I saw Dreamgirls on opening night, and I was moved to do a little bit of research on the Supremes to try to spot some of the real people behind the stories told in the flick. Effie's character in Dreamgirls is based on Florence Ballard, and the outstanding performance in Dreamgirls made me want to see how Flo and Effie compare.
The challenge is that Florence Ballard has become one of those mythological figures who people have a love/hate relationship with. It's hard to see her as the human being without saying "she failed to play the music game and got the consequences" or "she was sacrificed at the altar of Berry Gordy's and Diana Ross's quest for glory".
This appears to be a self-published adaptation of a master's thesis. I have to give the author a lot of credit. I feel that he put in good work to get this published in the '80s and he has taken on the task of trying to research Florence when others would not. I don't know how much work he put into trying to put this into book form. It's only 75 pages or so. The first 15-20 are mostly rehashing history of Motown stuff, a story that has been told more skillfully elsewhere. The last ten pages or so is a summary of what was a short book.
If you're a Supremes completist it's probably worth owning this book used to support further research on the group. Otherwise, most readers can gain what they need from treating the summary at the end as an above average magazine article or borrowing a library or used copy of the book.
As far as what new info there is, I feel that the best things are opening the door on some of Flo's legal troubles post-Supremes. From what is told here, it sounds that Flo made a poor choice in a husband/manager and made a horrible choice in a lawyer who embezzled funds from her. Yes, Motown probably blackballed her. There's some heresy in this book that leads you to believe that. But it's tragedy that when Flo desperately needed someone to trust, noone was available to help her transition.
Motown exploited its artists hunger for stardom in some very exploitive relationships. Florence Ballard is a tragic casualty of Motown. But in some ways Diana Ross doesn't appear to be that happy either. I'm going to have to read Mary Wilson's biography to get what is probably a better perspective.
I applaud the author's efforts, and I hope that better biographies on Florence or group biographies on some of the other tragic soul figures of the 60s and 70s will emerge in new popular interest in the area.
3 stars
--SD