Friday, November 1, 2013

THE SUPREMES: UNMIXED INSTRUMENTAL "BEND A LITTLE" RECORDED 1974/75 - RELEASED IN 1976

Mary Wilson was regrouping The Supremes after Jean Terrell and Lynda Laurence had left in 1973, and they were replaced with Scherrie Payne, and Cindy Birdsong also re-joined the group after taking maternity leave in 1972.  

While recording on their next self-titled LP, The Supremes, released in 1975, they'd recorded a ton of songs and worked with several producers - which is why the album cuts are great, but don't flow too well from one song to the next on the LP, kinda disjointed.

A potential single they'd recorded but wasn't included on their next LP was "Bend A Little", and apparently it hadn't been mixed with the vocals before the LP was released.  A fully-mixed and complete version of "Bend A Little" went unreleased until about 2002, on the 2-disc 70's Anthology.  However the instrumental was good enough to include on Motown Magic Disco Machine Volume II, an LP collection from 1976 (the year before The Supremes disbanded) of just six disco instrumentals by their Motown artists. 

Even without Scherrie, Mary and Cindy's vocals mixed with the studio band playing "Bend A Little", the instrumental is disco at its' finest, by its' own self on the disco collection issued by Motown Records.


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