Florence Ballard

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Florence Glenda Ballard Chapman, nicknamed "Flo" or "Blondie", (June 30, 1943 – February 22, 1976) was one of the original members of The Supremes.

By mid 1967, Ballard's and her band mate Mary Wilson's importance lessened as Supremes as Diana Ross was spotlighted. Ballard suffered from chronic depression and alcoholism, leading to her dismissal from the Supremes in July 1967 and replacement by Cindy Birdsong. After an unsuccessful attempt at a solo career in the late 1960s, Ballard spent much of the last five years of her life in relative poverty before dying in 1976 at the age of thirty-two. Ballard has been referred to by music journalist Richie Unterberger as "one of rock's greatest tragedies".^[1]

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Ballard was born in Detroit, Michigan, of mixed African-American, Native American and European American heritage to parents from Mississippi. The Ballard family had moved to Detroit in hopes of a better life and to take place in the booming job market. Ballard, nicknamed " Blondie" because of her auburn hair and light complexion, was a founding member of The Primettes, an all-girl singing group spinoff from The Primes (later known as The Temptations), in 1959. Ballard's groupmates included her classmate Mary Wilson, Wilson's friend Diana Ross, and Betty McGlown, girlfriend of the Primes' Paul Williams. McGlown was later replaced by Barbara Martin.

Revealed in Peter Benjaminson's The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard, Ballard was raped by basketball player Reggie Harding, in 1960. ^[2] At the time, Harding was a friend of one of Ballard's brothers, and Ballard accepted Harding's offer of a ride home after she attended a local sock hop at Detroit's Graystone Ballroom. Instead, he drove her north to an empty parking lot off of Woodward Avenue in Detroit and raped her at knife point. Her rape was never again mentioned, either in clinical therapy nor social conversation. ^[3]

[edit] The Supremes

Main article: The Supremes

Ballard, Ross, and Wilson shared leads on the Primettes' songs, and performed in local venues around the Detroit area. The Primettes would eventually sign to the Motown label as The Supremes, a name chosen by Ballard, on January 15, 1961.

In the early days of The Supremes, all three girls took turns singing lead vocals. Florence sang lead on the second Supremes single, "Buttered Popcorn." According to fellow Supreme Mary Wilson, Ballard's voice was so loud that she was made to stand up to seventeen feet away from her microphone during recording sessions, while the other two Supremes stood directly in front of their microphones.^[4] During this period, Ballard also briefly toured with The Marvelettes as a replacement for Wanda Young, who was out on maternity leave.

Diane Ross was made lead singer of the Supremes in late 1963, as Motown CEO Berry Gordy believed that Ross' voice, with its high, nasal quality, would help the group cross over to white audiences. Assigned to work with songwriting/production team Holland-Dozier-Holland, Ross, Ballard, and Mary Wilson subsequently released ten number-one US pop hits between 1964 and 1967, all of which featured Ross as lead.

Ballard never again sang lead on another released 45 or on any released album for Motown. Wilson, however, was given the lead on "Come and Get These Memories", on the A'Go Go album and a partial lead with Ross on "Falling in Love with Love" on the Supremes Sing Rogers and Hart album, while Ballard and Ross traded leads on "Manhattan" on the same album. Initially Ballard continued to sing a spotlight solo number, "People" from the Broadway musical Funny Girl, for the Supremes' stage show. In 1966, just prior to opening at the Copacabana supper club in New York City, Ballard complained of a sore throat and asked that she not rehearse "People" to save her voice for the performance. Gordy assigned "People" to Ross. Thus began a marked decline between Gordy and Ballard.

Over the next two years, Ballard and Gordy argued frequently, particularly as Ross became the group's centerpiece.

In early 1967, it was announced that Gordy would be changing the groups name to "Diana Ross & the Supremes". As the year progressed, Ballard frequently missed public appearances; and sometimes missed recording sessions as well. Gordy hired Cindy Birdsong, a singer with Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles, as a stand-in for Ballard in April 1967. By May, it was agreed that Birdsong would become Ballard's permanent replacement. Ballard's final performance with the group was their first appearance at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. She was sent home following the first show, after having stuck out her stomach from between the jacket and pants of her outfit. This behavior outraged Gordy who ordered her not to go onstage for the next show. She was ordered to take the next plane home to Detroit.

[edit] Solo career

Ballard married Thomas Chapman, a former chauffeur for Motown, on February 29, 1968, and signed with ABC Records in March 1968, two weeks after having negotiated her release from Motown on February 22, 1968. Ballard received a one-time payment of $139,804.94 in royalties and earnings from Motown for her six-year tenure with the label.^[5]

Billed as "Florence 'Flo' Ballard" and with her husband serving as her manager, Ballard released the singles "It Doesn't Matter How I Say It (It's What I Say That Matters)" and "Love Ain't Love" on ABC Records. The singles failed to chart, and Ballard's album for ABC was shelved. Her musical career thus went into a rapid decline, and the $139,000 was systematically depleted by the Chapmans' management agency. Stipulations in her contract with Motown prohibited Ballard from mentioning, in any promotional materials or noting on the back of her album liner, that she had ever been in the Supremes or recorded for Motown.

