The Ultimate 'Girl'?

‘I LIKED IT. IT WAS PURE. IT WAS JUST THREE VOICES’

What makes the model of a Motown reissue?

      First and foremost, the music, followed by a perceived demand for its renewed availability. The involvement of savvy insiders, familiar with the reissue process, comfortable with the challenges (such as prehistoric contract terms or compromised source material) which may occur. And if possible, the participation of people who made the original recordings, who can recall a mood, a circumstance, a revealing moment or two.

      Plus, a good deal of luck.

      “When it comes to Motown specialty albums, Motown fans are divided,” says George Solomon, co-producer of the “ultimate edition” of 1968’s Diana Ross & the Supremes Sing and Perform “Funny Girl.” This is the luxurious, two-CD set recently released by Motown via Real Gone Music/The Second Disc, containing the original long-player’s mono and stereo mixes, reinstated backing vocals by Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong from the ’68 recording sessions, and bonus tracks of alternate vocal takes and live performances.

      Solomon is right. Yours truly was once among those divided fans, disappointed by the Supremes’ dalliance with Broadway show tunes, and disinterested in their tribute to an old-school star, Fanny Brice. Fifty-two years ago, I left the album untouched, unplayed, unappreciated. And this, despite having seen Diana, Mary and Cindy perform such repertoire at London’s Talk of the Town nightclub at the beginning of 1968. My allegiance was to the magic of Motown, not to the work of Tin Pan Alley journeymen, detached from Detroit, uninvolved with the alchemy of 2648 West Grand.

      It’s to the credit of Solomon and his fellow producers, Andrew Skurow and Joe Marchese, that I have seen the error of my ways.

      The 2020 edition is wonderful, both for the performances – Diana’s vocal strength and dexterity is quite extraordinary – and for the determination of the reissue team to document and contextualise the music. I will leave describing that music to others – The Diana Ross Project site is an inviting place to start – while concentrating here on the backstory.

A CRITICISED START

      Written by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, Funny Girl opened theatrically at New York’s Winter Garden on March 26, 1964, with Barbra Streisand in the title role as Brice. There were birth pains. The musical’s earlier, Boston tryout was mauled: it “needs to be less tedious and inept in its second act to justify its star,” judged Billboard. Without Streisand, the show would be “not much, probably,” declared Variety.

‘Can we have your autograph?’

      Yet it was swiftly a Broadway boxoffice bonanza, as was the original cast album on Capitol Records. That rose all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard charts, yielding a Grammy and rocket-fuelling Streisand’s career (her recording of “People” from the show was also Grammy-gifted). “Universal owned the rights to that original cast album,” recalls Skurow, “and wanted to put out a 50th anniversary edition of it in 2014. It was fortuitous, because I believe it’s the only Streisand album not owned by Sony Music, and the folks at Universal Music Enterprises were looking for anything else to release that would make a good companion.”

      At that point, UME vice president Harry Weinger thought of Diana Ross & the Supremes Sing and Perform “Funny Girl.” It was, says Skurow, as simple as that. “The only disappointment for us was that all of our [previous] expanded editions had been physical, and Universal Music wanted a digital only.” Six years further on, after other, popular CD reissues featuring the Supremes (A’Go-Go, Sing Holland/Dozier/Holland, Merry Christmas), the decision was taken to augment the digital Funny Girl with a physical version.

      “Funny Girl is out on CD,” proclaims Mary Wilson, happily, in the opening of the set’s 32-page booklet. She’s also pleased about the restoration of the backing vocals which she and Cindy Birdsong cut in the summer of 1968, but which were omitted from the original album in favour of BVs recorded by the Andantes and the Blackberries.

LESS THAN THRILLED

      That subtraction was decided by Berry Gordy, reinforcing the primacy of Ross, his star – but it wasn’t to the liking of Funny Girl composer Styne, whom the Motown founder had recruited as a consultant. According to the reissue’s liner notes by J. Randy Taraborrelli, Styne told his client as much. “I wasn’t thrilled with the final product,” he said. “Too many voices that I didn’t recognise.” Taraborrelli asked the composer who he thought were the other voices. “I actually don’t know. I can tell you at the sessions I attended it was just Diana. Then they added the other two girls, Mary and Cindy. I liked it. It was pure. It was just three voices.”

Another trio: George Solomon, Kevin Reeves, Andrew Skurow

      Styne’s insights are among the assets of this edition: he was interviewed by Taraborrelli in 1987 for a biography of Carol Burnett. “There was no way I was going to be talking to this legendary composer and not ask him about doing Funny Girl with Diana Ross & the Supremes,” the author explains. “His recollections were so vivid and interesting, but I never had the right project to use his full interview. I’m happy that this Q&A finally found a home in this ultimate edition.”

      Among other aspects, Universal Music’s Andrew Skurow remembers dealing with the various background vocals. “While we were listening to the multi-tracks, we noticed multiple reels with dub-ins,” he tells me. “Sometimes they were the Andantes, or the Blackberries, or the Supremes. It wasn’t that any of the groups didn’t do a good job, it’s just that Deke Richards – who mixed the album – was trying to get the job done for Berry Gordy, and was trying to fill in all the holes before the release date.

      “I love hearing the Andantes on all their work with Motown, but I also love hearing the Supremes. Mary and Cindy sound different from Louvain, Jackie and Marlene. They’re both wonderful, just different experiences. That’s when George brilliantly came up with the idea of doing a ‘Supremes only’ version of the album. We had to listen line by line, and make notes of which vocals were used, and on which reel.”

