Post by timmy84 on May 3, 2006 11:27:39 GMT -5
Link: www.barberusa.com/nostal/reeves_martha.html
Martha Reeves
Drums rolled like thunder, trumpets blared like a bugle sounding "Charge!" and a big, bold, brassy voice called out around the world, asking, "Are you ready for a brand new beat?" The beat came from the Motor City and, yes, the world was ready.
Now, 33 years later, the owner of that fiery voice descends four steps into the "Snake Pit" of 2648 West Grand Blvd. And is transported back into time. "This is such a familiar feeling", Martha Reeves says, smiling. "I just feel like I did when we recorded here." No wonder: The building, once the home of Motown Records, is today the Motown Historical Museum, and the piano, music stands, mic booms, wires and other accouterments which created the Motown Sound remain in place.
Standing in the same spot where Martha and the Vandellas recorded their own sizable chunk of that immense legacy, wearing the same shade of purple that adorned their Gordy 45s and LPs, she turns toward the control room. "I couldn't look in there. I had to hold up my hand when I sang", and she re-enacts, with a near giggle, shielding her eyes. "Holland, Dozier and Holland were behind that glass and I just couldn't look at them. Oh they were so handsome! And they were all married."
Martha Reeves navigates 2648 West Grand with the assured stride of someone at home and why not? She first came through the door one day in 1962, a weekend night club singer who had recorded a few sides with her group, the Del-Phis, expecting an audition. Quitting her 9-5 dry cleaning job, by evening she was the unpaid Artist and Repertoire department secretary. After three weeks, she prevailed upon A&R director Mickey Stevenson for a $35 weekly salary. "Just enough for carfare", she says.
"I never did get that audition. And as part of my job, I had to audition other artists." She also scheduled musicians, maintained studio logs and was "Girl-Friday" to all the writers and producers. The $35 could grow as high as $60 if they asked her to clap or sing background on sessions, each of which paid an additional $5. Once asked to sing lead on a demo session, she "tore up the place", according to Esther Edwards, then a Motown exec and now head of the Museum. Later, assigned to get Motown's ubiqutous background vocalists, the Andantes, to sing on tracks destined to become Marvin Gaye's first hits, she learned the trio was out of town. "I didn't want to let Mickey down, so I called my girls", Martha says, referring to the Del-Phis. "He liked our sound", and she wouldn't be a secretary much longer.
Pausing at the tiny room that was the A&R Department, she reminisces. "All that was in here was a desk, a chair, a phone, a piano and a piano bench. The writers would be at that piano around the clock working on songs. Every one of those great Motown records started right here in this room."
One record written for Martha, Annette Beard and Rosalind Ashford-three Del-Phis, re-christened Martha and the Vandellas, became a landmark. "Come And Get These Memories", contained a big sound, adroitly balancing punchy horns and loping rhythm. It was their first chart success, the first hit collaboration for the prolific team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland and, as Martha wrote in her autobiography, when Berry Gordy heard it, he exclaimed, "That's the sound I've been looking for. That's the 'Motown Sound!'" It was still unreleased when the Vandellas joined nine other acts for the first Motor Town Revue in late-'62 and, upstairs in the Museum's photo gallery, Martha points to images from the tour and a framed copy of its grueling itinerary. "It was 94 dates in 10 weeks, and we slept all but three nights on the bus", she says. Typically the trio did their set, then would back up Gaye as "Marvin and the Vandellas".
Martha recalls playing Confederate flag-draped theaters of the South, sensing tension in the segregated audiences. "But once we started singing, everybody got up, wheeled around and started dancing-nobody knew where the barriers were, who was sitting here or why." The revue achieved other things as well. "Many of us had never had hit records before that tour but, by the time we got back, we all had hits."
From that A&R office piano, H-D-H cranked out hits in abundance, many for Martha and the Vandellas. The appealing "Heat Wave" - Martha explains, "that's just a Charleston" - followed "Come And Get These Memories", becoming their first Top 5 pop song and kicking off a trio of tunes, each swinging harder than its predecessor. By the time "Quicksand" gave way to the furious, deceptively complex "Live Wire", their signature near-gospel style was in place. Annette and Rosalind repeated memorable chorus lines while Martha drove the lyrics by riding elongated vowels like straight-aways, making sharp turns on the consonants, scorching the lines with clarity, confidence and conviction.
Ms. Edwards, who managed the group, thinks Martha's instantly recognizable voice emanates from her personality: "She came from a large, loving and supportive family and had to care for eight younger children. She learned to express herself freely. Martha was no weeping willow. She wasn't timid. That was reflected in her singing. She could really put a song over." "A lot of it was just trying to get people involved, get them to sing along. Plus, I had great material", Martha says, deflecting praise to her songwriters, who spun exquisite tales of young love's anguish and ecstasy. "I think they spied on me", she laughs, "because the songs were very, very close to my own experiences - especially 'In My Lonely Room'", an underrated masterpiece.
PART 1 complete. :lol:
Story continuing in next post.
