Diana Ross, I'm Still Waiting

 Once a disc jockey reaches the age of 80 and has been broadcasting for 60 years, it's understandable that they might use the same story more than once. It is now 53 years since I'm Still Waiting was lifted from a Diana Ross solo album to make a number 1 single. It was done on the advice of Tony Blackburn who persuaded Talma Motown to do so. You may have heard Tony tell the story on the radio. I'd be surprised if you hadn't. But he was right because schmaltz though it might be, it is a masterpiece of childhood heartbreak and evokes the summer of 71 like nothing else, 

              once again alone
Like a child without her playmate
I had to face the truth
I was still in love with you
But you said:

Little girl
Please don't wait for me
Wait patiently for love
Someday it will surely come

 

Some groups are revealed as only ever a vehicle for the talent or ambition of one of them but the Supremes did well enough when reverting to that original name without Miss Ross after she left them, and collateral damage, behind her on her way to iltimate diva status. She was not the greatest singer but she was, as Berry Gordy's flagship glamour girl at Motown, the girl most likely given her commitment to her own cause and Berry's quality control department, which was him, giving her the best songs.

Neither Mick or Keith can be said to have been successful as solo artists but the Stones were such a brand that they didn't need to be. George outgrew Wham!; Lionel Ritchie was bigger on his own than he'd been as a Commodore, the likes of T. Rex and Simply Red were only ever Marc Bolan and Mick Hucknall and some session men but the most hilarious decision to jettison the band and be a star in one's own right was surely Ali Campbell, leaving UB40 after maybe 35 years. It didn't noticeably work.