Mary Wilson was an American singer. She gained worldwide recognition as a founding member of the Supremes, the most successful Motown act of the 1960s and the best-charting female group in U.S. chart history, as well as one of the best-selling girl groups of all-time. The trio reached number one on Billboard's Hot 100 with 12 of their singles, ten of which feature Wilson on backing vocals.
The Funk Brothers were a group of Detroit-based session musicians who performed the backing to most Motown recordings from 1959 until the company moved to Los Angeles in 1972.
The Andantes were an American female session group for the Motown record label during the 1960s. Composed of Jackie Hicks, Marlene Barrow, and Louvain Demps, the group sang background vocals on numerous Motown recordings, including songs by Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, the Four Tops, Jimmy Ruffin, Edwin Starr, the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Marvin Gaye and the Isley Brothers, among others. It is estimated they appeared on 20,000 recordings.
American girl group The Supremes have released 29 studio albums, four live albums, two soundtrack albums, 32 compilation albums, four box sets, 66 singles and three promotional singles. The Supremes are the most successful American group of all time, and the 26th greatest artist of all time on the US Billboard charts; with 12 number-one songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and three number-one albums on the Billboard 200. The Supremes were the first artist to accumulate five consecutive number-one singles on the US Hot 100 and the first female group to top the Billboard 200 albums chart with The Supremes A' Go-Go (1966). In 2017, Billboard ranked The Supremes as the number-one girl group of all time, publishing, 'although there have been many girl group smashes in the decades since the Supremes ruled the Billboard charts, no collective has yet to challenge their, for lack of a better word, supremacy.' In 2019, the UK Official Charts Company placed 7 Supremes songs—"You Can't Hurry Love" (16), "Baby Love" (23), "Stop! In the Name of Love" (56), "Where Did Our Love Go?" (59), "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (78), "Come See About Me" (94) and "Stoned Love" (99)—on The Official Top 100 Motown songs of the Millennium chart, which ranks Motown releases by their all-time UK downloads and streams.
Kim Weston is an American soul singer, and Motown alumna. In the 1960s, Weston scored hits with the songs "Love Me All the Way" and "Take Me in Your Arms ", and with her duet with Marvin Gaye, "It Takes Two".
United is a studio album by soul musicians Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, released August 29, 1967 on the Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol produced all of the tracks on the album, with the exception of "You Got What It Takes" and "Oh How I'd Miss You". Fuqua and Bristol produced "Hold Me Oh My Darling" and "Two Can Have a Party" as Tammi Terrell solo tracks in 1965 and 1966, and had Gaye overdub his vocals to them in order to create duet versions of the songs.
All Directions is a 1972 album by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label, produced by Norman Whitfield. It reached number two on the Billboard 200, making it the band's most successful non-collaborative album on the chart, and became their twelfth album to reach number one on the Top R&B Albums chart.
The Temptations with a Lot o' Soul is the fifth studio album by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label released in 1967. Featuring four hit singles, With a Lot o' Soul is the most successful Temptations album from their "classic 5" era, during which David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, Melvin Franklin, and Otis Williams constituted the Temptations' lineup.
Diana Ross & the Supremes Join the Temptations is a collaborative album combining Motown's two best selling groups, Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations. Issued by Motown in late 1968 to coincide with the broadcast of the Supremes/Temptations TCB television special, the album was a success, reaching #2 on the Billboard 200. Diana Ross & the Supremes Join the Temptations spent four weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart.