Ballard continued her efforts at a solo career. In September of 1968, she performed alongside Bill Cosby at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. That same year, Ballard rode on a float in that city's Bud Billiken Parade with comedian Godfrey Cambridge. On October 20, 1968, she was the featured personality of Detroit's magazine, Detroit and that same month, she gave birth to twin girls, Michelle Chapman and Nicole Chapman, the first two of her three children. She began the new year by performing at one of Richard Nixon's inaugural balls in Washington, DC on January 20, 1969. In 1971, Ballard unsuccessfully sued Motown for additional royalty payments she believed were due to her.

[edit] Decline

In 1973, Ballard gave birth to her third child, Lisa Chapman. Soon after, Thomas Chapman left Ballard and her house was seized by foreclosure, effectively ending her career. Diana Ross heard of Ballard's struggle to save her house from foreclosure and offered financial help, but legal issues surrounding the matter prevented this from going through.^{[citation needed]}

Over the next few years, Ballard laid low from all publicity. In 1974, Mary Wilson, who had maintained a rapport with Ballard over the years, invited Ballard to fly out to California to visit. The Supremes, with lead singer Scherrie Payne, were performing at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Wilson invited Ballard onstage to sing with the group. Ballard joined them on stage, but did not sing: instead, she played the tambourine. Although her onstage appearance brought loud cheers from the crowd, Ballard told Wilson that she had no interest to continue a career in music.

Upon her return to Detroit, Ballard's financial situation declined further. Uninterested in returning to showbusiness, and with three children to support, she applied for welfare. This news and the story of her downward spiral hit the national newspapers.

[edit] Comeback and sudden death

The cover of the UK release The Supreme Florence Ballard. Despite most of the songs on the album originally being recorded for ABC Records in 1968, the cover photo is actually a Motown publicity photo from 1965.

In 1975, Ballard received a settlement from a slip-and-fall incident in which she had broken her leg after slipping on a patch of ice in Detroit. With the accident settlement money, Ballard purchased a small house on Shaftsbury Avenue in Detroit for herself and her children and made a decision to return to singing. Around this same time, Ballard also reconciled with her estranged husband.

Backed by the female rock group "The Deadly Nightshade," Ballard performed as a part of the Joan Little Defense League at a concert held at Detroit's Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium on June 25, 1975. Following the success of this performance, Ballard received requests for newspaper and television interviews, including an appearance on the local Detroit talk show The David Diles Show.

On February 21, 1976, Ballard entered Mt. Carmel Mercy Hospital, complaining of numbness in her extremities. The next day, she died at 10:05 a.m. of coronary thrombosis, a blood clot in one of her coronary arteries. She was thirty-two years old.

Ballard is buried in Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery located in Warren, Michigan. In the years following Florence Ballard's death, Diana Ross established trust funds in the names of each of Ballard's three children.

Florence Ballard: Forever Faithful!, a biography of Ballard written by Randall Wilson, was printed in 1999. In 2002, The Supreme Florence Ballard, which included all the tracks from the album she recorded for ABC Records in 1968, was released on compact disc by Spectrum, a London-based company.

Another biography was published by Ballard's sister Maxine Ballard in 2007, "The True Story of Florence Ballard." The book comes with a CD containing Flo's last interview, in which she shares her story behind her painful split from the group. The CD also contains a tribute from her sister, Maxine "Precious" Ballard.

A new book, The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard by Peter Benjaminson about Flo was released on April 1, 2008.

[edit] References in other media

The 1980 hit "Romeo's Tune", from fellow Mississippian Steve Forbert's album Jackrabbit Slim is "dedicated to the memory of Florence Ballard". She is also mentioned in the Billy Bragg song "King James Version" on his William Bloke album. On his 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead, hip-hop artist Nas mentions the Ballard/Ross rivalry in his song "Blunt Ashes": "When Flo from the Supremes died/Diana Ross cried/Many people said that she was laughing inside."

Dreamgirls, a 1981 Broadway musical, was inspired by the Supremes, and the central character of Effie White, originated by Jennifer Holliday, is said to be modeled after Ballard. That character was played by Jennifer Hudson in the film version of Dreamgirls released in 2006, which featured more overt references to Ballard's life and the Supremes' story than the stage musical. Both Holliday and Hudson's portrayals of Effie have received significant notice: Holliday won the 1982 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance, while Hudson has been awarded a number of critics' awards, including a 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture. At the conclusion of her Golden Globe Award acceptance speech, Hudson dedicated her win to Ballard. Hudson later went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the Academy Awards.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Album

• 2002: The Supreme Florence Ballard (originally shelved by ABC Records in 1968 under the proposed title, "...You Don't Have To")

[edit] Singles

• 1968: "It Doesn't Matter How I Say It (It's What I Say That Matters)" b/w "Goin' Out Of My Head" (ABC Records #45-11074A/B)
• 1968: "Love Ain't Love" b/w "Forever Faithful" (ABC Records #45-11144A/B)

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Wilson, Mary and Romanowski, Patricia (1986, 1990, 2000). Dreamgirl & Supreme Faith: My Life as a Supreme. New York: Cooper Square Publishers. ISBN 0-8154-1000-X.
• Taraborrelli, J. Randy (2007) Diana: A Biography

[edit] External links

• Maxine Ballard: Home. - Sister and author of Florence Ballard's official biography.
• Florence Ballard at the Internet Movie Database
• Florence Ballard at TV.com
• Florence Ballard at Find A Grave
• Reflections Of The Supremes