Meet the Supremes is the debut studio album by The Supremes, released in late 1962 on Motown. The LP includes the group’s earliest singles: “I Want a Guy”, “Buttered Popcorn”, “Your Heart Belongs to Me” and “Let Me Go the Right Way”. The earliest recordings on this album, done between fall 1960 and fall 1961, feature the Supremes as a quartet composed of teenagers Diane Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Barbara Martin. Martin left the group in early 1962 to start a family, and the other three girls continued as a trio. Martin is not pictured on the album because of her departure earlier in the year; although her vocals are present on the majority of the recordings on the album (as well as other recordings made during that period), she never received any royalties from album sales. She does have a spoken interlude line (as do the other group members) on the bridge of the song “(He’s) Seventeen”, and also sings lead on “After All”, a song recorded for but not originally included on the album. Along with these songs, Ballard and Wilson are heard out front on other songs as well. Wilson sings lead on “The Tears” (another former non-album track) and “Baby Don’t Go”; Ballard has leads on a handful of songs as well (see below), including “Buttered Popcorn” and the short intro line to “Let Me Go the Right Way”.
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