Northern Soul Season: The Supremes

A top 10 hit in the states but a complete flop in the UK...

By Bob Stanley

It has all the ingredients of a classic Northern single - intensity, speed, a subtle darkness. Love Is Like an Itching In My Heart is one of the strongest floor-filling performances by Motown's house band, the Funk Brothers, topped with one of Diana Ross's most liberated vocals - check those "whooo"s midway through each verse. The usually unflappable queen of Motown sounds positively carnal. It was the first Supremes record on which the lead singer was known as Diana rather than her birth name Diane. She had announced this subtle rebirth to the press ahead of their homecoming show at Detroit's Roostertail club in January 1966.

This great 45 was a relative flop, though, reaching no.9 on the US chart and missing out completely in Britain. It may seem odd to call a top ten single a flop, but the Supremes had scored six US number ones in '64 and '65; they were second only to the Beatles in terms of chart invincibility in the sixties. The Supremes followed Love Is Like an Itching with four more straight chart toppers (You Can't Hurry Love, You Keep Me Hangin' On, Love Is Here And Now You're Gone, The Happening) which ran into the middle of 1967. At this point, their beloved songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland left the label and a golden era came to an end.

The flip side, the mid-tempo He's All I Got, is another Northern favourite, making it the only Northern double-sider in the Supremes' catalogue. Another Supremes flip that afficianados love is 1967's There's No Stopping Us Now, which could easily have been a number one in its own right. Flip their other singles, or plough through their albums, and you might be disappointed if you're expecting obscurities on a par with Marvin Gaye's When I Had Your Love or the Miracles' Soulful Shack.

It may seem odd that the biggest act on Northern Soul's blueprint label had so few hits on the scene. Why is this? Over-familiarity for one - most of the singles were such huge hits. Secondly, there were very few top quality songs or outtakes in their deep catalogue, as so much effort was concentrated on their A-sides. Soul snobs might also add that Diana's voice is too 'pop', too white for the scene, but I'm not buying that - those qualities never stopped Bobby Goldsboro, Paul Anka and British country and western singer Ray Merrell getting played.