“A Soulful Tale Of Two Cities”

Snowed in,started playing some cds that I hadn’t played in a while,and I came across this,and decided to repost this for folks who probably haven’t heard it yet.
“A Soulful Tale Of Two Cities” a two-CD set. It has Classic Motown and Philly soul artists collaborating and putting a new spin on classic tracks. I’m really not a big fan of remakes,
but for me this is a match made in heaven with
Phil Hurtt, Bobby Eli of MFSB,Lamont Dozier, and a legendary lineup featuring Clay McMurray, Gene Leone, The Funk Brothers, Bunny Sigler,Bobby Taylor, Freda Payne, Barbara Mason, George Clinton, Kathy Sledge , and one of the pioneers of Philadelphia radio Carl Helm.
One one disc “Philly does Motown” and on the other”Motown does Philly.”
On The “Philly does Motown” side they do two of my favorite Stevie Wonder tunes,
Jean Carne’s recreates “Higher Ground
and
Jimmy Ellis of the Trammps
does his thing with Isn’t She Lovely.
But for me Bunny Sigler really brings it on Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.”
Flip to the Motown Side
and
Ollie Woodson of the Temptations makes “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” his”,
Lamont Dozier rekindling a love affair with Me and Mrs. Jones,
and
Legendary Bobby Taylor(The Vancouvers)
takes you back in the day with his rendition of “Sunshine”.
This is truly a must have in your musical collection.

Thanks To Bobby Eli for turnin me on to this classic…
It’s Available on their website http://www.soulfultale.com/
see ya..
jammin sam!

Raised in New York by a Cuban father and a Puerto Rican mother, Angela Bofill was a student of many styles of music, from the latin sounds played regularly by her family to the soul and jazz sounds of her neighborhood in the Bronx.  She began singing professionally as a teenager as a member of New York’s All City Voices and as featured lead soloist for the Dance Theater of Harlem.

After completing her studies in California, Bofill was introduced by her friend, jazz flutist Dave Valentin, to Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen of GRP records, and they signed her for her 1978 debut, “Angie” (produced by Ashford & Simpson). The album was a breakout smash on contemporary jazz radio and the tastefully arranged jazz vocal disc showed a gifted young artist with a rich voice beyond her years. Featuring a number of great cuts, including most notably a cover of “This Time I’ll Be Sweeter,” Angie became one of the year’s biggest jazz albums. She followed it in 1979 with the even better “Angel of the Night,” a more muscular album that showed she had the chops to handle upbeat material like the title cut and the fantastic “What I Wouldn’t Do” as well as softer tracks such as “I Try” (later beautifully remade by Will Downing).

To hear Angela’s classic hit click this link ..I Try

Sensing a star in the making, Clive Davis and Arista Records bought out Angela’s GRP contract and teamed her with hot writer/producer Narada Michael Walden for “Something About You,”

She teamed up aain with Walden in 1983 for “Too Tough,” which was even more directly aimed at the urban market, with a funk-laded title cut and very little resembling her earlier jazz stylings. And while it became her highest charting album on the R&B charts, it was at the expense of her loyal jazz following, which never really came back. She again teamed with Walden for Teaser, which featured the nice ballad, “I’m On Your Side.”

Whether singing jazz, soul or funk, and regardless of the quality of material she worked with, Bofill always got the most out of her material and made even poorly produced work sound better than it should.

She recorded two more modestly successful albums for Arista (with the help of the System and George Duke) before moving to Capitol and producer extraordinaire Norman Connors for “Intuition,” in 1988. It was her last notable chart success. She recorded three more albums over the next eight years of varying quality, and provided backing vocals on a number of other albums, most notably Connors’ excellent “Eternity” in 2000,where she sounded as wonderful as ever.

She’s appeared in a number of stage plays over the last few years, including “God Don’t Like Ugly” and “What A Man Wants, What A Man Needs.” She’s also regularly toured the US and Europe in multi-artist jazz artist shows.

In January, 2006, Bofill suffered a massive stroke that left her paralyzed on her left side. It’s doubtful she will ever perform or record again.

