More Hits by the Supremes: 300,000 Advance Orders and a Title Royalty Snag

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More Hits by the Supremes, the group’s sixth studio album, came out of Hitsville USA in 1965 with producers Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier under pressure to extend the trio’s run. Distributors placed advance orders for 300,000 copies before release, a remarkable figure for an album at the time. The Bernard Yeszin cover carried printed signatures of the three members, and the record spent 37 weeks on the Billboard 200 behind two No. 1 singles, Stop! In the Name of Love and Back in My Arms Again.

Behind the scenes the label panicked over the third single. Mother Dear was pulled in favor of Nothing But Heartaches, which stalled in the top 20 and was treated as a failure. Mother Dear was then rearranged with a new stop beat and rejected again. The planned opening track, Always in My Heart, was dropped because an older standard shared its title and royalties risked going to the wrong publisher; it resurfaced later as (You’re Gone But) Always in My Heart, a fix suggested by a fan.

  • The remixed Ask Any Girl became the album opener in place of Always in My Heart.
  • The Andantes added uncredited background vocals on Stop! In the Name of Love.
  • James Jamerson’s syncopated bass and Jack Ashford’s vibraphone shaped the sound, with extra parts from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
  • The 2011 expanded edition adds 1965 Paris live recordings and German-language takes, including Baby, Baby, wo ist unsere Liebe.
  • Official Charts Company streaming data placed it among the 20 most-streamed albums of the 1960s.

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