Four became three
after the departure
of Barbara Martin
in 1962“Brian and Eddie didn’t think much of
Where Did Our Love Go,” Dozier recalled.
“But I wanted to place it with The
Marvelettes, and it was written in Gladys
Horton’s key. We played it to them, they
thought it was a mess. Gladys said, ‘We don’t
do this kind of stuff baby’. I’d cut the song
and didn’t want to be charged for it if we
didn’t use it, so I looked to the bottom of
the roster, saw The ‘no hit’ Supremes and
eventually convinced Mary [Wilson] to get
them to attempt it. Diana sang higher than
Gladys, but Eddie persuaded her to give it
a go. She was really pissed off. She couldn’t
stand the song, but that came through in her
delivery, which was exactly what it needed.
She ran off crying to Berry straight after. He
came to listen to it, said ‘this could be a hit’,
and it went to No.1 so fast it scared all of us.”
“Holland-Dozier-Holland off ered Where
Did Our Love Go to almost everybody,”
The Velvelettes’ lead singer Cal Gill said.
“The Marvelettes said it was too bubbly,
we weren’t too particular about it, and
Martha [Reeves] didn’t like
it. The Supremes got it by
default. Once they released
it, it really crossed over. We
were touring with them on
Dick Clark’s Cavalcade Of
Stars – Berry had coerced
Dick Clark into taking
them on tour – and when
that record was released
midway through the dates
they went from bottom of
the bill to the top. After that,
even though The Velvelettes
had their own sound, I was told
to pinch my nose to make me sound
more like Diana Ross.”
The Supremes didn’t like the song
either. “But we weren’t in a position to say
what we liked and disliked,” said Wilson.
“We were like, ‘That’s not a hit’, but
Holland, Dozier and Holland were
telling us, ‘This is a smash, trust us’.
I said to Eddie [Holland], ‘We’re
in trouble, we need a hit because
our parents saved money for us
to go to college, but we didn’t
go to college because weThe Supremesthem it wasn’t an audition,
there were no guarantees.
Diane was the strongest
of the three. She asked me
what I thought of Berry.
She seized the opportunity
to fi nd out how to approach
him. She’d already decided
to become a star. Berry told
me soon after that he wanted
to sign Diane.”
AFTER SIGNING ON
15 January 1961, at Berry’s instigation they
changed their name to The Supremes, taken
from a list compiled by Motown writer
Janie Bradford. Their debut for the label,
I Want A Guy, written by Freddie Gorman,
Berry Gordy and Brian Holland, fl opped.
Martin left to get married and the trio –
the classic line-up – recorded a second 45,
Buttered Popcorn.
Penned by Gordy and Barney Ales, it also
fl opped. As did Your Heart Belongs To
Me, Let Me Go The Right Way, My Heart
Can’t Take It No More and A Breathtaking
Guy, leading to their sobriquet the ‘No
Hit Supremes’. It was only when they
were placed with songwriting team Brian
Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland,
who had just hit with Martha And The
Vandellas’ Come And Get These Memories
and (Love Is Like A) Heatwave, that they
started to make headway, hitting No.23
in the US pop chart with When The
Lovelight Starts Shining Through His
Eyes in 1963. It was their recording
of HDH’s Where Did Our Love Go,
though, that marked them out
as special.“WHERE DID OUR
LOVE GO WENTTO NO.1 SO FAST
IT SCARED ALLOF US”
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