Bofill, 53, was eventually released from intensive care and will require speech and physical therapy. She was uninsured, so many of her friends organized benefit concerts to raise money for her medical treatment. She currently resides in Seattle, Washington. Source: Soul Tracks.com

TUPAC’S GODMOTHER: HAS A $1 MILLION BOUNTY ON HER HEAD

Assata Shakur (born July 16, 1947) under the name Joanne Deborah Byron Chesimard, is an African-American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army.  In 1977 she was convicted of several felonies in relation to the 1973 slayings of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and fellow activist Zayd Malik Shakur.

She escaped from prison in 1979 and has been living in Cuba with political asylum since 1984.  Since May 2, 2005, she has been classified as a “domestic terrorist” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has offered a $1 million reward for assistance in her capture.

She is also the  godmother of hip hop artist Tupac Shakur.

Shakur was born in New York City, New York on July 16, 1947, (or, according to the FBI, August 19, 1952) but spent most of her childhood in Wilmington, North Carolina until her family relocated to Queens when she was a teenager.  She attended Borough of Manhattan Community College and City College of New York in the mid 1960s, where she was involved in many political activities.  After graduation, Shakur became involved in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.  Shakur and others claim that she was targeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s COINTELPRO as a result of her involvement with these organizations.

Msgr. John Powis alleged that Shakur was involved in an armed robbery at his Our Lady of the Presentation church in Brownsville, Brooklyn on September 14, 1972 based on FBI photographs; Shakur was not charged with this robbery and the only person arrested for it was acquitted.

In 1972, Shakur was made the subject of a nationwide manhunt after the F.B.I. alleged that she was the “revolutionary mother hen” of a Black Liberation Army cell which had conducted a “series of cold-blooded murders of New York City police officers.”

After her capture, however, Shakur was charged with none of the killings which had made her the subject of the manhunt.  On May 2, 1973, Shakur, at that time a member of the Black Liberation Army and no longer a member of the Black Panther Party, was stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike by State Troopers James Harper and Werner Foerster, along with two Black Panthers: Zayd Malik Shakur (no relation) and Sundiata Acoli, for driving with a broken taillight. Accounts of the confrontation differ, but Zayd Shakur and Trooper Foerester were killed in the ensuing shootout, and Assata Shakur and Trooper Harper were injured.

Acoli then drove the car—which contained Assata, who was wounded, and Zayd, who was dead—several miles down the road, where Assata Shakur was apprehended.  Acoli then exited the car and fled into the woods and was captured after a manhunt the following day.

Between 1973 and 1977, in New York and New Jersey, Shakur was indicted 10 times in 7 different criminal trials, including two bank robberies, the kidnapping of a Brooklyn heroin dealer, attempted murder of two Queens police officers steming from a January 23, 1973 failed ambush, and the murder of a New Jersey state trooper.  Shakur’s defense attorney’s included Stanley Cohen,who died under mysterious circumstances early on in Ms. Shakur’s last trial. Of these trials, three resulted in acquittals, one in a hung jury, and two in dismissals in one of her bank robbery trials, the jury determined that a widely-circulated F.B.I. photo allegedly showing her participating in the robbery was not her.

Judge Leon Gerofsky ordered a change of venue in 1973 to Morris County, New Jersey, saying “it is almost impossible to obtain a jury here comprised of people willing to accept the responsibility of impartiality so that defendants will be protected from transitory passion and prejudice. Shakur was originally slated to be tried together with Acoli, but the trials were separated due to her pregnancy, and her trial resulted in a mistrial in 1974.

By the time her 1977 trial started, Acoli had already been convicted of firing the bullets which killed Trooper Foerester.  On March 25, 1977—back in Middlesex County, New Jersey—Shakur was convicted as an accomplice regarding the murders of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and Zayd Shakur, possession of weapons, as well as assault and attempted murder of Trooper Harper.  Under New Jersey law at the time, if a person’s “mere presence” at a crime scene could be construed as “aiding and abetting” that crime, that person could be charged with the substantive crime.  She was sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison.  All of the jury members were white and five had personal ties to State Troopers.  The judge did not allow evidence of alleged COINTELPRO involvement to be admitted during her trial and refused to investigate a burglary of her defense counsel’s office which resulted in the disappearance of trial documents.

