Reach Out And Touch
(Somebody's Hand)" went to #20 on the Billboard chart.
" Ain't
No Mountain High Enough", a remake of the Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell hit duet from 1967, gave Ross her first
#1.Her solo career was barely
out of the gates when Berry Gordy decided to set
up shop in L.A., where he had aspirations of
being the next Hollywoodstarmaker, with Ross being the star.Motown's first movie project
was to be a biopic of Billie Holiday, and Ross was slated to play the
part.This outraged much of the
public, which couldn't see how a modern pop singer, whose voice had
absolutely nothing in common with the jazz legend's smoky delivery,
could possibly pull it off.She
did.Lady Sings The Blues was a massive hit, and Ross was nominated
for an Oscar.Its soundtrack
enjoyed a two-week run atop the Billboard 200.Other films followed.The production-riddled Mahogany eventually got made with Berry
Gordy replacing Tony Richardson as director,
although his squabbles with Ross led her to exit stage right long before
the shooting was over.It
nevertheless enjoyed box-office success.The same cannot be said for
1978's The Wiz.Stephanie Mills, who had played
Dorothy in the Broadway version, was originally slated to play the part,
but Ross, twenty-four years old and much too long in the tooth to play an
eleven-year-old, talked Universal mucky-muck Rob Cohen into giving her the
role.The result was a
flop.Upon its initial release
in 1978, The Wiz wound up $10
million in the red.Only the
accompanying soundtrack fared well, selling 850,000+ records
worldwide.It was the end of
Ross's short-lived movie career, although she has appeared in a couple
of TV movies since.The time
was ripe to get back into a recording studio with the Ashford-Simpson
produced The Boss, which went
gold, and her second self-titled album, Diana,
which went multi-platinum and yielded Ross two of her biggest hits,
"I'm Coming Out", which peaked at #5, and "Upside
Down", her fifth #1.
"
It's My Turn", the theme song to the movie of the
same name, also reached the top ten.Another motion picture theme, "Endless Love", a duet
with Lionel Richie, turned out to be her biggest,
and last, #1 hit with Motown.Ross was tired of Gordy pulling the
strings and decided to sign with RCA for an unprecedented $20 million.It paid dividends straight off.Why
Do Fools Fall In Love?went platinum, and its
title track and "Mirror Mirror" both
reached the top ten.It was
just the beginning of a string of hits with RCA that included the Bee
Gees-penned "Chain Reaction", Ross's eulogy for her
long-time friend Marvin Gaye entitled "Missing You", and
"Muscles", written and produced by Michael Jackson.The hits eventually started to dry
up, at least in the U.S.,
and Ross briefly returned to Motown.None of her subsequent albums managed to recapture the old Motown
magic, however.Although she
continued to chart in the U.K. and has a tremendous international following
to this day, it wasn't until 2007 that a Diana Ross album would crack
the top forty on the album chart, the first to do so in twenty-three
years.On the strength of this,
she has launched a tour of the U.S.
and Europe.It seems its
her turn again.
Diana Ross recordings
Give Up
(Bernard Edwards/Nile Rodgers)
I'm
Coming Out (Bernard Edwards/Nile Rodgers)
It's My
Turn (Michael Masser/Carole Bayer Sager)
Mirror, Mirror
(Dennis Matkosky/Michael Sembello)
Sweet Nothings
(Dub Albritton/Ronnie Self)
Think I'm
In Love (Laura Taylor)
Together
(Michael Masser/Pam Sawyer)
Why Do Fools
Fall In Love (Morris Levy/Frankie Lymon)
