Ross had just left The Supremes, after a decade of serving as that group's lead singer, went through a difficult situation trying to piece a solo album together. With Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson writing and producing for her, Ross recorded "Reach Out and Touch", which carried a heavy gospel influence, and was one of the few songs the singer recorded to express her social conscious, previously experimented with Supremes singles such as "Love Child" and "Livin' In Shame".

While the song's sales didn't meet up to expectations, peaking at #20 on the pop charts and #7 on the R&B charts with 500,000 copies sold, "Reach Out and Touch" became one of Ross' most popular and notable songs. During her concert performances of the song, Ross often had the whole crowd literally turn to their neighbors, and "reach out and touch" their hands.

[edit] Credits

Lead Vocals by Diana Ross
Background Vocals by The Andantes: Jackie Hicks, Marlene Barrow, and Louvain Demps
Instrumentation by The Funk Brothers
Written and Produced by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson

[edit] Trivia

In 1970, the same year that Diana released "Reach Out and Touch" as her first solo single, ironically the song was also covered by the group that she had just left at the start of that year, The Supremes (now fronted by Jean Terrell, along with other members Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong). The Supremes' version was a duet with fellow Motown Records artists The Four Tops on the two group's joint album "The Magnificent Seven," released by Motown toward the end of 1970. In one of her autobiographies, Mary Wilson mentioned that some fans at the post-Ross Supremes' concerts used to call out requesting that The Supremes would sing this record live, as some fans erroneously recalled that it had been The Supremes' version, and not Ross's, that had charted as a hit Billboard single in early '70.