That's the Way Love Is is the tenth studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released on January 8, 1970, on the Tamla (Motown) label. Built on the success of the title track originally taken from M.P.G., and much like Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" after its success, was released with intent to sell albums based on the success of one particular single. Gaye was showing signs of disillusionment from the label's powers-that-be mentality but it didn't affect the singer's performance as he gave a powerful vocal in the title track and was especially impressive with his version of The Beatles' "Yesterday". He achieved some success with a cover version of "How Can I Forget?", which just missed out on the US Pop Top 40, making #41, and reached #18 on the R&B Charts. Its B-side, a cover of Jimmy Ruffin's "Gonna Give Her All the Love I've Got", made a separate chart entry, and peaked at #67 and #27 on the Pop and Soul Charts respectively. Gaye also recorded a version of Ruffin's "Don't You Miss Me a Little Bit Baby" for the album. The LP also features Gaye's rendition of the socially conscious tune "Abraham, Martin & John", which became a hit in the UK, peaking at #9 in June 1970. The single is widely regarded as a hint of what would follow a year later with his What's Going On. He also covered The Temptations' hits "I Wish It Would Rain" and "Cloud Nine".
Touch is the twenty-third studio album by The Supremes, released in the summer of 1971 on the Motown label. It was the third and final LP under the supervision of Frank Wilson, who had been the group's main producer since 1970, when Jean Terrell joined as lead singer. The album also marked the first Motown contributions by composer-producer Leonard Caston, Jr. and writer-lyricist Kathleen Wakefield: "Nathan Jones", a hit single sung by all three members, which was later recorded by Bananarama, and "Love It Came to Me This Time".
Mary Wilson is the debut solo album by the founding Supremes member, Mary Wilson, released on the Motown label in 1979.
The Magnificent 7 is a collaborative album combining Motown's premier vocal groups, The Supremes and The Four Tops. Issued by Motown in 1970, it followed two collaborative albums The Supremes did with The Temptations in the late 1960s. The album featured their hit cover of Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep – Mountain High", which reached number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In the UK, the album peaked at number 6. In December 1971, Billboard reported UK album sales of 30,000 copies.
The Return of the Magnificent Seven is the second collaborative album between Motown label-mates The Supremes and Four Tops, released in 1971. The production only featured two covers compared to their first album together, The Magnificent 7, that included more than eight. Although the three albums the Supremes recorded with the Four Tops did not match the commercial success of the Supremes/Temptations duet albums, what they did have instead were original tunes, soulful lead vocals by Jean Terrell and Levi Stubbs and high production values in terms of arrangements and orchestration.
Dynamite is the third and last collaborative album between labelmates The Supremes and The Four Tops, released on the Motown label in 1971. The album was a collection of material recorded for the Magnificent Seven albums, but which had not been included on either of those two albums. The cover artwork was an illustration based on photo sessions from the Return of the Magnificent Seven album artwork. In the US, Dynamite was as commercially unsuccessful as The Magnificent 7 (1970) and The Return of the Magnificent Seven (1971), peaking at the lower hundreds of the Billboard Top 200. The album fared much better on the Billboard R&B charts, peaking at 21.
Lewis Ronald McNeir is an American singer and songwriter.
Still Waters Run Deep is a 1970 album by the American vocal group Four Tops.
The Four Tops are an American vocal quartet from Detroit who helped to define the city's Motown sound of the 1960s. The group's repertoire has included soul music, R&B, disco, adult contemporary, doo-wop, jazz, and show tunes.
Four Tops Second Album is a 1965 R&B studio album by vocal quartet the Four Tops. The album, released on the Motown record label, reached No. 3 on Billboard's Black Albums chart and No. 20 on the Billboard Top LPs chart. The album contains three hit singles. "I Can't Help Myself " reached No. 1 on both the Black Singles and Pop Singles charts, while "It's the Same Old Song" reached No. 2 and No. 5 respectively, and "Something About You" reached No. 9 and No. 19. In 1990, Motown bundled the Four Tops' first two albums together in a release titled Four Tops/Four Tops Second Album.
Motown Chartbusters is a series of compilation albums first released by EMI under licence on the Tamla Motown label in Britain. In total, 12 editions were released in the UK between 1967 and 1982. Volumes 1 and 2 were originally called British Motown Chartbusters; after this the title Motown Chartbusters was used.
