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>i always felt she got a bad rap. > >she said it was berry's idea to start billing them >as "diana ross and the supremes." >i don't doubt that. he wanted to do it with the jackson 5, >too.
It was indeed Gordy's idea. His actual first idea was to pull Diana out of the group in fall 1966 and bring in Barbara Randolph (she: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_cs-T2Y-Q) as the new lead singer. When that didn't work (Diana was too nervous to go it alone just yet), then came the "Diana Ross & the Supremes" idea to get more booking money (singer + group, not just group) and start the pull of Ross away from the other two. Randolph was still supposed to come in to replace Flo Ballard (and be floated into the lead singer seat once Ross went solo), but Ross - what's the phrase the kids use? - "did not feature" Randolph, so Cindy Birdsong was plucked from Patti LaBelle & the Blue-Belles instead.
> >folks blame her for flo's death, for some reason. >i don't see how that's even possible. i'm sure she was just as >sad >as everybody else. but there's not much you can do in a >situation >like that.
This is true. Flo Ballard's death, to be honest, was primarily Flo Ballard's fault. She had unresolved issues from a rape as a teenager, and neither she nor her friends/family/colleagues got her therapy to help with her temper and drinking. Her ouster from the group was up to Gordy, but let's be honest - what manager _wouldn't_ have let Flo go given her behavior in the world's second biggest musical act?
> >i know there was the incident at motown 25, >but she says that it was rehearsed one way, and that it went >down another way during the show.
It was, but she ain't have to push nobody! Now THAT was all Diana.
> >i'm sure she's no angel. >and she's definitely driven. > >what is it about diana ross that makes her so unlikeable to so >many people? >
The casting couch worked for her. That's why mofos hate her. She was awkward, skinny, and with a thin voice (of course that thin voice brought the Supremes all those white fans that made their record sales go sky high, but NIGGAS DONT CARE SHE WASNT HOOD WIT IT), and "only" became famous because the boss was infatuated with her (now, *I* won't say "only" - Gordy's obsession w/ Diana did fuel and shape not only her career, bu the direction the entire company went in up to when she did "The Wiz". Diana Ross was Berry Gordy's golden Willy Wonka ticket to white money)
> >b.touch, i'm really asking you this question >b/c i know you've done more research on this. >do you trust her biography, or is it fluff? > > I've never read a single page of her autobiography. I don't imagine I want to. I'm scared it'll be like Gladys Knight's (read: self-deifying and written in a juvenile voice) and make me lose (more) respect for Diana.
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