Excerpt from the Forward to...

"A LIFETIME TO GET HERE"

by Tom Adrahtas

“…She’s unique.You say her name, you hear the sound. The list of hits goes on and on and on, and she’s still the great all-star entertainer…”

---Clive Davis (pre-grammy party, 2006)

…But with the release of Blue, the critics of the music world in 2006 became reacquainted with exactly what put Diana Ross in a position to become a superstar: her voice. That voice was what first swept along the airwaves through transistor radios. That voice was what fans rushed out to buy in 1964 before they knew what Diana Ross looked like or how many Supremes there were. That voice. That voice communicated both the lyric and the emotion underneath it with a distinctive clarity that set it apart. Pop or soul, standard or jazz, blues or spiritual, that voice was the perfect conduit for what the heart was expressing. Joy or sadness, love or resentment, complicity or defiance, every song was a unique story fully realized.

That voice was the foundation, but the voice alone could not propel Diana Ross to the historical achievement she realized. As Diana has often noted herself, the churches across America are all blessed with terrifically talented singers. (And we should not fall into the juvenile mentality of judging singing talent primarily by the singer’s ability to execute vocal gymnastics; we have been cursed with a generation of shouters dedicated to desecrating ballads and anthems as they seek the rote standing ovation on nothing but pretense.) Still, downplaying it was a mistake made by too many who’d forgotten or dismissed how beautiful Diana Ross’ voice truly is.

Diana backed that voice with a determination common to all female superstars; a determination that should be lauded and appreciated as a sign of all things that are possible. It is only in ignorance and stereotypical convenience that such ambition can be characterized negatively as bitchiness simply because it is being executed by a female. Madonna will never see the day she can sing with the range and clarity of Diana Ross, but like Diana, the Detroit native is fueled by an ambition and work ethic that is shared by only a very elite few. Diana Ross earned Motown founder Berry Gordy’s belief, and used that belief as the fuel that propelled her to the next level. In so doing, she brought The Supremes and most of Motown with her.

The doors Ross opened through her talent helped significantly in allowing white America entree into real black music, and in so doing also made the way into their homes easier for singers with rougher edges like Aretha, Patti, Chaka, and later Whitney.All the while, she did it with a groundbreaking, signature level of glamour, grace, and elegance.

In short, the voice was the foundation, Gordy’s belief was the vehicle, her work ethic was the constant, her image the legacy.

While Dionne Warwick became popular at nearly the same time, Dionne was never considered a “rock” or “soul” singer (if we must attach such labels, and at the time, those were the labels attached to The Supremes), but rather a pop singer whose Burt Bacharach songs were ‘safer,’ more adult-contemporary, middle-of-the-road than Motown’s output. Motown was clearly a black enterprise from top to bottom, and as such was revolutionary, and while she wasn’t the only superstar spawned from the bungalow on West Grand Boulevard, Diana Ross was historically the most important and the most successful.

Over the years, it became fashionable to reduce her to parody, to gloss over her talent and minimize her importance. Critics and detractors allowed her artistry to be obscured by her gowns and hair, in effect turning her image against her. Diana Ross the singer was overtaken by Diana Ross the “diva,” just as Bette Davis the actress was overtaken by the image propagated by the thousands of impersonators waving cigarettes and elbows, eyes bulging. Aretha Franklin could perform perfunctorily in hour-long,walk-through concerts for decades, dress without regard to her girth, and take her fans for granted without hearing a call for accountability. Janet Jackson can lip-synch her way through large portions of her show and sellout coast-to-coast. Patti Labelle can be in the center of vilely, contentious group break-ups, and obscure performing faults with sheer volume, and still be considered a down-home girl. Destiny’s Child has gone through more lineups than a repeat offender, with no damage to the reputations of the group members or the family behind the group.

Diana Ross was not granted that level of insulation in the eyes of the greater public or from the critics who came to dismiss her too quickly. Proof of this can be seen in this fact: as of this writing, the woman who had 18 Number One hits, an Oscar nomination, a Tony, a Golden Globe, and was the most successful female recording artist of all time has 12 Grammy nominations without a single win, without a Grammy lifetime achievement award, without a Kennedy Center recognition. If, as Ernest Hardy suggests, the time is now to re-evaluate, the Grammy and  Kennedy Center committees would do well to right that oversight.

But in the end, the legacy that Diana Ross has established is not served properly by comparisons with the achievements of other artists, but rather is testified to most dramatically because of their sheer presence. That legacy is eternal not just because of those who have come afterward, but because of the music itself, that unique voice that Berry Gordy first recognized, and 40 plus years later is still as affecting as it ever was. The legacy is timeless because the image she created without benefit of a role model is as recognizable today as it was 20 years ago, and will be 20 years from now.

One can read about a group who might be the “next Supremes” or a singer who might be the “next Diana Ross,” but there was only one “first Supremes” and only one “first Diana Ross.”To be the one everyone else is measured against can only be the highest form of compliment.

How, in the end will Diana Ross be remembered? Rest assured, 100 years from now, in some bar on a distant colonized planet, a disembodied voice will waft throughout the room. Someone in that bar will recognize it immediately, throw his or her head back, stand, arms extended upward in a dramatic “V,” and begin to move his or her lips in perfect sync with the crystal clear voice, as unique then as it was in the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and into the 21st century…