Cindy Birdsong was born December 15th, 1943 in Mount Holly , New Jersey.
The eldest child of Annie and Lloyd Birdsong. She has two sisters and five brothers.
In 1945 when she was two years old their family moved to Camden, New Jersey.
After attending school she moved to Philadelphia where she worked as a sales girl
but also took singing lessons - it was obvious that she knew what she wanted to do even at such a young age.
After she returned to Camden, she got a job as a dentists receptionist, but still wanted to sing .
At the age of 17 she became one of the Bluebelles - Patti LaBelle's group.
Ironically it was while she was touring with Patti LaBelle that she met and became friends with Florence Ballard;
neither of them even thinking that within a few years it would be Cindy who would be her replacement when she left.
Cindy continued with the Bluebelles until 1967 when she was asked to step in and take Florence Ballard's place.
Her first appearance with the group could not have been more nerve racking as it was the Hollywood Palace,
although by the time she was to leave her TV appearances are too numerous to list. She appeared on the
Ed Sullivan show eleven times to Diana Ross's departure and many other occasions afterwards with Mary Wilson and Jean Terrell.
Cindy stayed with this line up leaving only briefly when she left to have a baby. She was replaced by
Lynda Laurence, but returned again to stay until 1976.
During this period she recorded some of the best known songs with the later line-up which include:
Up The Ladder To The Roof, Everybody's Got The Right To Love,
Stoned Love, Touch, He's My Man.
She has said of her time with the group:
After leaving the group she, like Jean Terrell, spent some time away from the music business choosing to live under her married name of Hewlett. In fact
her neighbours never knew that she was a Supreme.
She lived in Culver City and worked at U C L A Medical Centre before going to work with Suzanne De Passe in Los Angeles for Motown productions.
In 1986 Cindy Birdsong once again took to the stage for a show at the London Hippodrome.
In the audience was Diana Ross and her husband Arne Naess who went and spent some time with her back stage after the show.
1987 she released a single on Hi-Hat records entitled Dancing Room.
There were also some demo's made while she was working as a secretary at Motown but these have not seen the light of day.. as yet!!
She has not really done much in the last few years musically, although she did to some vocals for one of the later line up of Former Ladies Of The Supremes - appearing on the Supreme Voices album and also attended the reunion show that brought Jean together again with Lynda and Scherrie
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