Motown 649
Producers: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier
Track listing: Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart / This Old Heart of Mine (is Weak for You) / You Can’t Hurry Love / Shake Me, Wake Me (When It’s Over) / Baby I Need Your Loving / These Boots Are Made for Walking / I Can’t Help Myself / Get Ready / Put Yourself in My Place / Money (That’s What I Want) / Come and Get These Memories / Hang on Sloopy
October 22, 1966
2 weeks
By the fall of 1966, Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard were already enjoying huge success as the Supremes. When “You Can’t Hurry Love” knocked Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” from the top of the Hot 100 on September 10, 1966, it became the trio’s seventh Number One single, yet the group wasn’t having the same kind of success on the Top LP’s chart.
Where Did Our Love Go, the debut album that shared the name of the Supremes’ first Number One single, spent four weeks at number two on the Top LP’s chart, but was kept out of the top position by Beatles ’65. Only two of the Supremes’ next six albums managed to crack the top 10 — More Hits by the Supremes hit number six in September 1965, while I Hear a Symphony peaked at number eight in April 1966. Yet the Supremes would get their due at the summit of the album chart that same year with their eighth album, Supremes A’ Go-Go.
Unlike some of the trio’s early efforts, Supremes A’ Go-Go had no specific theme. “We had a concept when we did A Bit of Liverpool, which had a lot of the British hits on it,” says Diana Ross. “We also did an album of Sam Cooke songs [We Remember Sam Cooke], and later we did a Rogers and Hart album [The Supremes Sing Rogers & Hart], but when we did A’ Go- Go, we would just go in and record a couple of songs and then we would go out on tour, then we would record a few more, and eventually they put it out as an album. Motown was mostly known for its singles.”
At the time, the Supremes were still a relatively young act. The group was founded in Detroit in 1959 as a quartet known as the Primettes. Shortly after changing its name to the Supremes in 1961, the group was slimmed down to a trio when Barbra Martin left the quartet.
While the Supremes often paid tribute to their contemporaries by covering their songs, the group’s early hits, including their first seven Number One singles, came from the writing team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland.
“You Can’t Hurry Love,” the biggest hit from Supremes A’ Go-Go, was one of the eight Holland-Dozier-Holland songs on the album. Other selections included the Supremes’ versions of Number One hits by Nancy Sinatra (“These Boots Are Made for Walking”) and the McCoys (“Hang on Sloopy”). Also included was the Supremes’ take on “Money (That’s What I Want),” a song co-written by Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. for Barrett Strong and best known for the cover version included on The Beatles’ Second Album.
The Fab Four may have kept the Supremes’ debut album from the top spot with Beatles ’65, but Supremes A’ Go-Go turned the tables. Not only did the album end Revolver‘s six-week run at Number One, but “You Can’t Hurry Love” kept the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” out of the top spot on the Hot 100.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of October 22, 1966
1. Supremes A’ Go-Go, The Supremes
2. Revolver, The Beatles
3. Dr. Zhivago, Soundtrack
4. The Mamas and the Papas, The Mamas and the Papas
5. What Now My Love, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass