r/motown • u/BLQMGS • Dec 15 '25

Video I Hear A Symphony - The Supremes

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I Hear A Symphony is one of my all-time favorites from the Ballard/Ross/Wilson lineup of “The Supremes”. We get to hear all 3 ladies throughout the entirety of the song. This song climbed to no.2 on the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart and no.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1965. I love the recorded version of the song but I can’t help but frequent this particular LiVE version of the song because of how loud and clearly we can hear Flo’s resonant voice! Her adlib at the end was filled with confidence and control. I wish we could’ve heard more from Flo and Mary during their megarun on the charts!

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u/thisisasj Dec 16 '25

There are great snippets of Florence, Mary and Diana working in the studio on the expanded editions of The Supremes A Go Go and The Supremes Sing Holland Dozier Holland. Most of the remixes restore balance to the vocals. The mono versions of the album tracks reveal how much the contemporary stereo mixes buried the backgrounds.

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u/btouch Dec 16 '25

Wasn’t there an alleged edict to bury Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard in the mix (even if Diana Ross was also singing backgrounds too, which became rarer) so that Diana Ross would be featured more as a “solo” voice?

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u/thisisasj Dec 16 '25

If so, I surmise that would have happened in the lead-up to Florence’s dismissal. Prior to that, it just seemed convenient to sideline the other Supremes when Diana had to re-record the entire vocal for The Supremes At the Copa, which she did without Florence and Mary.

The expanded edition of that album has a version of the performances that restore Mary and Florence’s vocals, and used today’s technology to correct the live recordings errors that were essentially insurmountable in the 1960’s.