The Supremes are back with their seventh number one song. They truly were the top female group of the Sixties. “You Can’t Hurry Love” was written by the brilliant team of Holland-Dozier-Holland who were the leading writers for Motown.

The song is sang as a memory. Diana Ross is singing as if she remembers her mother’s words to her when she was younger. The song is based on a gospel song called “(You Can’t Hurry God) He’s Right on Time” which was written by Dorothy Love Coates back in the Fifties.

Over the last seven number one’s, I really haven’t talked much about where the girls themselves came from. Let’s rectify that right now.

Diana Ernestine Ross was born in 1944 in Detroit, Michigan. She was the second eldest child of Fred and Ernestine Ross. The parents had decided to call her Diane, with an ‘e,’ but the hospital messed up the birth certificate and listed her as Diana with an ‘a.’ Diane grew up as Diane and all of her friends know her as Diane. She even used Diane in her early years of recording for Motown, but then decided to use the name on her birth certificate, so from then on, she was known as Diana.

When Diane was seven years old, her mother contracted tuberculosis and the family needed to move to a warmer climate, so they moved to Bessemer, Alabama. It was there that she got really acquainted with gospel music and began to sing in the church choir. When she was fourteen, the family moved back to Detroit where Diane finished high school and was about to enter into the workforce. She got a job at Hudson’s Department Store in Detroit, where it is rumored that she was the first black employee who was allowed to work outside of the kitchen. When she was fifteen, she joined three other girls, Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Betty Travis and the four of them became the Primettes. As mentioned in an earlier article, Betty Travis dropped out and the group became three. There were some other personnel changes, but those three, Florence, Mary and Diana became the Supremes as we know them today.

“You Can’t Hurry Love” debuted on the pop charts on August 13, 1966. It took only four weeks to reach number one where it stayed for two weeks. Phil Collins remade the song in 1982 and hit number ten. Billboard Magazine ranked the song as number nineteen on their list of the 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time.