Floy Joy (album)

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Floy Joy
Studio album by
The Supremes
ReleasedMay 1972
Recorded1971–1972
GenrePop, soul
Length29:33
LabelMotown
ProducerSmokey Robinson
The Supremes chronology
Dynamite
(1971) 		Floy Joy
(1972) 		The Supremes Produced and Arranged by Jimmy Webb
(1972)
Singles from Floy Joy
  1. "Floy Joy"
    Released: December 1, 1971
  2. "Automatically Sunshine"
    Released: April 11, 1972
  3. "Your Wonderful, Sweet Sweet Love"
    Released: July 11, 1972
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Christgau's Record GuideB+[2]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[3]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[4]

Floy Joy is the twenty-fifth studio album released by The Supremes on the Motown label. This was the only Supremes album solely produced and arranged by Smokey Robinson and included the U.S. top 20 hit, "Floy Joy" and the U.S. top 40 hit, "Automatically Sunshine", both of which were top 10 hits in the U.K.

Overview[edit]

Following the aborted album Promises Kept, Motown handed-over production duties for the Supremes to in-house songwriter, producer, artist, and company vice-president William "Smokey" Robinson. At this time the group included original Supreme Mary Wilson, Cindy Birdsong, and Jean Terrell. Appearing on the album cover alongside Terrell and Wilson was new member Lynda Laurence, brought in to replace Cindy Birdsong, who was noticeably pregnant at the time of the photo shoot. Despite appearing on the album cover, Laurence's vocals are not on the album.

Floy Joy marks for the first time that Mary Wilson had several leads on an album. Wilson takes solo lead on the ballad "A Heart Like Mine." Wilson and Terrell trade-off lead vocals on "Floy Joy" and "Automatically Sunshine", whilst Terrell has sole lead on the album's third single, "Your Wonderful, Sweet Sweet Love". Cindy Birdsong provides a rare co-lead vocal on "Now the Bitter, Now the Sweet" and a spoken passage in "The Wisdom of Time".

The "Floy Joy" single was the Supremes' final Top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching as high as #9 in the UK.[5] Its follow-ups, "Automatically Sunshine" and "Your Wonderful, Sweet Sweet Love" were not as successful, with "Automatically Sunshine" peaking at 37 on the Billboard Hot 100, 21 on the Top Soul Singles and being the group's final Top 10 hit in the U.K. (#10, the fifth in little over two years for the post-Ross line-up),[6] and "Your Wonderful, Sweet Sweet Love" peaking at 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 21 on the Top Soul Singles, and missing the UK Charts altogether. Mary Wilson praised Robinson in her second auto-biography "Supreme Faith" for finding a good vocal blend between she, Terrell and Birdsong. However, on the back cover of the album, Robinson listed Motown's in-house backing vocalists The Andantes for contributing to the set. In fact, the Andantes are audible in the background vocals partially or in full on all but one track, Precious Little Things, which only features Wilson and Birdsong behind Terrell.

Track listing[edit]

Side one[edit]

Superscripts denote lead singers for each track: (a) Jean Terrell, (b) Mary Wilson, (c) Cindy Birdsong.

  1. "Your Wonderful, Sweet Sweet Love" (Smokey Robinson)a
  2. "Floy Joy" (Robinson)a, b
  3. "A Heart Like Mine" (Robinson, Ronald White)b
  4. "Over and Over" (Robinson)a
  5. "Precious Little Things" (Robinson, Marvin Tarplin, Pam Moffett)a

Side two[edit]

  1. "Now the Bitter, Now the Sweet" (Robinson, Cecil Franklin)a,b,c
  2. "Automatically Sunshine" (Robinson)a, b
  3. "The Wisdom of Time" (Robinson, Moffett, Clifford Burston)a, c
  4. "Oh Be My Love" (Robinson, Warren Moore)a

Personnel[edit]

Charts[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ AllMusic review
  2. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: S". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved March 13, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  3. ^ Larkin, Colin (2006). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 7. MUZE. p. 859.
  4. ^ The Rolling Stone Album Guide. Random House. 1992. p. 684.
  5. ^ "Guinness British Hit Singles", fifth edition, Rice/Rice/Gambaccini/Read, Guinness Books, ISBN 0-85112-429-1
  6. ^ "Guinness British Hit Singles", fifth edition, Rice/Rice/Gambaccini/Read, Guinness Books, ISBN 0-85112-429-1
  7. ^ "The Supremes Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  8. ^ "The Supremes Chart History (Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  9. ^ "THE ALBUM CHART: Week of July 8, 1972" (PDF). Record World. worldradiohistory.com. July 8, 1972. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  10. ^ "THE R&B ALBUM CHART: Week of July 22, 1972" (PDF). Record World. worldradiohistory.com. July 22, 1972. p. 256. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  11. ^ "Top Soul Albums" (PDF). Billboard. December 30, 1972. p. TA-26. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
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