The Supremes: As Big as The Beatles!
The Supremes remain one of the most successful vocal groups in American music history, with twelve number-one singles to their name. At the height of their fame, they were as popular as The Beatles.
There’s an interesting twist to their story. Although The Supremes became famous for a string of original hits, they weren’t a songwriting group. Most of their biggest songs were written specifically for them by Motown’s songwriting and production teams — particularly the legendary Holland–Dozier–Holland.
In other words, The Supremes were essentially the ultimate cover act: they didn’t write the songs, but they became so closely associated with them that it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone else singing them. And for the working musician, that’s a useful distinction.
From the No-Hit Supremes to Motown Stardom
Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson had been friends and performers before they arrived at Motown, but success certainly wasn’t immediate.
In their early years, none of their releases made the charts, earning them the rather cruel nickname “the No-Hit Supremes” among other acts at the label.
Berry Gordy, however, believed the group had star potential.
The breakthrough came when the Motown machine finally found the right combination of songs, production and presentation. Diana Ross was increasingly pushed into the lead-vocal role, while Ballard and Wilson provided the harmonies that became such an important part of the group’s sound.
When that combination produced Where Did Our Love Go, suddenly, everything changed. It became The Supremes’ first number-one single in the US and the beginning of an extraordinary run of success.
The songs that followed became part of the fabric of popular music:
- Baby Love
- Come See About Me
- Stop! In the Name of Love
- Back in My Arms Again
- You Can’t Hurry Love
- You Keep Me Hangin’ On
- Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone
- The Happening
For a few years, it seemed like The Supremes couldn’t miss!
Baby Love: The Motown Formula
Baby Love is a great example of just how sophisticated the Motown production machine had become.
Once again, Holland–Dozier–Holland supplied the song, while Motown’s studio musicians provided the musical engine underneath it.
The song sounds simple. That’s partly the point. The bass, drums, guitar, percussion and handclaps all have clearly defined jobs, and the arrangement never gets in the way of Diana’s lead vocal.
For a guitarist, this is a useful lesson in not playing too much. You don’t need a complicated guitar part to make a great record. Sometimes the important thing is playing exactly the right thing, in exactly the right place.
That philosophy comes up again and again in Motown.
You Can’t Hurry Love: The Supremes’ Ultimate Guitar Tune
If I had to pick one Supremes song for a guitarist to learn, it would be You Can’t Hurry Love. It’s one of those songs that sounds effortless until you actually have to play it with a band.
The groove is deceptively tight, and the arrangement depends on everyone locking together. The guitar isn’t trying to dominate the record. It’s part of a much bigger rhythmic machine.
That’s one of the reasons I love Motown tunes for working guitarists. You have to learn to listen to the bass, drums, percussion, and backing parts vocals, rather than treating the guitar as the most important instrument in the room. You Can’t Hurry Love is a perfect example.
It’s also exactly the sort of song that belongs in a working band’s repertoire. Put it in the right part of a set and people instantly know what it is — even if they haven’t thought about The Supremes for years.
Even though this became The Supremes’ signature song, Phil Collins would later manage to have a huge hit with his own version, which is another reminder that these songs have lives beyond their original recordings.
For guitarists, that’s useful too: learn the song, but learn the arrangement and the version your audience knows.
Stop! In the Name of Love
The run of hits continued with Stop! In the Name of Love. The tune is a masterclass in Motown songwriting: memorable title, instantly recognisable hook, simple but effective harmony, and a rhythm section that keeps everything moving.
And then there’s the choreography. The famous “stop” hand gesture became inseparable from the song and helped turn The Supremes from a successful vocal group into a visual phenomenon.
This was increasingly important in the 1960s. The Supremes weren’t just making records. They were becoming stars.
You Keep Me Hangin’ On
You Keep Me Hangin’ On was another huge Supremes hit, and it’s particularly interesting from a guitarist’s perspective because the record has such a strong rhythmic attack. Again, the guitar is only one piece of the puzzle.
The famous Motown sound comes from the whole band working together — bass, drums, percussion, guitars, keyboards, horns and vocals all contributing to the groove.
This is why learning these songs can be so valuable even if you’re not planning to become a Motown guitarist. They teach you how to play in a band.
The Supremes Were Great Cover Artists Too
Here’s where the story gets particularly interesting. While most of The Supremes’ biggest hits were written specifically for them, they also recorded a huge number of genuine covers.
They tackled Beatles songs, Christmas standards, Sam Cooke tunes and material from a wide range of writers. That makes The Supremes an unusual kind of cover band.
Their biggest hits weren’t written by the members, but they also deliberately went looking for existing songs to interpret. And that’s exactly what professional musicians do. A great singer or band can take a song written by somebody else and make it their own.
Wonderful World
One of the Supremes’ covers was Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World, why? Because it’s a great tune.
Cooke originally recorded it in 1960, and it has since become one of those timeless pieces of popular music that can work in completely different arrangements.
The Supremes’ version gives you another way into the song. For a guitarist, this is an important distinction: you don’t always have to copy the original artist.
Sometimes you’re learning a song because a particular arrangement gives you something useful to play. And if you’re building a repertoire for a working band, that’s exactly how you should think about it.
