So, Cholly when you worked with the Supremes back in the mid '60s, tell me about how the three different girls took to your teaching?

Well, the Supremes were three distinct personalities, you know. Uh, but they all had a certain sophisticated air about them, you know. And you had to handle them, you know, differently because of the type of personalities. You wanted to keep that togetherness and uh, naturally, uh, each, each girl had a talent that they wanted to bring to the surface. And even when we did things together, they did them very well together. But they did have a little individual approaches. Uh, truthfully, uh, uh, Florence was the most sophisticated, uh, of the three as far as looks was concerned. Mary was exceptionally vivacious and no inhibitions whatsoever as far as movement was concerned. Very fluid and, and alive, she was the spark of the group truthfully. And Diana being the lead singer, most, on most of the songs, uh, naturally had that lead singer's approach. Because that's the way she was groomed and uh, we had to give a lot of respect to the fact that she was the lead singer. So we didn't have any major problems with them on an individual basis you know, because it was a psychological approach of how to handle these different personalities. And we were quite successful with that. And I had not problem with them, uh, movement-wise at all.

Otis mentioned that one of the things that you were good about was helping them really sell themselves to the female audience, that selling sex was part of the show. Could you talk about that a little?

Well, uh, there's a, there's a lot that goes into training, uh, singers to eventually become performers. There's, uh, projection, uh, which in many cases the artist was never concerned about. They just went out and they sang and they danced and they jumped around, and uh, they wasn't accustomed to having to be concerned about projection and, uh, physical drama. Uh, you had to add a lot of movement that why, would be attractive to the ladies. And the ladies had to do movements that would attract the men. And uh, in many cases, uh, the ladies would like to attract the ladies, and the men would like to attract the men. Because they would like for the, like, uh, like the Temps would like for all of the fellas to move like their movement, you know, and they wanted to impress the girls, uh, with their movements. So we worked on things that was subtle, but uh, they were right there, next door to being risque. But uh, when you do these things in the sophisticated way they don't seem nearly as bad as, uh, when you do it in a crude, rough way.

So what do you think was the difference in the kind of moves that you taught people to do between the more R and B acts of the '50s and the Motown acts of the '60s?

Well, it wasn't so much the, the moves themselves. It was the way that you taught the moves and the way that you had them, uh, treat the moves, that I was noted for doing, you know. Because we did a lot of the moves that they did in the '50s and the '60s. But we did it in a, what we called our on the fence type of -- so that you could satisfy any type of audience. We had, uh, a lot of consideration given to, uh, the material as being presented, uh, being consumed by any type of audience.

Were you attracted to working in Motown because it was a new, young, black owned company in those days, and was that unusual?

Well, yes, that was one of the main reasons I went to Motown, because it was black owned and uh, it was during the civil rights movement, uh, '64, during that era, and I wasn't into marching and things like that, then, uh, I just felt like going to work for uh, a company that was black owned and black operated, uh, uh, would be a contribution that I was making. And I was very happy to get the opportunity to go to work for people like, uh, the Gordy family. They were wonderful people to work for and their approach, I thought was generally, uh, in the right direction, because uh, they put a lot of people on the good foot.

Cholly Atkins.

I'm Cholly Atkins.

When we were watching the tape earlier you said something interesting about some of the moves like when you were watching Marvin Gaye coming out of the Southern Baptist tradition. Could you talk about that a little bit? Was that a big part of choreography in those days?

Well, uh, you, your background has a lot to do with your approach to movement. Uh, for instance, uh, like Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye uses a lot of, uh, movements that, uh, was part of his background. You know Southern Baptist preachers, they used to move all up and down the stage and they would shout and uh, Marvin has that foundation. That's why he was, uh, very good at improvising, uh, being controlled, uh, physically by his emotions. Gladys Knight has the same -- everybody don't have this talent. Uh, but Patti LaBelle has it. But most of the black artists who have that type of, uh, gospel background, uh, really has this instilled in them, because of Sunday School and church, that's all they would see, all their youthful life, even adult life. So it, it, it was a contribution to their ability to incorporate this into a emotional approach to their, their vocal endeavors.

When you work with somebody you try to take where they're coming from as a starting point and not try to change them. Is that right?

Yes, when, when you work with, ah, sometimes when you, when you're adhering to emotional things you can get things a little out of whack as far as having a professional look, see. So, ah, you need some guy like myself to sit back and say, now let's erase this right here and, and, ah, approach it in this sense, you know. You still have the same basic thing but let's make it a little bit more, let's polish it up a little bit. And, ah, you, you sometimes will have a problem with some people who might want to continue to do it the way they felt it, generally you wouldn't have that problem.

I read I think it was Otis's book that Paul Williams said that white folks don't want to see no guys bumping and grinding and carrying on. Do you think that's true?

Well, ah, ... that's, not, not generally true, ah. But we do have that, that sort of thing.

Well as far as movement is concerned, that was one of the things that, ah, it was a matter of opinion. I, I understood exactly what Paul Williams meant when he said that white audiences didn't want to see black artists bumping and grinding, ah, wherein on the R and B circuit, you know, ah, it was permissible, ah. So that was one of the things that we had to work diligently on. It's, it's, it's the way that you would present it. You could do the same thing, ah, but you had to be more subtle with it and, ah, well, you know, ah, Michael Jackson was very outgoing with it and was very successful with it but, ah, here again, when Paul made the statement about what the audience would accept, that was a different time than when Michael Jackson. Years and years ago in the late twenties there was a dancer in the Cotton Club called Snake Hips Tucker and, ah, he was li., he was a dancer that gave the appearance that he had no bones in his body and he was very loose and he did a lot of bumps and grinds in the Cotton Club but, ah, but they were so sophisticated, you know, until he was one of the most well known dancers during that period. So it's, it's, it's pretty difficult to say that they won't accept it, it's just the way you serve it.

I’m sure in those days especially in the later sixties some people thought of Motown as selling out in a way, losing the blackness. Any truth to that? How did you feel about it?

Well they always say this when you make an effort to cross over and it's understandable that the artist will make an effort to cross over because that's where the big, big money and the big recognition and the big fame and everything and the movies, this was just at the beginning of television and all the big television shows. If you want to get on these shows you had to have that ability to cross over. And, ah, it was, it was two schools of thought about that and, ah, ah, I don't think we at Motown made any effort to lose our blackness, we just, we just fine-tuned it.

When you prepared The Supremes for the Ed Sullivan Show, the first Motown act to be on Ed Sullivan, the first black girl group to be on Ed Sullivan, was that a particularly significant moment? Did it require a lot of extra rehearsal in getting ready?

Well we had, we had already started to prepare The Supremes of these types of appearances. So, ah, it was no special preparation for that because we, we'd anticipated it. Berry Gordy had us on the case for about four months, yeah.

Did you feel that they're going on Ed Sullivan was significant like a breakthrough moment?

Well any major television show was, was, had a two-fold, ah, purpose: first, to sell the artist and secondly to promote the product so that the people would go in to the record stores and buy the records and also to make the artist worldwide and, ah, make their personal appearances increase.