Motownobit: Deke Richards

Deke Richards, Motown songwriter, has died.

Richards was one of the four members of The Clan, and - after the Clan disbanded - was one of the four members of The Corporation - alongside Berry Gordy, Alphonzo Mizell and Freddie Perren. Both groups of songwriters were created by Berry Gordy, desperate to avoid the creation of more "back room superstars" after Holland-Dozier-Holland grew too large for the label.

Although only partially successful at burying the characters of the team, both groups did well as creative forces. The Clan was short-lived, but produced a couple of outstanding tracks for Diana Ross & The Supremes:

The Corporation were even more powerful creatively:

The team was disbanded in 1972 - their main focus had been writing for the Jackson 5, a role that was being taken on by Hal David. Subsequently, Motown relented and allowed their group credit to be replaced by the names of the individuals involved.

Last year, Richards was involved in selecting and polishing a collection of Jackson 5 rarities, Come And Get It.

Deke Richards had been suffering from oesophageal cancer. He died March 24th, at the age of 68.

The illustrated Hello: Mary Wilson, Di and Flo

For some reason, Betty didn't get a greeting when the Beloved greeted The Surpemes. Or Barbara.

They were once called the much-less alluring Primettes. First they became The Supremes, and then - Berry Gordy decided his girlfriend was the most supreme of the Suremes, and the became Diana Ross and The Supremes. Primus inter pares.

They still hold the American record for 'most successful vocal act in terms of number one singles', which is quite specific but still quite impressive, although the ease with which acts can get to number one these days means it's probably only going to be a few weeks before Tom Cruise's daughter and Billy Graham's niece get together, throwtogether a baker's dozen of autotuned downloads and change history.

Still, The Supremes, eh? Brilliant:



The Supremes by Bad Dreams Fancy Dress. Oh... the actual Supremes?



[Buy: The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal by Mark Ribowsky
Meet The Supremes


[Part of The Illustrated Hello, the feature that would never end]

Popbitch Twang

Odd to see Popbitch running the WENN claim that Courtney threw herself onto Strummer's coffin - a splendid image, yes, but why feature a story that's already been run on local radio celeb news features and routinely rubbished?

And the Diana Ross fails police drunk test "news" has already been picked clean.

If they carry on like this, Popbitch'll be lifting stories from the Daily Star by Easter.

Equally 'tail wagging the popdog' is the report that Sophie Raworth "has been told to get a Trinny and Susannah style makeover for her hair" - not only does everyone know that T&S don't go near anyone's barnet - the unsavoury business of hairdressing is left offscreen and unmentioned (you should have seen them wince when one of their subjects rubbished their dressing advice but said 'I like the hair'), but the trails for the new Six O'Clock news featuring Sophie's excellent new crop have been running for a day or so already.

It leaves the item on a par with the kid in your class who always felt the need to go "Haircut... Haaaairrrcut" when you'd been to Gus The Elderly Barbers the day before.

Diana slosh

While not wanting to make light of drunk drivers, the whole Diana Ross tale still manages to sound like a great piece of comic theatre - mainly because of the sobriety tests imposed by the US police.

(What's with the whole writing down the alphabet thing anyway? Is the assumption that being pissed and dyslexic are the same thing?)

Driving the wrong way down the street with a more-than-double the level of blood alcohol and then claiming you were trying to rent a video and "got lost" is an early entry for the understatement of the year, we think.