Sundiata Acoli, Assata Shakur, Trooper Harper, and a New Jersey Turnpike driver who saw part of the incident were the only surviving witnesses.  Acoli did not testify or make any pre-trial statements.  A driver traveling North on the turnpike testified that he had seen a State Trooper struggling with a Black man between a white vehicle and a State Trooper car, whose revolving lights illuminated the area.  Shakur testified that Trooper Harper shot her after she raised her arms to comply with his demand, the second shot hitting her in the back as she was turning to avoid it, and that she climbed into the back seat of the Pontiac which Acoli drove five miles down the road and parked, and remained there until State Troopers dragged her onto the road.

Trooper Harper’s three official reports state that after he stopped the Pontiac, he ordered Acoli to the back of the vehicle for Trooper Foerester—who had arrived on the scene—to examine his driver’s license, and that after Acoli complied and as he was looking inside the vehicle to examine the registration, Trooper Foerester yelled and held up and ammunition clip, as Shakur simultaneously reached into her red pocketbook, pulled out a nine-millimeter weapon and fired at him.

Trooper Harper’s reports then state that he ran to the rear of his car and shot at Assata Shakur who had exited the vehicle and was firing from a crouched position next to the vehicle In his Grand Jury testimony, Trooper Harper swore under oath that these reports were correct.

Under cross-examination at both Acoli and Shakur’s trials, Trooper Harper admitted to having lied in these reports and in his Grand Jury testimony about Trooper Foerester yelling and showing him an ammunition clip, about seeing Shakur holding a pocketbook or a gun inside the vehicle, and about Shakur shooting at him from the car.

A key element of Shakur’s defense was medical testimony meant to demonstrate that she was shot with her hands up and that she would have been subsequently unable to fire a weapon.  A neurologist testified that the median nerve in Shakur’s right arm was severed by the second bullet, making her unable to pull a trigger; a surgeon testified that it was “absolutely anatomically necessary” for Shakur’s arms to have been in the air given her wounds and that Trooper Harper’s claim that she was crouching was “totally anatomically impossible;” a pathologist testified that there was “no conceivable way” the first bullet could have hit Shakur’s clavicle if her arm was down.

Neutron activation analysis administered after the shootout showed no gun powder residue on Shakur’s fingers, which—her lawyers argued—proved she could not have shot a weapon; her fingerprints were not found on any weapon at the scene, according to forensic analysis performed at the Trenton, New Jersey crime lab and the F.B.I. crime labs in Washington, D.C..

After the Turnpike shootings, Shakur was imprisoned in New Jersey State Reception and Correction center in Yardville, Middlesex County, New Jersey and later moved to Rikers Island Correctional Institution for Women where she was kept in solitary confinement.  Shakur’s only daughter, Kakuya Shakur, was conceived during her trial and given birth to in prison.  On April 8, 1978, Shakur was transferred to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia where she met Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebrón and Mary Alice, a Catholic nun, who introduced Shakur to the concept of liberation theology.

At Alderson, Shakur was housed in the Maximum Security Unit, which also contained several members of the Aryan Sisterhood as well as Sandra Good and Lynette Fromme, followers of Charles Manson.  In 1978, after the Maximum Security Unit at Alderson was closed, Shakur was transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey.

On November 2, 1979 she escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey, after members of the Black Liberation Army conducted an armed action.  No one, including the guards, was injured during the prison break.  Charged with assisting in her escape was her brother, Mutulu Shakur, and Silvia Baraldini.  In part for his role in the event, Mutulu was named on July 23, 1982 as the 380th addition to the “FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, where he remained for the next four years until his capture in 1986.

After her escape, Assata lived as a fugitive for the next several years.  The F.B.I. circulated “wanted” posters throught the New York-New Jersey area; her supporters hung “Assata Shakur is weclome here” posters in response.
She fled to Cuba in 1984 where she was granted political asylum, saying she had never received a fair trial.  In 1985 she was reunited with her daughter, Kakuya, who had previously been raised by Shakur’s mother in New York.  She published Assata: An Autobiography, which was written in Cuba, in 1987.  Her autobiography does not give a detailed account of the events on the New Jersey Turnpike, except saying that the jury “Convicted a woman with her hands up!”

