Diana Ross

In 1980, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards handed Diana Ross a finished record.

She listened to it and decided it was not coming out like that.

She went into the studio with Russ Terrana, a Motown engineer, and remixed the entire album: she cut the long instrumental passages and sped up the tempos so it would work on the radio, at a moment when the United States was in the middle of a backlash against disco music.

She did not consult the producers.

What happened next

Rodgers and Edwards found out when the record was already pressed. They objected in public, went as far as considering taking their names off the credits and later sued Motown asking for compensation for the original recordings. They did not win.

What set the decision off had been a warning. Frankie Crocker, the most influential disc jockey in New York, told her that releasing the record as it stood could end her career.

And the version that came out —hers— was the biggest success of her solo years. It reached number two on the albums chart, spent eight weeks at number one on the soul chart and passed ten million copies. "Upside Down" was number one.

It is the story that almost never gets told, because it contradicts the image. The usual line is that two geniuses met and created something together. What there was, was a singer who overruled her producers and got it right.

Where "I'm Coming Out" came from

The other song on that record has an origin worth telling in full.

Nile Rodgers walked into the bathroom of a trans club in New York and came across a group of drag queens dressed as Diana Ross. He ran out to a payphone and dictated to Bernard Edwards the line that had just occurred to him.

When Ross heard the song, she was told it could ruin her career. Apparently it was Crocker himself who explained to her what that expression meant exactly in English, and she understood that her writers were insinuating something about her.

The most-sung liberation anthem in her repertoire was born out of a fright, not a conviction. And what she did was record it anyway.

What The Supremes cost

The Supremes were twelve number ones on the Hot 100 and the most successful American vocal group in history. The songs were almost all by Holland, Dozier and Holland, who also produced them.

But the story of the triumph has a part that tends to get erased, and that is Florence Ballard.

Ballard founded the group. In July 1967, before a performance at a Las Vegas hotel, Berry Gordy told her that if she went up on stage he would take her down. She was twenty-four.

She was thrown out that year. She fell into alcoholism, raised her three daughters on welfare in Detroit and died of a heart attack in February 1976, at thirty-two, while trying to sing again.

Mary Wilson, the other founder and the one who spent longest in the group, died in 2021.

To tell The Supremes as a symbol of triumphant black women without mentioning Ballard is to tell half of it.

Two clarifications

"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" is not a song of hers. It was written by Ashford and Simpson and first recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1967. Ross's version, from 1970, was her first solo number one, and along the way it kept Creedence Clearwater Revival at number two.

And despite twelve nominations, Diana Ross has never won a competitive Grammy. She was given the honorary lifetime award in 2012.

She was nominated for the Oscar for best actress for playing Billie Holiday on screen, and she lost.

What to remember

Diana Ross is proof that the decisions that define a career are not always taken while singing.

Put on "Baby Love", "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "Endless Love" —the duet with Lionel Richie— or "I'm Coming Out", and you will hear the voice that most defines the sound of Motown, and then a second career that was bigger still than the first.

Behind her came Whitney Houston and everyone who followed, along a road that did not exist in 1964.

And keep in mind the two things the elegant portrait leaves out. That the 1980 album sounded the way it did because she remixed it over her producers' heads. And that the girl who founded The Supremes died at thirty-two, on welfare, while the group she had created was still the most successful in the country.

She is eighty-one and still performing. Remember her like this: not only as the voice, but as the one in charge.

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Sources

Diana Ross, born in Detroit on 26 March 1944. American singer and actress, lead voice of The Supremes and subsequently a solo artist. The Supremes, the emblem of Berry Gordy's Motown label, obtained twelve number ones on the Billboard Hot 100 and are the most successful American vocal group in history; their main hits —"Where Did Our Love Go", "Baby Love", "Stop! In the Name of Love" and "You Can't Hurry Love"— were written and produced by the Holland–Dozier–Holland team. Florence Ballard, the group's founder, was expelled in 1967 after a confrontation with Berry Gordy during a performance in Las Vegas; she died of a heart attack in February 1976, at 32, in a situation of economic hardship. Mary Wilson, co-founder and the longest-serving member, died on 8 February 2021 at the age of 76. Diana Ross began her solo career in 1970; her version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", written by Ashford & Simpson and originally recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1967, was her first solo number one and kept "Lookin' Out My Back Door", by Creedence Clearwater Revival, at number two. She was nominated for the Oscar for best actress for "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972), in which she played Billie Holiday. Her album "Diana" (1980) was produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, of CHIC, but the released version corresponds to a remix carried out by Diana Ross herself together with the Motown engineer Russ Terrana, who shortened the instrumental passages and sped up the tempos in the face of the New York disc jockey Frankie Crocker's warning about the record's commercial risk in the middle of the backlash against disco music; Rodgers and Edwards were not consulted, publicly expressed their disagreement, considered withdrawing their names from the credits and later sued Motown without success. The album reached number two on the Billboard 200 and spent eight weeks at number one on the soul albums chart, with more than ten million copies sold; "Upside Down" was number one and "I'm Coming Out" reached number five. Nile Rodgers has recounted that he conceived "I'm Coming Out" after coming across a group of drag queens made up as Diana Ross in a New York club, and that the singer was warned the song could damage her career. Despite twelve nominations, she has never won a competitive Grammy; she received the honorary lifetime achievement award in 2012. She remains active. Nile Rodgers, Lionel Richie, Whitney Houston and Creedence Clearwater Revival have their own profiles in this series. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of her work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Billboard, Albumism, Out, Variety and other coverage.