Diana Ross: diana, Deluxe Edition

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Ross has been a black Dorothy (The Wiz), Billie Holiday (Lady Sings the Blues), posed as Josephine Baker and on the cover of her 1970 Ain't No Mountain High Enough album looked like a starving beggar child. On the cover of 80's diana the 36-year-old mother-of-three looked like a sassy teenager — but the album was more than just another image change, it contained the hits Upside Down and I'm Coming Out, the latter anticipating much of Michael Jackson's lean and punchy style.

Tracks like Now That You're Gone have a low, dramatic quality. It sold extremely well, but wasn't the one she delivered. The first version was produced by the Chic team of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards but Motown rejected it. The Deluxe Edition features both versions (it's hard to hear now why Motown should have been fearful of the taut Chic-funk) plus an extra disc of alternative mixes of singles from the period (the pheromone-inducing Love Hangover, 12-inch versions of tracks from the earlier album The Boss) and the 10-minute, party-pleasing dance-mix medley of Supremes' hits. Ross is a tragic rehab figure now and for many simply the one Jackson modelled his surgical reconstruction on. But once she made great records ... like diana.

Label: Motown