In 1997, Carl Williams, the superintendent of the New Jersey State Police wrote a letter to the Pope John Paul II asking him to raise the issue of Shakur’s extradition during his talks with President Fidel Castro. During the pope’s visit to Cuba in 1998, Shakur agreed to an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza.

On March 10, 1998—the 85th anniversary of the death of Harriet Tubman—New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman asked Attorney General Janet Reno to do whatever it takes to return Shakur from Cuba.  Later in 1998, the U.S. media widely reported claims that the United States State Department had offered to lift the Cuban embargo in exchange for the return of ninety U.S. political exiles, including Shakur.

In 1998, the United States Congress passed a resolution asking Cuba for the “return” of Joanne Chesimard; House Concurrent Resolution 254 passed 371-0 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate.  Many members of the Congressional Black Caucus later explained that they were against her extradition, but mistakenly voted for the bill which was placed on the accelerated suspension calendar, generally reserved for non-controversial legislation.
Representative Maxine Waters of California, who voted for the resolution, later explained her opposition, calling COINTELPRO “illegal, clandestine political persecution.”

On May 2, 2005, the thirty-second anniversary of the Turnpike shootings, the F.B.I. classified her as a “domestic terrorist;” increasing the reward for assistance in her capture to $1 million, the largest reward placed on an individual in the history of New Jersey.

New Jersey State Police superintendent Rick Fuentes said “she is now 120 pounds of money.”

Zapp was a funk band formed in 1978 by brothers Roger Troutman, Larry Troutman, Lester Troutman, Tony Troutman and Terry “Zapp” Troutman. They drove us to the dancefloor with their hts like “More Bounce to the Ounce“, “Dance Floor, Part 1” and “Computer Love“.

West Coast hip-hop and G-funk,were inspired by the group. Roger was one of the pioneers of the talk box. The name change to Zapp came courtesy of Terry, whose nickname was  “Zapp”. Discovered by  P-Funk in 1979, George Clinton signed them to his Uncle Jam Records.and the following year, the group signed withWarner Bros. Records, In 1980, Zapp’s debut album became a platinum success peaking at the top twenty of the Billboard Top 200. The single “More Bounce to the Ounce“, reached number two on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Roger was  producer, chief writer, arranger, and composer for the group. He and older brother Larry, often collaborated on songs together. Roger and Zapp worked on both group albums and albums Roger released on his own. Zapp scored top ten R&B hits with “Doo Wa Ditty”, “I Can Make You Dance”, “Heartbreaker”, and ballads such as “Computer Love (R&B #8)” and a cover of The Miracles‘ “Ooo Baby Baby“. Only “Dance Floor, Part 1” – managed to hit number-one on the R&B chart.

1985’s New Zapp IV U, the group had scored over four gold records and had become a top concert draw all around the world. By the release of Roger’s solo album, 1991’s Bridging the Gap, success had mostly dwindled for the group.  Roger was the fourth of nine children. He was a late-arriving member of Parliament-Funkadelic and played on the band’s final Warner Brothers’ album The Electric Spanking of War Babies.

Roger had formed various different bands with his four brothers, including Little Roger and the Vels and Roger and the Human Body. In 1977, he and the Human Body issued their first single “Freedom”.  Zapp made their professional television debut on the first and only Funk Music Awards show.

Between 1980 and 1985, Zapp released gold-selling albums such as Zapp, Zapp II, Zapp III and New Zapp IV Uand released top ten R&B hit singles such as “Be Alright”, “Dance Floor”, “I Can Make You Dance”, “Heartbreaker”, “It Doesn’t Really Matter” – which was a tribute to black artists of the past and present, and the Charlie Wilson and Shirley Murdock-assisted funk ballad, “Computer Love”. Zapp’s hit making magic faded shortly after the release of their fifth album, Vibe, in 1989.

The album would become the group’s final studio album .Throughout Zapp’s tenure, the original five-member lineup grew to around fifteen.

