“The girls” as The Supremes were known among the Motown family, were not considered a likely pick to click on the company roster when they first joined its ranks in 1961.

But Berry Gordy Jr. believed in them more strongly and for longer than did anyone else, and the girls rewarded his ample attention by coming to embody his dream of the Sound of Young America.

During the heat of the British Invasion in the summer of 1964, Motown released “Where Did Our Love Go?” and the hitherto commercially lukewarm trio of Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard was launched on its streak of five consecutive Number One hits.

And that was only the beginning.