"Flo Ballard’s remarkable story is a personal Greek tragedy. In his wonderful The Lost Supreme, Peter Benjaminson tells it masterfully, with all the drama and empathy her life deserves. In Benjaminson’s talented hands, Flo Ballard earns the lasting stardom she was deprived of in life." —Gerald Posner, author, Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power
“Get to know the real Flo, from the beginning to the end. A must read.” —Otis Williams, the Temptations
“Peter Benjaminson has done a stellar job in capturing [Florence Ballard] and telling her story. Florence deserved a biographer with the skill and talent of Benjaminson. If this book were a record, it would top the charts.” —Al Abrams, publicity director, Motown Records, 1964–1966
“Provides details Ballard wouldn’t or couldn’t discuss.” —Onion
Get to know the real Flo, from the beginning to the end. A must read. (Otis Williams, The Temptations)
Florence deserved a biographer with Benjaminson's skill and talent. . . . If this book were a record it would top the charts. (Al Abrams, publicity director, Motown Records, 1964-66)
What a reader may take away from this book is a new understanding of how cruel the American promise of success can be. (Greil Marcus, author, Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads)
Journalist and author Benjaminson (The Story of Motown) attempts valiantly, painstakingly to resurrect the reputation of founding Supreme member Florence Ballard, who left the group early on and descended into litigiousness and alcoholism. Then a reporter with the Detroit Free Press, Benjaminson interviewed Ballard a year before her death in 1976 and elicited a sad story of a starry-eyed, single-minded high school dropout whose dream, and fortune, was co-opted by Berry Gordy's Motown empire. Growing up together in Detroit's black working-class Brewster Projects, gospel-singing Ballard and Mary Wilson first formed the Primettes, joined by Diane (as she was then known) Ross and Betty McGlown, who eventually dropped out. In 1961, the teenagers auditioned for Berry Gordy, who kept them doing backup as they matured, touring with the Motortown Review across country by bus until the newly configured Supremes (Ballard chose the name) had their first hit in 1964 with "Where Did Our Love Go?" The boom-boom beat coupled with the nasaly sound of Ross's voice prompted Gordy to promote Ross rather than Ballard as lead. Over the Supremes' several heady years in the spotlight, Benjaminson explains in this engaging biography, gobs of money vanished through flimsy contracts and the fingers of unscrupulous managers, costly clothes and glamorous acquaintances, and Ballard's resentment of Ross's ambition and Gordy's manipulation got her fired. (Apr.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Motown Records launched the careers of many black recording artists. One of the most beloved groups was the Supremes, with Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard. Contrary to popular belief, Ballard was the founder of the group; however, at the time of her death, she was unemployed, broke, and on welfare, never able to recover her career after being fired from the group. Her constant battles with Motown owner Berry Gordy, Ross, and her lawyers caused financial and emotional ruin. Although there are many available books on the Supremes, this one concentrates on Ballard's life before, during, and after her rise to fame; former reporter Benjaminson (The Story of Motown) gathered information from Ballard herself shortly before she died. His style is concise, coherent, and engaging. Readers who are familiar with the group and even those who are not will definitely enjoy this well-written biography. [The character of Effie White, played by Jennifer Hudson in the popular film adaptation of Dreamgirls, is based on Florence Ballard.-Ed.]
Rosalind Dayen Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
A book-length portrait of the best singer in Motown's biggest group, delivered three decades after her death. Born in Detroit in 1943, Florence Ballard co-founded the Primettes in 1959 with Diana Ross and Mary Wilson. By 1960, they were working as background singers at Motown Records; when founder Berry Gordy insisted on a new name, Ballard chose the Supremes, and the rest was music history. But all was far from rosy. Ballard was haunted by memories of her rape by a family friend when she was 17; she could be difficult, and she refused to be the controlling Gordy's "puppet on a string." Around 1966, angered by all the attention focused on Ross, who made sure the boss liked her best, Ballard began hitting the bottle hard and was fired from the group the following year. Her post-Supremes solo career never took off, and by 1975, when the author was a reporter at the Detroit Free Press, she and her three children were on welfare. Benjaminson's article about her plight ran nationally, and he won Ballard's trust. She recounted her life to him in eight hours of interviews taped before she died in 1976. Benjaminson (Secret Police: Inside the New York City Department of Investigation, 1997, etc.) relies heavily on this material-indeed, at times it seems he reproduced the interviews in their entirety-but he works hard to place it in context and bring to light its natural narrative arc. He also read the relevant court documents, as well as dozens of books and magazines, and he interviewed Ballard's key surviving family members and Mary Wilson. The book sometimes gets bogged down in minutiae and windy song analysis, but Motown obsessives will appreciate the attention to detail, which doesn't detracttoo much from the final product. Pair this with Wilson's equally revealing autobiography Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme (1986), and you've got an unmatchable snapshot of the exhilarating yet often ugly 1960s soul music scene.