Post by Emerald City on Oct 18, 2004 13:38:29 GMT -5
BY BEN EDMONDS
Detroit FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER
Detroit FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER
It has taken Martha Reeves more than three decades to come home.
We're not talking literally, of course. Few voices are as identified with Detroit, with Martha & the Vandellas hits like "Dancing in the Street" and "Heatwave" having spread the sound of the Motor City around the globe. And while she spent time living in L.A. in the '70s, she has been an active resident of the city for most of her
life.
Yet her new album "Home to You" is a watershed for the singer, the first of her solo career created under her control, and reflective of all she's learned since leaving the Motown fold in the early '70s. It is also the first since those chart-topping years to be recorded in Detroit and constructed largely by Motor City musicians. She said she hopes the album represents the spirit of Detroit, something that will definitely be on display Saturday at the Motown Historical Museum 2004 Annual Gala Celebration and Fund-raiser, where Reeves is expected to appear, though not perform.
"I got the method for this new album from Motown," she explains. "It involves getting the best players, the jazz hall-of-famers. You give them the general outlines of what you want, but you leave enough room for their own creativity to come through. ...We allowed each musician to invest something of themselves in these tracks.
"Thanks to the late Thomas (Beans) Bowles, I knew all of the great jazz players in the city. Marcus Belgrave, Rayse Biggs, Ed Gooch -- these are truly inspirational musicians"Rudy Robinson provided the horn arrangements. Both Beans and Rudy passed away before they could hear how much they helped with this album, and I miss them dearly."
The songs on "Home to You," (released in August on her own Itch Records) are the fruit of decades of preparation.
"I've been holding onto some of these songs for years," she says, "just waiting for the right time. In fact, the title song was written when my son, who is now 33, was only a month old. I've written songs for almost every album I've done, but because I didn't know the business I didn't receive any credit and don't get any
money. There are so many things you need to learn before you take on the responsibility of entrepreneurship. I've had to learn the hard way sometimes, and it's only now that I'm establishing my own publishing catalog."
We're not talking literally, of course. Few voices are as identified with Detroit, with Martha & the Vandellas hits like "Dancing in the Street" and "Heatwave" having spread the sound of the Motor City around the globe. And while she spent time living in L.A. in the '70s, she has been an active resident of the city for most of her
life.
Yet her new album "Home to You" is a watershed for the singer, the first of her solo career created under her control, and reflective of all she's learned since leaving the Motown fold in the early '70s. It is also the first since those chart-topping years to be recorded in Detroit and constructed largely by Motor City musicians. She said she hopes the album represents the spirit of Detroit, something that will definitely be on display Saturday at the Motown Historical Museum 2004 Annual Gala Celebration and Fund-raiser, where Reeves is expected to appear, though not perform.
"I got the method for this new album from Motown," she explains. "It involves getting the best players, the jazz hall-of-famers. You give them the general outlines of what you want, but you leave enough room for their own creativity to come through. ...We allowed each musician to invest something of themselves in these tracks.
"Thanks to the late Thomas (Beans) Bowles, I knew all of the great jazz players in the city. Marcus Belgrave, Rayse Biggs, Ed Gooch -- these are truly inspirational musicians"Rudy Robinson provided the horn arrangements. Both Beans and Rudy passed away before they could hear how much they helped with this album, and I miss them dearly."
The songs on "Home to You," (released in August on her own Itch Records) are the fruit of decades of preparation.
"I've been holding onto some of these songs for years," she says, "just waiting for the right time. In fact, the title song was written when my son, who is now 33, was only a month old. I've written songs for almost every album I've done, but because I didn't know the business I didn't receive any credit and don't get any
money. There are so many things you need to learn before you take on the responsibility of entrepreneurship. I've had to learn the hard way sometimes, and it's only now that I'm establishing my own publishing catalog."