Martha Reeves
Drums rolled like thunder, trumpets blared like a bugle sounding "Charge!" and a big, bold, brassy voice called out around the world, asking, "Are you ready for a brand new beat?" The beat came from the Motor City and, yes, the world was ready.
Now, 33 years later, the owner of that fiery voice descends four steps into the "Snake Pit" of 2648 West Grand Blvd. And is transported back into time. "This is such a familiar feeling", Martha Reeves says, smiling. "I just feel like I did when we recorded here." No wonder: The building, once the home of Motown Records, is today the Motown Historical Museum, and the piano, music stands, mic booms, wires and other accouterments which created the Motown Sound remain in place.
Standing in the same spot where Martha and the Vandellas recorded their own sizable chunk of that immense legacy, wearing the same shade of purple that adorned their Gordy 45s and LPs, she turns toward the control room. "I couldn't look in there. I had to hold up my hand when I sang", and she re-enacts, with a near giggle, shielding her eyes. "Holland, Dozier and Holland were behind that glass and I just couldn't look at them. Oh they were so handsome! And they were all married."
Martha Reeves navigates 2648 West Grand with the assured stride of someone at home and why not? She first came through the door one day in 1962, a weekend night club singer who had recorded a few sides with her group, the Del-Phis, expecting an audition. Quitting her 9-5 dry cleaning job, by evening she was the unpaid Artist and Repertoire department secretary. After three weeks, she prevailed upon A&R director Mickey Stevenson for a $35 weekly salary. "Just enough for carfare", she says.
"I never did get that audition. And as part of my job, I had to audition other artists." She also scheduled musicians, maintained studio logs and was "Girl-Friday" to all the writers and producers. The $35 could grow as high as $60 if they asked her to clap or sing background on sessions, each of which paid an additional $5. Once asked to sing lead on a demo session, she "tore up the place", according to Esther Edwards, then a Motown exec and now head of the Museum. Later, assigned to get Motown's ubiqutous background vocalists, the Andantes, to sing on tracks destined to become Marvin Gaye's first hits, she learned the trio was out of town. "I didn't want to let Mickey down, so I called my girls", Martha says, referring to the Del-Phis. "He liked our sound", and she wouldn't be a secretary much longer.
Pausing at the tiny room that was the A&R Department, she reminisces. "All that was in here was a desk, a chair, a phone, a piano and a piano bench. The writers would be at that piano around the clock working on songs. Every one of those great Motown records started right here in this room."
One record written for Martha, Annette Beard and Rosalind Ashford-three Del-Phis, re-christened Martha and the Vandellas, became a landmark. "Come And Get These Memories", contained a big sound, adroitly balancing punchy horns and loping rhythm. It was their first chart success, the first hit collaboration for the prolific team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland and, as Martha wrote in her autobiography, when Berry Gordy heard it, he exclaimed, "That's the sound I've been looking for. That's the 'Motown Sound!'" It was still unreleased when the Vandellas joined nine other acts for the first Motor Town Revue in late-'62 and, upstairs in the Museum's photo gallery, Martha points to images from the tour and a framed copy of its grueling itinerary. "It was 94 dates in 10 weeks, and we slept all but three nights on the bus", she says. Typically the trio did their set, then would back up Gaye as "Marvin and the Vandellas".
Martha recalls playing Confederate flag-draped theaters of the South, sensing tension in the segregated audiences. "But once we started singing, everybody got up, wheeled around and started dancing-nobody knew where the barriers were, who was sitting here or why." The revue achieved other things as well. "Many of us had never had hit records before that tour but, by the time we got back, we all had hits."
From that A&R office piano, H-D-H cranked out hits in abundance, many for Martha and the Vandellas. The appealing "Heat Wave" - Martha explains, "that's just a Charleston" - followed "Come And Get These Memories", becoming their first Top 5 pop song and kicking off a trio of tunes, each swinging harder than its predecessor. By the time "Quicksand" gave way to the furious, deceptively complex "Live Wire", their signature near-gospel style was in place. Annette and Rosalind repeated memorable chorus lines while Martha drove the lyrics by riding elongated vowels like straight-aways, making sharp turns on the consonants, scorching the lines with clarity, confidence and conviction.
Ms. Edwards, who managed the group, thinks Martha's instantly recognizable voice emanates from her personality: "She came from a large, loving and supportive family and had to care for eight younger children. She learned to express herself freely. Martha was no weeping willow. She wasn't timid. That was reflected in her singing. She could really put a song over." "A lot of it was just trying to get people involved, get them to sing along. Plus, I had great material", Martha says, deflecting praise to her songwriters, who spun exquisite tales of young love's anguish and ecstasy. "I think they spied on me", she laughs, "because the songs were very, very close to my own experiences - especially 'In My Lonely Room'", an underrated masterpiece.
PART 1 complete. :lol:
Story continuing in next post.
... In My Lonely Room is the cut 
...and HDH cute?? Eh 
...Martha has gone beyond paying her dues though and there will never be another like her 