THE ANDANTES, BRIEFLY     

Solomon takes up the story. “There are only two spots on disc two where we had Kevin punch in vocals that weren’t Mary and Cindy,” he says, referring to Kevin Reeves, who mixed and mastered the reissue, as he has done with much other Motown catalogue material. “In ‘I Am Woman,’ we had the line ‘A bit of paté’ by the Blackberries, which had appeared on the original album, and also by the Andantes, but not by Mary and Cindy. It’s only two seconds, but that lyric was necessary, so we used the unreleased Andantes line.

‘Don’t tell me not to fly/I’ve simply got to…’

      “The same in ‘I’m The Greatest Star’ – there was just one place that lyrically needed that background vocal, and it just wasn’t there by the Supremes. In every other spot, if we couldn’t find a real Supremes vocal, we’d leave it out altogether.”

      Coincidentally, “I’m The Greatest Star” was Skurow’s favourite track on the album which introduced him, as a youngster, to the Supremes: 1974’s three-LP Anthology. “I would perform the song, with my brother Matt working the lights,” he recalls. “I was nine. When we were promoting the expanded edition [of Funny Girl] on John Perrone’s Night Flight radio show, George Solomon said he had done the same thing!” Solomon adds, “I learned every line of the Funny Girl album when I was ten years old, and made my neighbours sit down in my living room while I sang the entire album.”

      Introduced to each other by Harry Weinger, who directs and oversees UME’s Motown catalogue activity, Skurow and Solomon have now worked together for 20 years. They both have unusual first connections to the Sound of Young America: Skurow’s stepfather was a stage hand at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, enabling his stepson to meet Diana Ross there when he was eight (“She was larger than life, and it was like meeting God”). Solomon was an entertainer who also worked in Vegas, where he met Berry Gordy while performing in a show called Dream Street (Scherrie Payne was in the cast, too).

      Skurow subsequently became personal assistant to Mary Wilson; later, he relocated to New York and began helping Weinger on Motown projects, receiving his first co-producer credit for the 1999 reissue of the Supremes’ Merry Christmas. In 2005, he was appointed as Universal Music’s vault manager. For his part, Solomon (as a singer) was managed by Suzanne de Passe, then joined Smokey Robinson’s production team. In time, he began working on various reissue projects, including two by the Supremes: The Rodgers & Hart Collection and The Never-Before-Released Masters. In 1990, he produced The Marvin Gaye Collection, Motown’s first CD boxed set on the singer; more recently, he and Weinger produced Martha Reeves & the Vandellas’ 50th Anniversary/The Singles Collection 1962-1972.

The original voices, line by line

      The third producer of Diana Ross & the Supremes Sing and Perform “Funny Girl” is Joe Marchese, who launched reissue label Second Disc Records five years ago in conjunction with Gordon Anderson’s Real Gone Music. “I’d always hoped for the opportunity to work on the Motown catalogue,” says Marchese, “and that happily came in 2016 with our first of two releases to date collecting Bobby Darin’s Motown recordings.” He continues, “When Andy presented the possibility of working with him and George on the Supremes’ discography – beginning with The Ultimate Merry Christmas – I jumped at the chance.” Anderson is similarly enthusiastic: “Putting out the Supremes is a real ‘pinch me’ moment for me and everybody else at Real Gone.”

      Marchese’s contributions to the Funny Girl package include substantial, insightful liner notes about the original musical. He says, “One of my mentors, the late, great Arthur Laurents, was a dear friend of Jule Styne’s, with whom he wrote Gypsy and Hallelujah, Baby! We often discussed their friendship and work together, so I felt a kinship with the great composer.” Marchese adds that he was puzzled over the years why the Supremes’ album never saw CD release, and so was gratified by the 2014 digital edition, and then by the chance to collaborate with Skurow and Solomon on the physical version.

‘HARMONY WAS OUR STRONG POINT’

      In the final analysis, it’s the buyers who will pass judgement on all this labour. But the opportunity to reassess (as I did) music made more than 50 years ago is welcome, especially when it comes with all the extras. Still, the last word should go to one who was at the centre of gravity in 1968. “I am extremely happy because it brings back memories of when we first started singing as The Primettes,” declares Mary Wilson. “Harmony was our strong point. We were four girls then, with Betty McGlown and later Barbara Martin rounding out our quartet. We sang a wide variety of songs, especially standards and showtunes, in those days. When we became famous as a trio, Mr. Gordy had us sing them alongside our hits on TV and in our stage shows as well.” She concludes, “I am so happy our original voices were restored on this CD.”

      Or to paraphrase other words – from Funny Girl – there is surely no reason to rain on this parade.

Music notes: the digital edition of Diana Ross & the Supremes Sing and Perform “Funny Girl” continues to be available on streaming services, both in 1968’s original, ten-track version and the 2014 expanded edition with Mary and Cindy’s restored backing vocals. The new CD set includes the mono master as released in the U.K. in February 1969. As Supremes aficionado Laurent Bendelé of Go For Your Dreams notes, it differs only slightly from the U.S. master with the exception of “People.” That, he says, is a longer version, like the one used for 1980’s U.K.-only, six-LP compilation of Diana Ross & the Supremes’ work, and for 2008’s Supreme Rarities: Motown Lost & Found. Meanwhile, Bendelé wonders whether Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations’ On Broadway might be forthcoming on CD.

TV notes: Diana, Mary and Cindy performed an excerpt from their Funny Girl album on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 29, 1968, and a clip can be viewed here on YouTube’s channel of the Sullivan series.