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Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas) were one of the most successful groups in the Motown roster during the 1960s and was one of the label's most signature acts.
The label's most successful all-female singing group after The Supremes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were known for a stronger, bolder, soul sound, as typified in Motown hits such as "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave", "Nowhere to Run", "Honey Chile" and, their signature song, "Dancing in the Street".
During their ten year run on the charts, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones. Twelve of the Vandellas' songs charted within the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, with six songs charting within the Top Ten including "Dancing in the Street", "Nowhere to Run" and "Jimmy Mack" being their biggest pop chart-toppers.
In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Martha and the Vandellas #96 on their list of The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Martha Reeves, an Alabama-born and Detroit-reared teenager was brought up in the church by her grandfather. While going to school at Detroit's Northeastern High School, she was vocally coached by Abraham Silver, a man who also vocally coached future Supremes members Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson and Miracles member Bobby Rogers. In 1957, the sixteen-year-old Reeves joined fifteen-year-olds Gloria Williams and Rosalind Ashford and fourteen-year-old Annette Beard to form The Del-Phis. The group spent around four years performing in talent shows, high school parties and private events and being trained by future Motown groomer Maxine Powell at Detroit's dance hall, the Ferris Center. During group detours, Reeves formed the Sabre-Ettes and joined the Fascinations before returning back to the Del-Phis who were now recording backup for Detroit musician Mike Hanks.
After performing at several talent shows, the group was signed to the Chess subsidiary, Checkmate Records, with the release of the record, the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know", which was released in 1961. Gaining some attention from Motown after the label bought Checkmate, the group, now under the name The Vels, recorded the Williams-led song "There He Is (At My Door)" while another Detroit singer, Saundra Mallett (future member of Motown group The Elgins), sung on "Camel Walk", the latter on the Tamla label. After those two singles failed to chart, Williams left the group and the group stopped recording while Reeves bided her time working at odd jobs and tended time singing solo at Detroit nightclubs trying to get noticed, usually under the pseudonym Martha LaVaille.
While performing solo at Detroit's Twenty Grand club, Reeves was asked by Motown executive and staff songwriter/producer William "Mickey" Stevenson to come to the label to audition. Reeves unexpectedly took the job of secretary at the label after showing up to audition on the wrong day. Around this time, Martha and her former Vells bandmates Ashford and Beard were recruited to perform background work for Marvin Gaye on his second album, That Stubborn Kinda Fellow. Gaye's first hit records "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", "Hitch Hike" and "Pride & Joy", prominently featured the girls.
In 1962 when Mary Wells missed a recording session to record a song Stevenson had written, he recruited Reeves to sing the song as a demo. Bringing along Ashford and Beard, the trio recorded Stevenson's "I'll Have to Let Him Go". A strong response from the song convinced Motown founder Berry Gordy to sign the Vels to another Motown subsidiary, Gordy, as a professional recording act, on September 21, 1962 after which Martha changed the group's name.
The story about the name change (to Martha and the Vandellas) is a most colorful one. The Van part came from a street that neighbored Reeves' own - Van Dyke Street in Detroit - and the Della part honored Della Reese, Reeves' favorite singer and a Detroit native herself. An alternative account of the name's origins states that Marvin Gaye described the group as "vandals" after their strong backing vocals drowned out his own singing during a recording session, but this would appear to be apocryphal. Coincidentally, several musicologists have noted, "Vandella" is also a French bastardization of an Ethiopian name for a mythical tribe of ghost-walking demons, similar to a succubus.
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, Martha and the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "(Love is Like a) Heat Wave," became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart, where it would stay for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually won the group their first and only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Beard, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelly, formerly of The Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" were two fairly successful singles, although they failed to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK pop singles chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It didn't take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song would also become a million-seller and one of the most covered singles in history and was considered by some as one of the greatest records to come out of Motown.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as hitmakers while the group rivaled with fellow label mates The Supremes for supremacy amongst the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show - they were the second black group overall after the Supremes to perform on the show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts.
By 1967, Martha and the Vandellas had been one of the most successful groups in the Motown roster. However, the label struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Holland-Dozier-Holland that year. Another important Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson had also left abruptly.
After their former collaborators jumped ship, the Vandellas somehow continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of the year, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Motown CEO Berry Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' middle-of-the-road fan base and Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that followed shortly after. The Vandellas' sound (and the sound of many Motown acts with the exceptions of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was infighting amongst the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Betty Kelly was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows and as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes and The Miracles's names to reflect their featured lead singers. In 1969, a bad acid trip caused Reeves to have a nervous breakdown and led to her to be briefly institutionalized in a mental hospital. As a result, the Vandellas temporarily disbanded. Longtime original member Rosalind Ashford refused to return to the group retiring from the business shortly there after working as a nurse. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued in Martha's absence.
Reeves eventually recovered well enough to continue recording with the Vandellas. Upon the return of the group, Rosalind Ashford was replaced by another former member of The Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles well into the '70s, although they couldn't reignite the luster that had made their records palatable in the sixties. Among the closest during the group's late-sixties period to become a hit was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart.
In 1971, the group scored their biggest single in years with the Jackson 5-esque "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" was their first UK Top 40 hit since "Forget Me Not", with the song reaching number thirty-three there. It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting her solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles; when Reeves refused to move, she negotiated out of her deal with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974 and releasing the critically-acclaimed self-titled debut, Martha Reeves. Despite critical rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produce the same success as it had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Baptist, she's remained sober since.
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and also sung background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late-'70s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-six. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Rosalind Ashford and Annette Sterling reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Sterling also sued Motown for royalties. During this, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a contract with Ian Levine's Motorcity Records and issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years before with "Step Into My Shoes". While Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford Holmes, and Sterling, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, Martha sings often with her sisters Lois and Delphine often performing as a solo artist under the bill, Martha Reeves of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and still performs all over the world. Currently holding the eighth seat of Detroit's city council, which she won during an election year in 2005, Reeves often bides time as both a live performer and as a city councilwoman.
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