So as of Saturday (when it came in the mail, a little package from Germany if you know what I mean) in-between my copy of Super Sounds of Happening '71 and the Sweet Whirl album on the shelf generally exists* a really grody copy of The Supremes Produced and Arranged by Jimmy Webb, in a sleeve that doesn't just look like but actually was shat on by a bird, and it's so scratched particularly around the perimeter i.e. track 1 of each side that I think it's possible the record was used as the wheel on a go-kart. Look, if I'm dumb enough to spend up on vinyl at a time when its price generally speaking is overinflated and its value as a medium has been overtaken long ago by digital formats, then I'm dumb enough to enjoy this shitified version of a beautiful pop record. I've long loved the work of Jimmy Webb (put aside the bit in Sally Field's book where he has sex with her in a situation where she cannot say with certainty that consent was sought or granted - that's not the kind of work I'm talking about anyway) and I want to have more experience of the Supremes after Diana R. Diana R. is amazing, I love Diana R., but she wasn't the Supremes. Maybe, even though she replaced Diana R., Jean Terrell was really the heart and soul of the Supremes (this was her last album with them). Maybe the Supremes in the 70s is going to be my jam for the last few weeks/months/years of lockdown! Hey, maybe! I gather that they got more disco after this record and, well, I love disco and I love the Supremes so that would probably be peaches and cream/cheerleaders and team/kettle and steam/torch and beam/Willy Wonka and meme - level greatness.
The Webb songs on this album are wonderful (nothing tremendously famous to me except the totally fucking superb 'I Keep it Hid' which was on his demos album from the 60s)** but there's also a sensational version of Joni Mitchell's 'All I Want' that pins it to a whole different rhythm/sensibility. The song 'Beyond Myself' could have fit on that wonderful, Webberific Fifth Dimension Magic Garden album which remains a frequent fave. Look, everyone's working at their peak. Apparently it wasn't much of a hit, which just goes to show, this just in, people can be dicks.
*Not as I am writing this, it's out and on the turntable baby
** Which is really great, regardless of what is conveyed by the wikipedia entry about it.
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