“The best”: Diana Ross’ most exciting career moment
The year 1968 was proving to be a major one for Diana Ross.
Then the leader of The Supremes, Ross would begin performing as a solo artist on television specials, including her group’s own, including TCB, GIT on Broadway and The Dinah Shore Show. By mid-1969, Motown’s founder Berry Gordy had decided that Ross would leave The Supremes by the end of that year, prompting her to begin recording her solo work that July. Soon, Ross would be reinvented as a new Motown act, entirely her own.
Still, Ross’ legacy at the centre of The Supremes would always remain as one of music’s most legendary successes. In 1959, at 15 years old, she joined the group, then known as The Primettes, a sister act to the male group The Primes. Continuing to record and audition for record labels throughout their high school years, the group began appearing daily at Gordy’s Hitsville USA headquarters in Detroit: while Gordy advised the girls to finish high school before trying to sign to Motown, they instead offered their help of hand claps or background vocals for the label’s recordings.
Within two years, the Primettes would sign to Motown – on Gordy’s condition that they change their name. Florence Ballard happened to be the only group member at the studio when songwriter and Motown secretary Janie Bradford approached her with a list of names to choose from. As the story goes, she went with “Supremes” because it was the only one to not end with “ette”. Thus, The Supremes were signed on January 15th, 1961.
Their first single on the label was the Ross-led ballad ‘I Want a Guy’, with more singles to follow that cycled between lead singers among the trio (Ross, Ballard and Mary Wilson). While experiencing a bit of a rocky start, the result of their first few songs not garnering the attention they had hoped for, The Supremes began to be closely managed by Gordy, who positioned Ross at the forefront of the group.
In 1963, they would finally gain recognition with the hit ‘When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes’, written by the songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland.
Speaking with John Gilliland on the Pop Chronicles Interviews series in 1968, Ross named this as the one happiest moment of her career, thus far. “Well, there’s been quite a few exciting things,” Ross noted, “but first of all, the most exciting was to get a hit record, the first hit record we ever had, and we were really shocked about it and happy about it. And that was about the best thing.”
The end of 1963 saw Gordy name Ross as The Supremes’ lead singer, and soon, they would achieve their first number one hit with 1964’s ‘Where Did Our Love Go‘, with ten more to follow leading up to 1967. That year, the group would be renamed Diana Ross & the Supremes by Gordy, with the consideration of having Ross depart the group for a solo career, but Ross’s star power with The Supremes was undeniable.
“And then next is to get another hit record!” Ross said of the happy moments in her career with The Supremes that, at that time, seemingly never ended. “But it continued. I’ve had a lot of happy moments since I left the projects. A lot of thrilling and exciting things happen…”
Referring to her upbringing in Detroit, Ross reflected, “Diane from the Brewster Projects doing specials with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope… things like that… It’s really amazed me to think about it.”
For Ross, it was only the beginning: by the end of 1968, her solo career was taking shape with one of the most legendary breakthroughs in music history.
