Diana Ross - Touch Me In The Morning (1973) [1993, Reissue]

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Diana Ross - Touch Me In The Morning (1973) [1993, Reissue]

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Diana Ross - Touch Me In The Morning (1973) [1993, Reissue]

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"Touch Me In The Morning" is the 4th studio album by American singer Diana Ross, released on June 22, 1973, by Motown Records. It reached #5 in the USA (#1 R&B) and sold around 650,000 copies. The arrangements were by Gene Page, Tom Baird, Michael Randall, James Anthony Carmichael, Deke Richards, Gil Askey and Ross. The album contained the hit title track, which became Diana Ross' second #1 single on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and helped the album peak at #5 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart. In the UK the title track and "All of My Life" were both Top Ten singles, and the album reached #7 and was certified Gold for sales in excess of 100,000 copies. It includes the first tracks Diana would personally produce on one of her albums, "Imagine" and "Medley: Brown Baby/Save the Children". Several cuts here, including the closing Medley and "My Baby (My Baby, My Own)", were originally intended for the abandoned To The Baby album that Ross also worked on in this period. She would also begin working with her brother/songwriter, Arthur "T-Boy" Ross, during these sessions. Several of the songs on the album are covers of classics, including John Lennon's "Imagine", Marvin Gaye's "Save the Children" and the Richard Rodgers' standard "Little Girl Blue". The album also includes her recording of "I Won't Last a Day Without You", released a year prior to The Carpenters' hit version, as well as covers of lesser known songs originally recorded by The Fifth Dimension ("Leave A Little Room") and Oscar Brown Jr ("Brown Baby").

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Diana Ross - Touch Me In The Morning (1973) [1993, Reissue]

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Arriving after Lady Sings the Blues, Touch Me in the Morning trades easily on Diana Ross’ status as a superstar. Grandiose and slick without being cloying, soft and seductive while retaining soul, the album veers away from R&B toward adult contemporary, a sound fitting a cross-platform, cross-genre star such as Ross, and the telling thing about Touch Me in the Morning is that for as soft as its surfaces are, this isn’t quite a makeout record thanks in part to the trace DNA from its origins as a concept album Diana Ross conceived for her children. This record, fittingly called To the Baby, didn’t appear until Hip-O Select reissued Touch Me in the Morning as an expanded double-disc Expanded Edition in 2010, whereupon it was easy to see just how much the two albums shared: “Brown Baby” shows up as its own track, “My Baby (My Baby My Own),” while “Imagine” is part of the medley with “Save the Children.” Apart from such specifics, the overall tone is indeed similar, particularly in how the music is sentimental without being syrupy, pushing the idea of Diana as a diva who can do it all, but there is a reason why To the Baby was scrapped in favor of Touch Me in the Morning: it lacked a single as sweeping as “Touch Me in the Morning” itself, a signal that it was just slightly too inward-looking to sustain Ross’ monumental success. Sensing that, Berry Gordy once again displayed remarkable commercial instincts, rejiggering the project just enough to turn the LP into something rich, gorgeous, and romantic, something of a slow-dance classic, something that To the Baby, no matter how sincere and interesting it was, couldn’t quite be.

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Diana Ross - Touch Me In The Morning (1973) [1993, Reissue]

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Diana Ross - Touch Me In The Morning (1973) [1993, Reissue]

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