In 1981, upon the fast-paced success of Zapp’s first album, Roger cut his first solo album, The Many Facets of Roger. Featuring his frenetic funk cover of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine“, the song exploded to number one on the R&B singles chart helping the album sell over a million copies. The album also featured the hit, “So Ruff, So Tuff”.  In 1984, Troutman issued his second solo album, The Saga Continues, which featured the singles “Girl Cut It Out”, “It’s in the Mix” – which was dedicated to Soul Train and its host Don Cornelius and a cover of Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour“, which featured gospel group The Mighty Clouds of Joy.

In 1987, Roger scored his most successful solo album with Unlimited!, which featured the massive hit, “I Want To Be Your Man”, which rose to number one R&B and number three on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1988, Troutman worked with Scritti Politti providing talk boxvocals on the hit “Boom There She Was”. Three years later, Troutman released his final solo album with Bridging the Gap, featuring the hit “Everybody (Get Up)”. Alongside his successful careers as Zapp member and solo star, Roger also became a hands-on producer and writer for other artists including Shirley Murdock, whose 1986 platinum debut featured the Roger-produced hit, “As We Lay”. He also produced for Zapp member Dale DeGroat on his solo efforts. After the release of All the Greatest Hits, Roger and Zapp were basically existing as a touring group only recording sporadically. Roger was  featured on hip-hop songs including Snoop Dogg’s 1993 debut, Doggystyle and on 2Pac and Dr. Dre’s single, “California Love“, which became Roger’s  most successful single; reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100^[1] ,selling over two million copies and giving Roger a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.

On a Sunday morning, April 25, 1999, Roger Troutman was found shot and critically wounded outside his northwest Dayton recording studio around 7 a.m. According to doctors, the 47-year-old had been shot several times in the torso and was in critical condition; he died during surgery at the local hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital and Health Center. Roger’s brother Larry was discovered dead in a car a few blocks away with a single gunshot wound to the head.

A pistol was found inside the vehicle, which matched the description of a car leaving the scene of Roger Troutman’s shooting according to witnesses^[3]. The shooting was due to a personal dispute that had developed between the two brothers; Larry shot Roger, and then Larry shot himself ^[3]. To this day, family members can give no clear motive as to why the murder-suicidecommitted by Larry on his younger brother happened though they agreed that the two brothers must have had a business dispute, and sources say that Larry had not slept in several days and was not in his normal state of mind at the time. It is also rumored that Roger had informed Larry that he had selected a new manager, and Larry found this information hard to take after so many years successfully carrying out this role. Roger  left five sons: Roger Lynch (now deceased), Larry Gates, Lester Gates, Ryan Stevens and Taji J. Troutman; five daughters Daun Shazier, Hope Shazier, Summer Gates, Mia Paris Collins, Gene Nicole Patterson; and a grandson.

In remembrance, Roger’s nephew Clet Troutman sang “Amazing Grace” through a talkbox at his funeral. Despite the murder of band-leader Roger Troutman, Zapp still continues to tour and record to this day with Terry Troutman taking over the role as the band’s frontman.

The main list of members of Zapp are featured here including those who joined the band either as additional members or touring members:

Roger Troutman: vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, harmonica, vibraphone, percussion, talk box

• Larry Troutman: percussion
• Lester Troutman: drums
• Terry “Zapp” Troutman: keyboards, bass, background vocals
• Bobby Glover
• Eddie Barber
• Jannetta Boyce
• Robert Jones
• Jerome Derrickson
• Sherman Fleetwood
• Robane Shavon Shormane
• Gregory Jackson
• Michael Warren
• Shirley Murdock
• Nicole Cottom
• Dale DeGroat
• Bart Thomas
• Ricardo Bray
• Bigg Robb (from the early/mid 90’s onward)
• Rhonda Stevens
• Ray Davis
• Roger Troutman Jr.
• Dick Smith

He also holds an MFA in Acting from American Conservatory Theatre (ACT). Daniel has worked throughout the US, Europe, and Africa in television, solo concerts theater, and opera including performances at The White House, The Apollo, and The Kennedy Center in tribute to Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. Daniel is the 2004 Grand Slam Champion at the world famous Nuyorican Poet’s Café and the Fox Networks National Redemption Slam Champion. He has performed on programs with artists including Jill Scott, Sonia Sanchez, MC Lyte, Mos Def, Tracy Champan, Deepak Chopra, and Phylicia Rashad. Daniel’s writings and compositions have been performed at The Public Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York Theater Workshop, La Mama, American Conservatory Theater, Yale University, The NAACP National Convention, The SCLC National Convention, and various other venues.

