Today’s disc (or discs) is a Diana Ross double compilation album from 1983, released by Motown. I got this as a present in something like 1986 – probably my peak Diana Ross-listening era. The album contains mostly ’70s, and some very early ’80s, Ross material (mainly solo, apart from duets with Marvin Gaye and Lionel Richie). Until 1970 she was in the Supremes of course, in one incarnation or another, and they were Motown’s most successful vocal act throughout the sixties. Much has been written about the Supremes (a musical inspired by their story too) but I’m not going into that here. This album starts in 1970 with Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand), written by Ashford and Simpson.
Ashford and Simpson, by the way, were another couple of married songwriters and performers (see yesterday for Boy Meets Girl) – Solid their best own track as artists. As well as Reach Out and Touch, they wrote songs for various artists, huge tracks like California Soul (there are many versions of that one, it seems to get more popular all the time), Ain't No Mountain High Enough, You're All I Need to Get By, The Boss, Bourgie, Bourgie, I’m Every Woman (it’s a long list).
But as for (the real) Lady Diana (of Detroit), I’d already had a beginner’s Motown listening phase in about 1982, in my teens, thanks to the older sister of a girl who lived nearby. Instead of Led Zep and the Beatles, the records this sibling had left lying around when she moved out were 1960s and ’70s Motown 7” singles and my friend and I loved nothing more than screeching along to them on a quiet winter’s evening in the ’burbs. The track I remember most is the one I used for my Fun A Day in 2020 (I’m Gonna Make You Love Me by Diana Ross and the Supremes & the Temptations in 1968). It is really good for screeching along to (have a go). This was the illustration I did for that record back in 2020.
By 1986 my listening to Diana Ross was very different, less sociable for a start. I was in my last year at uni, pretty miserable all round, not enjoying the course, knowing I didn’t know where I was going or what would come next, and in one of those relationships that picks apart your self-esteem bit by bit (such fun – probably the last time I put myself through it though so that’s something). I listened to Diana Ross (and this compilation album in particular) over and over on my own, wallowing a little, hoping a lot, lifted by all these huge tunes, feeling she was something like a big sister, urging me on to better things and better love. And when that voice (not everyone’s favourite, more than a hint of Glinda the good witch to her sound, despite her having been Dorothy in The Wiz) sang Do You Know Where You’re Going to on side 3 (written by Michael Masser and Gerry Goffin), frankly, no I absolutely did not, but she and the song helped me get through the confusion. That song is the theme from a 1975 film, Mahogany, starring today’s diva. Here’s a trailer (it is a tad Lucky Bitches but maybe everything in the 1970s was like this). Diana Ross did originally want to be a fashion designer apparently.
Later in today’s chosen album we get to warmer (and I think we have to say groovier) sounds – tracks like Upside Down (first released in 1980, written and produced by Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, as was all of the 1980 album Diana) and Love Hangover (1976, written by Marilyn McLeod and Pamela Sawyer, the latter featured in a previous project on this blog back in 2022). And oh my heavens, here is Ross doing Love Hangover on the Muppet Show in 1980. Don’t say I’m not good to you.
Much more recently, in 2022, Diana Ross played the legends slot at Glastonbury and whilst it wasn’t perhaps the most impressive of those Sunday afternoon performances I still really enjoyed it. She was so relaxed, shuffling about in what looked like some kind of glitzy slippers, somewhere in her late 70s, just having a blast. There have been a lot of Diana Ross compilation albums since, but mine signs off with Endless Love, the duet with Lionel Richie that was the theme to the 1981 movie of the same name. I loved that movie (at the time), I loved that song (at the time) and for a whole variety of reasons I still love Diana Ross.
Back tomorrow with added ecstasy.
For the first intro post to this series go here.
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