A Change Is Gonna Come
The Supremes also recorded Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come. This is a very different kind of song from Baby Love or You Can’t Hurry Love.
Cooke’s original is deeply associated with the civil-rights era, and the song has become one of his defining compositions. The Supremes’ version shows another side of their ability as interpreters.
They weren’t restricted to the bright, fast Motown sound that made them famous. They could also take on material with considerably more emotional weight.
For a guitarist, this is another good repertoire lesson. Don’t just collect songs that sound like your band. Collect songs that give your band somewhere to go.
A set needs dynamics. If everything is Baby Love, eventually Baby Love stops being exciting.
The Supremes and The Beatles
The comparison with The Beatles wasn’t just about popularity. The two acts were both enormous in the 1960s, and The Supremes recorded several Beatles songs themselves. This tells you something about how quickly popular music was changing.
Motown artists weren’t living in a separate musical universe. The Beatles were listening to American Soul and R&B, while American artists were absorbing what was happening in Britain.
The Supremes could move from a Holland–Dozier–Holland original to a Beatles song, then to a Sam Cooke cover or a Christmas standard. That versatility was part of their appeal.
For a working guitarist, it’s a great reminder that a repertoire doesn’t have to belong to one genre.
The Diana Ross Era
As The Supremes became more successful, the internal balance of the group changed. Diana Ross was increasingly positioned as the lead singer, while Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson moved into supporting vocal roles.
The change helped create the distinctive vocal identity of the later Supremes records, but it also created tension within the group.
By 1967, Berry Gordy had renamed them The Supremes with Diana Ross, before the name became Diana Ross & The Supremes just six months later.
It was a clear indication of where Motown’s attention was heading. The group was still producing hits, but Diana Ross was now becoming the individual star.
You Can’t Hurry Love — Again!
It’s worth coming back to You Can’t Hurry Love because it represents so much of what made The Supremes work.
The song wasn’t written by the group. The guitar part isn’t the star. The vocal arrangement isn’t complicated for the sake of being complicated.
Yet put all those elements together and you have one of the most recognisable pop records of the 1960s. That’s the Motown lesson. The groove is the arrangement.
As a guitarist, you don’t always need to fill the space. Sometimes your job is to make the rhythm feel inevitable. That’s much harder than it sounds.
The Supremes After Diana Ross
In 1970, Diana Ross left The Supremes to pursue her solo career. The group continued with new singers, and there were still successful records, but the extraordinary run of the mid-1960s was over.
Motown’s attention had also shifted towards Ross and her move from Detroit to Los Angeles. The Supremes continued to perform and record for several years, but they were never quite the same phenomenon. The classic trio had become part of music history.
The Ultimate Motown Cover Band
There’s something quite funny about The Supremes’ position in music history. They became famous for songs that they didn’t write.
Many of their biggest “original” hits were written specifically for them by Holland–Dozier–Holland and other Motown writers, while their catalogue also contains plenty of genuine covers.
So in one sense, The Supremes were essentially a cover act at the very top of the music business. That’s not a criticism. Quite the opposite.
It demonstrates one of the most important lessons for any working musician: The audience doesn’t care who wrote the song. They care whether you can make them feel something.
The Supremes took songs written by other people and turned them into definitive recordings. That’s exactly what a great working band should be able to do.
The Supremes and Your Guitar Repertoire
If you’re learning guitar with the intention of eventually playing in a band, The Supremes give you a fantastic place to start.
You Can’t Hurry Love is the obvious one to learn first, but Baby Love, Wonderful World and A Change Is Gonna Come give you completely different lessons.
Then there’s Where Did Our Love Go, Stop! In the Name of Love, You Keep Me Hangin’ On, Come See About Me and The Happening.
You don’t need to become a Motown specialist. Just learn a few of these songs properly and you’ll start to understand what makes the whole style work.
Listen to the bass. Listen to the drums. Listen to the backing vocals. Listen to the spaces between the guitar parts. Then try playing the song with a band, or my backing tracks!
That’s when you’ll discover why these apparently simple songs are so much harder to play than they sound. And that’s also why they’re so useful for building a repertoire.
The Supremes may not have written any of their tunes, but they knew how to make those songs theirs. As a guitarist, that’s the skill worth stealing.
The Supremes Tunes | Related Pages
A Change Is Gonna Come | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke using chords, lyrics, a chord chart, chord analysis, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| G | G | Am | Em |
I was born by the river, in a little tent, oh and just like that river I’ve been…
Start learning with the full lesson series: A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke) Guitar Lessons with TAB.
Baby Love | Chords + TAB
You can learn Baby Love by The Supremes using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| C | C7/Bb | A7 | Dm |
Baby love, my baby love, I need you, oh how I need you…
Wonderful World | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Wonderful World by Sam Cooke using chords, lyrics, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| B | G#m |
Don’t know much about history…
Check out the full TAB lesson here: Wonderful World (Sam Cooke) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
You Can’t Hurry Love | Chords + TAB
You can learn to play You Can’t Hurry Love by The Supremes using chords, lyrics, a chord chart, a backing track, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| Bb | Bb | Eb Bb | Bb |
I need love, love, to ease my mind…
Start learning with the full lesson series: You Can’t Hurry Love – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
The Supremes on the web