His show Emergence-SEE! has been reviewed as a “brilliant, spellbinding performance” by the Amsterdam News and “a dazzling 90 minutes…full of memorable moments… intense…hilarious” by the New York Times.

To follow Daniel’s work, please visit www.danielbeaty.com

I have been a Florence Ballard fan forever,but never really started doing research until I saw Dreamgirls ,but I wanted to share with you , The story of the lost supreme,

Florence Glenda Ballard Chapman, nicknamed “Flo” and “Blondie” (June 30, 1943 – February 22, 1976), was one of the co-founders The SupremesIn 1976, Ballard died of a coronary thrombosis at the age of thirty-two. Her death has been called “one of rock’s greatest tragedies”.[Ballard was born in Detroit, Michigan  to Jessie Ballard and his wife, Lurlee Wilson. Florence, whom friends and family often called “Flo,” was the eighth of fifteen children. She developed a love of music at an early age.  Soon she was singing solo at churches and other functions .  She became friends with Mary Wilson, after they performed in the same talent competition. Milton Jenkins, then best known for his work with the The Primes (who would go on to form The Temptations), took an interest in Ballard’s voice. In 1959, Jenkins arranged an audition for Ballard before The Primes’s Paul Williams and Eddie Kendricks. Impressed by Ballard’s polished performance, Jenkins decided The Primes would have a sister group called The Primettes, of which Ballard and Williams’ girlfriend, Betty McGlown, would be the first members.  Ballard invited Mary Wilson to join The Primettes. Later, Diane Ross was recruited. In 1960 McGlown would be replaced by Detroit teenager Barbara Martin; in 1961, Martin would leave the group to start a family.In the summer of 1960 after leaving a sock hop at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom , Ballard was accidentally separated from her brother Billy, and accepted a ride home from a young man she felt she recognized, a local high-school basketball player named Reginald Harding,who drove her  to an empty parking lot off of Woodward Avenue. There, Harding raped Ballard at knife point.After weeks of  silence, Ballard finally told her groupmates what had happened to her. Ballard’s assault was never mentioned again.

The Supremes in 1965/66. Left to right: Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard.

Ballard, Ross, Wilson, and Martin shared leads on the Primettes’ songs,  The Primetteswould eventually sign to the Motown label as The Supremes, a name chosen by Ballard, on January 15, 1961. The group would eventually become a trio. Florence sang lead on the second Supremes single, “Buttered Popcorn.” According to Mary Wilson, Ballard’s voice was so loud that she was made to stand up to seventeen feet away from her microphone during recording sessions, while the other two Supremes stood directly in front of their microphones. Ballard also briefly toured with The Marvelettes as a replacement for Wanda Young, who was out on maternity leave.Diana Ross was made lead singer  in late 1963, because Berry Gordy believed that Ross’ voice, would help the group cross over to white audiences. Assigned to work with Holland-Dozier-Holland, Ross, Ballard, and Mary Wilson released ten number-one US pop hits between 1964 and 1967. In 1966, just prior to opening at the Copacabana supper clubin New York City, Ballard complained of a sore throat and asked that she not rehearse  to save her voice for the performance. That began a decline between Gordy and Ballard’s relationship. Over the next two years, Ballard and Gordy argued frequently, particularly as Ross became the group’s centerpiece. In early 1967, it was announced that the group’s name  would change to “Diana Ross & the Supremes”. As the year progressed, Ballard frequently missed public appearances,and  recording sessions. Gordy hired Cindy Birdsong, a singer with Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles, to become Ballard’s permanent replacement. Ballard’s final performance with the group was their first appearance at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. She was sent home following the first show, after having stuck out her stomach from between the jacket and pants of her outfit. This behavior so outraged Gordy that he ordered her not to go onstage for the next show and ordered her to take the next plane home to Detroit. Listen as Flo describes the incidents surrounding her leaving……

