When Diana Ross selected to make her characteristic movie debut enjoying the function of Billie Vacation, within the biopic Girl Sings The Blues, launched on October 12, 1972, it was a daring transfer for the Motown queen. She was little greater than two years into the official launch of her solo profession, and solely one among her 4 post-Supremes albums so far had made the US Prime 40.
The soundtrack album from the film turned Diana’s solely US No.1 solo pop album — aptly, on the chart date that might have been Billie’s 58th birthday, April 7, 1973. The double LP featured Ross singing such gems from the tragic singer’s catalog as “God Bless The Child,” “Strange Fruit,” and the title track.
It’s a poignant reminder of Girl Day’s sadly early demise that, when Girl Sings The Blues was launched, she had already been gone for some 13 years. The movie, and a rating album that additionally featured Michel Legrand and Blinky Williams, undoubtedly helped to revive Vacation’s legacy and to introduce her to a wholly new viewers, by way of one of many largest stars of the Nineteen Seventies.
The soundtrack debuted on the Billboard chart on the finish of November, with the movie on nationwide launch. The report proved to be a slow-burner, making its ultimate transfer to No.1 in its twentieth week, greater than 4 months later. That was simply after Ross, shortlisted for Greatest Actress In A Main Position among the many movie’s 5 Oscar nominations, had misplaced out to Liza Minnelli, for her function as Sally Bowles in Cabaret.
The Girl Sings The Blues soundtrack went on to a 54-week keep on the US chart, and proof that it sparked new curiosity in Billie’s work got here with the looks of no fewer than three Vacation collections on the American charts of the time. The Billie Vacation Story, with recordings from 1944 to 1950, entered in Christmas week, 1972, and reached No.85, in a 21-week run; Unusual Fruit, that includes the years 1939 and 1944, appeared in January, making No.108; and The Authentic Recordings, spanning 1935 to 1958, charted in February, rising to No.135.
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