The Supremes’ single, “The Happening,” is today’s classic song of the day, and its one of their more unique offerings, for a number of reasons.
First off, “The Happening” is actually the theme song for a movie called, unsurprisingly, The Happening. That movie, released in 1967, was a supposed comedy about four hippies who kidnap a retired Mafia mob boss. It starred Anthony Quinn, Michael Marks, George Maharis, Milton Berle, Robert Walker Jr., Faye Dunaway, and Martha Hyer. It was directed by Elliot Silverstein and released by Columbia Pictures. You probably don’t remember it because it tanked, big time. The theme song long outlived the film.
The second thing that makes “The Happening” unique, at least for a Motown track of that era, is that it wasn’t recorded in Detroit. Maybe because it was a movie thing, “The Happening” was recorded in Los Angeles with those studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew. You can definitely hear drummer Hal Blaine’s crisp, driving backbeat on this one, sounding much different than the more laid-back, buried in the mix drums of Motown’s Benny Benjamin or Pistol Allen. The song itself has a completely different vibe than the typical Motown single of that time.
(That said, some reports note that producers Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier weren’t completely satisfied by the different instrumental backing and shipped the master tapes back to Detroit, where James Jamerson overdubbed a bass part. I can’t dispute that.)
“The Happening” was written by the team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, along with Frank De Vol, who was the music director for the film, The Happening. The song, “The Happening,” was released as a single in March of 1967 and went all the way to #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100. It was the last Supremes single released before Berry Gordy changed the group’s name to Diana Ross & the Supremes.
And, for your daily bonus video of the day, here are the Supremes singing “The Happening” live on the May 7, 1967, episode of The Ed Sullivan Show. Ed loved those ladies.
