AND FROM OUR HITSVILLE, USA, DEPT.: It’s...
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AND FROM OUR HITSVILLE, USA, DEPT.: It’s been 25 years since the first Supremes release on Motown Records. And Motown is celebrating the anniversary with the release of “The Diana Ross and the Supremes 25th Anniversary” album, a three-record package which contains a host of Supremes hits as well as a wealth of unreleased material. Compiled by Motown accounting executive John Silva, the compilation offers 41 selections, of which about half are never-before-released songs.
In addition to 20 Top 20 Supremes hits, the treasure trove includes a recording from one of the Supremes’ first sessions at the label (a 1961 Smokey Robinson song called “Those Deejay Shows”), a 1965 Coca-Cola commercial (sung to the tune of “Baby Love”), a 1963 song written and produced by Berry Gordy (“Come On Boy”), a vocal version of “Sleepwalk” and a pair of Rodgers & Hart songs, “Blue Room” and “Manhattan.”
The cache of unreleased tracks includes four Robinson compositions, a quartet of Holland-Dozier-Holland tunes, including “Surfer Boy” (written for a movie called “Beach Ball”) and “Penny Pincher,” a 1963 song that was initially scheduled as a follow-up to “When the Lovelights Start to Shine” and was replaced by “Where Did Our Love Go?” The collection also features several unreleased songs performed for a Disney production as well as a five-minute Supremes interview from 1965 and a 1966 version of “My World is Empty Without You,” with different lyrics.
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