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Book: The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal by Mark Ribowsky
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Authors: Mark Ribowsky
Tags: United States, General, Biography & Autobiography, music, Biography, Women Singers, Genres & Styles, Cultural Heritage, Women, History & Criticism, Composers & Musicians, Pop Vocal, Supremes (Musical Group), Soul & R 'N B, Vocal Groups, Women Singers - United States, Da Capo Press, 0306818736 9780306818738 0306815869 9780306815867
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with Uncle Smokey, both in the carnal sense, though she was still a committed virgin, and because he seemed to hone and stoke her own ambition.
Around him, she loosened up, even getting bold. And he found his eye wandering in her direction.
Smokey Robinson has, for five decades, been circumspectly coy about the simpatico between them, recalling the young Diana Ross as
“shy . . . but always persistent. If we were practicing in the basement, she’d be listening on the staircase. If we were in the living room, she’d be on the front porch. She was a fan, a music lover, and sometimes
[she’d] sing. . . . ‘I love singing,’ Diane couldn’t deny, ‘but I’m not good enough to be a real singer.’. . . I always noticed her ’cause she was pretty and perky, pushing herself to do better.”
The problem, as she freely admitted, was that she couldn’t loosen up enough to sing for people without getting the vapors. Thus, she did terribly in music classes. As for ambition, that was another matter. One of her old music teachers recalls a junior high production of Hansel and Gretel in which Diane was supposed to hold a flashlight in front of her but instead made sure to shine it on her own face. Even if this tale is apocryphal, it fits into a long argosy of similar occurrences, stretching as far back as her gawky, pigtail days, foretelling her can’t-miss future as a star.
At 15, however, all she had were dreams and a new address since Fred had moved his now-complete family to one of the Brewster-Douglass high-rise apartment houses. Diane, ever independent, chose not to stray from the crowd she ran in on Belmont Avenue and kept attending her old junior high, riding a city bus to the old neighborhood.
Thus, in the projects, she was just another fleeting face to Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, who all passed by one another going about their own business. Moreover, what was known on a surface level about the Rosses around the Brewster-Douglass byways made Diane a candidate for ostracism. This was based solely on appearances, on the fact that they seemed somehow better off than most there; in lieu of actually knowing or even speaking with them, neighbors put the onus on the Rosses for being distant. That family was just so perfect , went the put-down; no wonder they were so snotty.
The acrid irony underlying this impression was that the Rosses weren’t perfect but merely, more or less, a normal and functioning family. Unlike Wilson and Ballard, and so many others, Diane Ross experienced no family rifts, no four-to-a-bed overcrowding, no long-suffering 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:05 AM Page 22
22
THE SUPREMES
mother—and, most significant of all, no abandoning or alcoholic father. Fred Ross, always a stickler for education, was himself taking night classes in business at nearby Wayne State College, somehow squeezing enough time in between his multiple jobs. Yet rather than being admired for such self-attainment, out of envy the Rosses were perceived as “not one of us.” Accordingly, Diane’s contentious manner had to mean she was lording it over everybody else—though, to be sure, those who met Ernestine found nothing to dislike and had to alter their assumptions.
While the same could not be said of her daughter Diane, the rapidly maturing teenager carried forth on her own terms, toeing the line set by Fred Ross as an honor student. As of the spring of 1959 she, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard were still on separate paths, with no reason to believe they would ever cross. But Fate had other ideas.
0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:05 AM Page 23
two
MOTHS
TO THE
FLAME
Down on the corner of John R and Canfield, the plum-red brick walls and dirty white arches of St. Josaphat’s Church can still be seen for hundreds of yards away, albeit in the creeping shadows of downtown Detroit’s new glassine palaces. Indeed, the stately old church, still foursquare and as unyielding as a
Around him, she loosened up, even getting bold. And he found his eye wandering in her direction.
Smokey Robinson has, for five decades, been circumspectly coy about the simpatico between them, recalling the young Diana Ross as
“shy . . . but always persistent. If we were practicing in the basement, she’d be listening on the staircase. If we were in the living room, she’d be on the front porch. She was a fan, a music lover, and sometimes
[she’d] sing. . . . ‘I love singing,’ Diane couldn’t deny, ‘but I’m not good enough to be a real singer.’. . . I always noticed her ’cause she was pretty and perky, pushing herself to do better.”
The problem, as she freely admitted, was that she couldn’t loosen up enough to sing for people without getting the vapors. Thus, she did terribly in music classes. As for ambition, that was another matter. One of her old music teachers recalls a junior high production of Hansel and Gretel in which Diane was supposed to hold a flashlight in front of her but instead made sure to shine it on her own face. Even if this tale is apocryphal, it fits into a long argosy of similar occurrences, stretching as far back as her gawky, pigtail days, foretelling her can’t-miss future as a star.
At 15, however, all she had were dreams and a new address since Fred had moved his now-complete family to one of the Brewster-Douglass high-rise apartment houses. Diane, ever independent, chose not to stray from the crowd she ran in on Belmont Avenue and kept attending her old junior high, riding a city bus to the old neighborhood.
Thus, in the projects, she was just another fleeting face to Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, who all passed by one another going about their own business. Moreover, what was known on a surface level about the Rosses around the Brewster-Douglass byways made Diane a candidate for ostracism. This was based solely on appearances, on the fact that they seemed somehow better off than most there; in lieu of actually knowing or even speaking with them, neighbors put the onus on the Rosses for being distant. That family was just so perfect , went the put-down; no wonder they were so snotty.
The acrid irony underlying this impression was that the Rosses weren’t perfect but merely, more or less, a normal and functioning family. Unlike Wilson and Ballard, and so many others, Diane Ross experienced no family rifts, no four-to-a-bed overcrowding, no long-suffering 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:05 AM Page 22
22
THE SUPREMES
mother—and, most significant of all, no abandoning or alcoholic father. Fred Ross, always a stickler for education, was himself taking night classes in business at nearby Wayne State College, somehow squeezing enough time in between his multiple jobs. Yet rather than being admired for such self-attainment, out of envy the Rosses were perceived as “not one of us.” Accordingly, Diane’s contentious manner had to mean she was lording it over everybody else—though, to be sure, those who met Ernestine found nothing to dislike and had to alter their assumptions.
While the same could not be said of her daughter Diane, the rapidly maturing teenager carried forth on her own terms, toeing the line set by Fred Ross as an honor student. As of the spring of 1959 she, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard were still on separate paths, with no reason to believe they would ever cross. But Fate had other ideas.
0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:05 AM Page 23
two
MOTHS
TO THE
FLAME
Down on the corner of John R and Canfield, the plum-red brick walls and dirty white arches of St. Josaphat’s Church can still be seen for hundreds of yards away, albeit in the creeping shadows of downtown Detroit’s new glassine palaces. Indeed, the stately old church, still foursquare and as unyielding as a
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