Ballard married Thomas Chapman, on February 29, 1968, and signed with ABC Records in March 1968,  after negotiating her release from Motown. Ballard’s attorney received a one-time payment of $139,804.94 in royalties and earnings from Motown for her six-year tenure with the label.Billed as “Florence ‘Flo’ Ballard” She released the singles “It Doesn’t Matter How I Say It (It’s What I Say That Matters)” and “Love Ain’t Love” on ABC Records. The singles failed to chart, and  her musical career went into a rapid decline, and the $139,000 in settlement money was  depleted by their  management agency, Talent Management, Inc. This agency, was headed by Leonard Baun, an attorney Ballard would later fire and sue. Stipulations in Ballard’s contract with Motown prohibited Ballard from mentioning in any promotional materials or noting on the back of her album liner that she had ever been in the Supremes or recorded for Motown.

Ballard continued her efforts at a solo career. In 1968, she performed alongside Bill Cosby at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago ,rode on a float in The Bud Billiken Parade with comedian Godfrey Cambridge  was the featured personality of Detroit’s magazine, Detroit and  gave birth to twin girls, Michelle Chapman and Nicole Chapman, the first two of her three children. She performed at one of Richard Nixon’s inaugural balls in Washington, DC on January 20, 1969. In 1971, Ballard unsuccessfully sued Motown for additional royalty payments . In 1971, Ballard gave birth to her third child, Lisa Chapman. Soon after, Thomas Chapman left Ballard and her house was foreclosed. Over the next few years, Ballard laid low from all publicity. In 1974, Mary Wilson, who had maintained a rapport with Ballard over the years, invited Ballard to fly out to California to visit. The Supremes, with new member Scherrie Payne, were performing at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Wilson invited Ballard on-stage to sing with the group. Ballard joined them on stage, but did not sing: instead, she played the tambourine. Although her on-stage appearance brought loud cheers from the crowd, Ballard told Wilson that she had no interest in continuing a career in music.Upon her return to Detroit, Ballard’s financial situation declined further. Uninterested in returning to show business, and with three children to support, she applied for welfare. This news and the story of her downward spiral hit the national newspapers.

The cover of the UK release The Supreme Florence Ballard. Despite most of the songs on the album originally being recorded for ABC Records in 1968, the cover photo is actually a Motown publicity photo from 1965. In 1975, Ballard received an insurance settlement from her former attorney’s insurance company. With the settlement money, Ballard purchased a small house on Shaftsbury Avenue in Detroit for herself and her children and made a decision to return to singing. Around this same time, Ballard also reconciled with her estranged husband. Backed by the female rock group The Deadly Nightshade, Ballard performed as a part of the Joan Little Defense League at a concert held at Detroit’s Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium on June 25, 1975. Following the success of this performance, Ballard received requests for newspaper and television interviews, including an appearance on the local Detroit talk show The David Diles Show.

On February 21, 1976, Ballard entered Mt. Carmel Mercy Hospital, complaining of numbness in her extremities. The next day, she died at 10:05 a.m. of coronary thrombosis, a blood clot in one of her coronary arteries. She was thirty-two years old. Ballard is buried in Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery located in Warren, Michigan. In the years following Florence Ballard’s death, Diana Ross established trust funds in the names of each of Ballard’s three children.  Motown head Berry Gordy paid for the funeral. In 2008, it was reported that Ballard’s daughters were still living in Detroit on welfare, and that that their trust funds were only $10,000 for each daughter, and that the funds were gone by the time the girls became of age. Florence Ballard: Forever Faithful!, a biography of Ballard written by Randall Wilson, was printed in 1999. In 2002, The Supreme Florence Ballard, which included all the tracks from the album she recorded for ABC Records in 1968, was released on CD by Spectrum, a London-based company. Another biography, The True Story of Florence Ballard, was published by Ballard’s sister Maxine Ballard in 2007. The book comes with a CD containing Flo’s last on-air interview, in which she shares her story behind her painful split from the group. The CD also contains a tribute from her sister, Maxine “Precious” Ballard. The latest and most complete biography of Flo, Peter Benjaminson’s The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard based on eight hours of interviews with Flo that Benjaminson and Flo tape recorded in 1975, was released on April 1, 2008.

Wayman Tisdale