Customer Reviews

The Story of the Supremes

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The Supremes Story is a beautiful book with photos of the most famous female singing group of all time. The book highlights their contribution to the civil rights movement and the way society viewed Black women and Black people generally. They inspired so many young people of all races with their style, glamour, and most of all their talent and individual beauty...Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Diana Ross. This book confirms their place in the musical, social, and cultural history of the world. Anywhere you go in the world, even today...everybody, no matter how young or old, whether in the mountains of Peru or the cities in any part of the world know and understand the significance of the most famous hand gesture of all..."Stop!" in the Name of Love...Hats off to the Supremes. Michael Mahsetky

To her credit Mary Wilson realized part of the legacy of Diana Ross and The Supremes was the glamour they projected as America's most famous female vocal group of all time, in addition to their wonderful recordings and live performances. Therefore she collected many of their designer gowns and costumes from the early days through her departure from the group in 1977. Various gowns from this treasure have appeared in exhibits in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland,Ohio as well as The Supremes hometown,Detroit. This book is a keepsake from the exhibit at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. In connection with this exhibit the museum also made available a two CD keepsake set that includes 50 tracks from the early recordings through the Jean Terrell years. Mary Wilson reveals in the foreword that the she began the gown collection to preserve this era in pop music. Daryl Easlea's essay provides the reader information on how The Supremes and Motown had an impact not only on the pop music of the 1960's and 1970's, but on society globally. For those who were not alive during this era, the book is a wonderful collection of LP covers; souvenir concert programs, publicity photos, posters,single picture sleeves and shots from their many TV appearances. However there are no photos of Primette Betty McGlown,nor of any of the post 1960's Supremes, although the High Energy LP cover makes an appearance and the hit Stoned Love is shown in a montage of song titles. Still this book will bring pleasant memories to the long time fans who will remember this era and be a reliable resource that captures the history making era in pop music. Consider buying the CD set as it has other photos and single picture sleeves not in this book.

I thought this book was composed of some of the most remarkable pictures of The Supremes era. Truly worth while for long time Supreme fans!

I have been a Supremes fan since their number #1 hit; "Where Did Our Love Go?" was released in the summer of '64 but it was that first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show that showed the world at large the phenomenon that was Diana, Mary and Flo. There was Mary with all her charm and grace; stoic Flo with her statuesque beauty and then there was Diana with all that other "star quality" stuff; including those Bette Davis eyes. Leave it to say that I have practically everything that's ever been recorded by or written about the them collectively and singularly (including Mary Wilson's two tell-all books) which is why I was a little disappointed in this book. I somehow missed the fact that it was mostly a picture book and not much of one to be completely truthful. With all of the history behind the Supremes and their legacy, I guess I just expected a little more. There are several photos I had never seen before but there were also many, many others I've seen at least 1000 times before...okay, I exaggerate; 999 times before. It has a nice depiction of how their glamour and sophistication grew over time and how much more elaborate (if not completely outrageous in a few cases but mostly wreaking with class and taste) their gowns, make-up and wigs became over the what seemed all too brief a period of time and it does stay fairly true to the time when they were just billed as the Supremes as opposed to Diana Ross and the Supremes although there is an album cover or two that illustrates the period of the latter

For those who may be unfortunately uninformed just in general or were perhaps born in the year 1990 or later; this book may be just enough information and brief summation of their illustrious career to satisfy your curiosity but any die-hard Supremes fans that would like to know more than they already know about Diana, Mary, Flo and the Motown machine may be just a little let down. Still, the pics that are there are nice but as far as it being anywhere near the "story of the Supremes" in anymore than just an honorable mention as it were; I found it to be a bit lackluster. However still, as a collector of all that is Supreme, I welcome it to my collection.

THE STORY OF THE SUPREMES BOOK is filled with color and black and white pictures of the fabled "dream girls" super group and concentrates mostly on the original line up of Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson. However, there are some pictures of the incarnation of "Diana Ross & The Supremes," which features Cindy Birdsong in place of Ballard (but has none of the 70s line-up when Ross left the group and Wilson carried on).

The pictures themselves are from publicity photos or promotional materials like album covers and concert programs, and the Supremes look wonderfully glamorous.

Like I said in the headline, the book is actually smaller than I had anticipated and some pages are wasted with just enlarged bullet points from the introduction and back-story by Mary Wilson and Daryl Easlea. I would have preferred if those large captions would've been replaced with other photos instead of wasting one page to rehash what has already been said.

Another thing that's a little misleading is the book's title: some might be led to believe that this is a photo book that charts the beginning of the Supremes -- from childhood to teenage to Primettes on up -- but it isn't. It's mostly a showcase book that features some of the wardrobe and gowns that gave the Supremes that sophisticated and glamorous look and was published to coincide with a traveling exhibit of the wonderful outfits, which was put on my Mary Wilson.

The book is still nice to own, especially for Supremes fans, but I just wished that the book was larger and showed more photos like candid shots and other pictures of the group, before and after they hit it big.

Just one more little quirk I found was that there was a picture of the album cover for the 70s Supremes album "High Energy," which I thought was anachronistic since the entire book is concentrated on the 60s group line up.

Otherwise the book is OK, but in no way definitive.

If you are buying this book to read about the Supremes and Motown, this is not the book for you. It is more like a coffee table book with lot's of great photos and promotional shots; some never seen before. If you are a true Supreme fan, then having this book is a must. There is a nice forward written by Mary Wilson, followed by an abridged version of how the Supremes got started (original members, auditioning for Berry Gorday, etc) and their connection with the civil rights movement, which is told in about 10 pages.

If you want to know detailed history about the Supremes and Diana Ross, I suggest you read the following: "Dreamgirl: My Life As A Supreme," "Supreme Faith: Someday We'll Be Together," both by Mary Wilson; Diana Ross: A Biography" by J. Randy Taraborelli; "The Lost Supreme: My Life As A Dreamgirl Florenece Ballard," by Peter Benjaminson; "The Untold Story: Berry, Me, and Motown" by Raymona Gordy Singleton, "Motown," by Gerald Posner, and "Where Did Our Love Go" by Nelson George. The last three books provides more information about Motown in general, how it got started and their relationship with some of the artists.

This is a great book to have if you are a truly a fan of the original Supremes and would like to see picturesa and promotional shots and memorabelia from their heyday.

This book is an absolutetly beautiful book to remember Diana Ross and her Supremes. Written in long broad strokes of memories and history. gorgeous photographs. A real treasure.