Diana Ross rarity gets first ever vinyl release
Last Saturday at the Mann Center for Performing Arts, the legendary Miss Diana Ross wowed the audience with a career-spanning show featuring solo hits, songs from her days in the Supremes and covers of songs by the likes of Gloria Gaynor and Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. While her “In the Name of Love” tour continues to roll on, fans have another reason to celebrate this summer with the release of a previously hard to find set of songs on vinyl.
Sought after by collectors and considered the rarest of Motown’s rare grooves, Ross’ ‘diana — The Original Chic Mix,’ made its longawaited debut on vinyl earlier this year, albeit with a twist: it comes as a double-LP set on pink vinyl at 45rpm for maximum fidelity.
This edition of ‘diana,’ the 10th Diana Ross solo album, includes alternate-mix versions of such classics as “Upside Down” and “I’m Coming Out,” as envisioned by Chic’s Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame member Nile Rodgers and the late Bernard Edwards, but which was scuttled in the wake of the disco backlash which started to come on strong in 1980, the year of its release.
Following 1979’s collaboration with Ashford & Simpson, which produced her hit “The Boss,” Ross sought a new sound and hired the hot Chic team of Rodgers and Edwards to compose, play on and produce her next release. But she and Motown were allegedly dissatisfied with the too-Chic-like results, a feeling supported by influential disc jockey Frankie Crocker, who warned Ross the record might fall prey to the rising distaste of disco at the time.
Ross turned to Motown’s house engineer, Russ Terrana, the man behind many of her Supremes and solo, who proceeded to remix the entire album, using alternate vocals or placing her vocals more upfront, creating overall a smoother, commercial mix. That version of ‘diana’ came out in May of 1980.
“Our concept was to make it more avant-garde,” Nile Rodgers told writer Brian Chin for the liner notes to the deluxe edition of ‘diana,’ released in 2003, “And their concept was to make it a little bit more accessible.”
Rodgers and Edwards were not informed of the drastic change and, protesting publicly, wanted to take their names off the record. But they eventually cooled off and saw “Upside Down” — Ross’ own description to Rodgers and Edwards as to what she wanted to do to her career — emerge a charttopping smash hit.
Subsequent singles included “I’m Coming Out,” which went to No. 5 in the U.S. and became a LGBTQ anthem, while “My Old Piano,” was a Top 5 hit in the U.K. The album peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, selling 9 million albums worldwide. Soon after Ross moved on to RCA Records in a then-record $20 million deal before returning to Motown in 1989.
Fans now get to hear for the first time on vinyl those original Chic mixes of ‘diana,’ one of four albums the duo of Rodgers and Edwards produced that year, including Sister Sledge’s’ Love Somebody Today,’ Sheila and B. Devotion’s ‘King of the World’ and their own studio album, ‘Real People.’