This Holland-Dozier-Holland tune was a No. 1 hit for the Supremes in 1966, just a year before Long Island band Vanilla Fudge slowed it down and turned the song’s minor-key moodiness into sinister anguish. This version reached No. 4 on the charts, and it’s credited as one of the songs that helped steer psychedelia toward what would soon become heavy metal. This video shows the band performing the shortened single version, cut down from the seven-minute extravaganza on LP. That’s a young Carmine Appice twirling the drumsticks every chance he gets, but the performance belongs to organist Mark Stein, who puts a lot more passion into his vocal than Diana Ross ever did.
Appice once explained how the band’s biggest hit came about:
We used to slow songs down and listen to the lyrics and try to emulate what the lyrics were dictating. That one was a hurtin’ song; it had a lot of emotion in it. If you listen to “Hangin’ On” fast … by the Supremes, it sounds very happy, but the lyrics aren’t happy at all. If you lived through that situation, the lyrics are definitely not happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNcFWGox-SM
Vanilla Fudge broke up in 1970, but has reformed several times over the years. The song proved more durable, reaching the charts for Kim Wilde in 1986 and, believe it or not, Reba McEntire in 1995.