Born on March 26, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan. She began singing with friends as a teenager, and with two of them formed the successful 1960s trio The Supremes. Ross left for a solo career in 1969 and began appearing in films, as well. Despite personal and professional ups and downs, Ross has withstood the test of time as a performer with a career that spans more than four decades. In terms of music she has paved the way for artists today and I personally call her one of my musical inspirations!
10) Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To?) – The 1976 film may have become a camp classic (reviewed elsewhere on this site) with its share of controversies too numerous to go into here, but this classic song was as great as any movie theme song at the time and showed a new side of Ross with a maturity and sophistication that kept her up to date and at the top. It also led to the title song form the motion picture It’s My Turn with Michael Douglas and one of the greatest movie theme clichés since the 1980s, the self-congratulatory feel-good movie theme that has been done to death so many times, most people writing them have no idea where they started.
DIANA's BIGGEST HITS!
Ross was so successful for so many years, that every single writer, singer and producer in the industry wanted to work with her and some of the biggest names of all time did, including in her RCA years where the label went all out to back some albums with serious talent that would be often unthinkable today (due to costs, rights, industry changes, etc.) so here are the ten songs that most endure and most define the Ross Legacy…
1) Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (long version only) – Ross took the brilliant Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell classic and turned it into an epic tour de force in 1970 that showed she had arrived on her own and was ready for anything. Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who wrote the song, produced this remake.
2) The Boss – Ashford and Simpson returned to deliver the title song to her 1979 album which was Motown’s ambitious attempt to give her a big Disco-era hit, but did not become the megahit that was hoped for, but the song is one of her all-time classics and set up the “feel-good” Ross that powered her huge commercial success that was on the horizon. Coy lyrics, great singing and Ross personified makes this one of the greatest records she ever cut. The album also offers underrated songs like No One Gets The Prizeand I Ain’t Been Licked.
3) Love Child – Though The Supremes had outlasted the “girl group” movement to become its biggest success, this 1968 hit was highly controversial in its time and led to censorship battles as Ross sang about illegitimate birth in frank terms unheard of before. The most realistic and daring song they ever cut remarkably became their biggest hit song of all and is as relevant to day as ever. Yes, they cut other great records, but nothing like this before or after.
4) Love Hangover – As noted, Ross cut this huge #1 crossover hit in 1976 and the result was one of the first big female vocal hits of what became the Disco Era. Like many of the Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder hits that followed, the song started as a soft, slow, standard composition, than broke out into something much more.
5) Muscles – Ross absolutely freaked out the public at large very unexpectedly by cutting this 1982 hit about a woman who loved built men. Though campy now, it was shocking to hear a more mature woman sing openly and sexually (the AIDS crisis was only just on the rise) this way and even more shocking it was written and produced by Michael Jackson. No female vocalist has dared to remake it since.
6) My Mistake (Was To Love You) – Ross did duets occasionally including the megahit Endless Love with Lionel Richie top the (as Bette Midler put it) “endless movie Endless Love”, but even more than the album of Supremes/Temptations duets, her 1973 duet album with Marvin Gaye (Diana & Marvin) was the richest, darkest and most ironic of them all with My Mistake being the biggest hit that proved Ross could hold her own with Gaye as much as any vocalist at the label and she would be his last duet partner there or anywhere.
7) Remember Me – This 1970 song by Ashford and Simpson was not only a hit for her across the board and the follow-up to Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, but established the sound, style and feel of all Ross hits until Love Hangover and is one of the most imitated songs of that period.
8) Swept Away – The title song from her last commercially big album in 1984 (which also offered Missing You, a Forever Young remake and All Of You duet with Julio Iglesias) was written and produced by Daryl Hall and remains one of her strongest songs, a huge #1 Dance Chart hit for her and showed the best possible direction for her to follow, but her fan base was so diverse that her varied efforts on the same album eventually backfired.
9) Telephone – Of all the Ross solo songs not becoming a Pop hit that turned into a key Soul hit, this enduring 1984 track by the late, great Bernard Edwards of Chic (also from the Swept Away album) was only promoted to R&B radio stations when you had songs that we considered “too black” for mainstream radio. Decades later, we see how ahead of its time it was. Edwards and Nile Rodgers co-produced what remains her biggest-selling album ever, the 1980Diana album with hits like Upside Down, I’m Coming Out and My Old Piano. However, we now know the label took the album away form them and remixed it to sound more Pop and Rock. You can read about both versions at this link:
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