At last granted a place in the spotlight, Ballard's gritty, tough, yet still very alluring voice was seeking the right vehicle, on songs like "The Impossible Dream," "Yesterday," and "It's Not Unusual," and even crossing into the Supremes territory on the exciting and sensuous "It Doesn't Matter How I Say It" (which came out as a single at the time). They aren't exactly a revelation, though there's a lot of good work here. Discovered long after her death in 1976 (at age 32), they were bootlegged heavily,and only allowed to trickle out furtively - the very fact that this CD is a release of the Spectrum label - a European catalog item - shows how obscure the material is if, say, ABKCO Records uncovered 13 completed solo songs by Brian Jones, you can bet they wouldn't be snuck out into the mid-priced European marketplace. 14 of the 18 songs on this collection were recorded in 1968, as Ballard took the first steps to a solo career that never quite happened. Florence Ballard is a figure who continues to haunt the history of the Supremes - the founder and the lost child all at once it's impossible not to feel a terrible sadness for the fate she endured.
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