Barbour County native Martha Reeves (1941- ) is a singer best known for her work with the group Martha and the Vandellas (called Martha Reeves and the Vandellas between 1967 and 1972). At the center of Motown’s success in the label’s 1960s heyday, she was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1964 for the hit song “(Love is Like a) Heat Wave.” Martha and the Vandellas recorded more than a dozen hit singles, including “Dancing in the Streets,” “Nowhere to Run,” and “Jimmy Mack.” She was inducted into both the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
Reeves was born in Eufaula, Barbour County, on July 18, 1941, to Elijah Joshua Reeves and Ruby Lee Gilmore Reeves. Her family moved to Detroit, Michigan, within a year of her birth; she was one of 11 siblings. As a child, Reeves and her siblings grew up singing in the choir at Detroit’s Metropolitan AME Church, where her grandfather was pastor. Reeves attended Detroit’s now-defunct Northeastern High School, a school previously attended by Motown Records’ founder Berry Gordy.
After graduating from high school, Reeves performed locally in Detroit, both as a solo singer under the name Martha Lavaille, and for the girl groups The Fascinations and the Del-Phis, the latter of which Reeves co-founded. In the early days of the Del-Phis, “girl groups” such as the Shirelles, the Crystals, and the Chantels were tremendously popular. As a prize for winning a contest, Reeves secured some privileged solo performance slots at the famous Detroit club The 20 Grand. There, after seeing Reeves perform, William “Mickey” Stevenson, an executive from the artists and repertoire (A&R) team at Motown Records, invited Reeves to visit Motown. She did so soon after but wasn’t immediately given a contract, or even an audition. Almost immediately, though, she made herself essential to the label by answering the phones and doing other administrative work to help bring order to Motown’s A&R department.
When Reeves first came to the Motown Records’s famous “Hitsville, USA” headquarters on Detroit’s West Grand Boulevard, the label was just beginning to emerge as the cultural phenomenon it would later epitomize. At the time, artists like The Miracles (later known as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles), Marvin Gaye, and the Temptations were recording their early works. During Reeves’s time at Motown, the studio would reach the height of its fame, releasing an unprecedented number of hits from artists including the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, and, after gaining a record contract, Martha and the Vandellas.
Soon after her arrival, Reeves earned a chance to record. In 1962, she and the other members of the Del-Phis, Rosalind Ashford, Annette Beard, and Gloria Jean Williamson, sang backup vocals on the Marvin Gaye songs “A Stubborn Kind of Fellow,” “Hitchhike,” and “Pride and Joy.” After the success of these recordings, Stevenson offered the Del-Phis a chance at recording a single of their own, the 1962 song “You’ll Never Cherish a Love So True (’Till You Lose It),” credited under the name the Vells.
When singer Mary Williams missed a recording session, Reeves was asked to step in as lead vocalist. Out of this session came Martha and the Vandellas’s first credited single, “I’ll Have to Let Him Go.” Afterward, Martha Reeves, Rosalind Ashford, and Annette Beard signed on with Motown Records.
In 1963, Martha and the Vandellas’s second recording, “Come and Get These Memories,” became their first hit song. Later that year, the group released the hit song “(Love is Like a) Heat Wave,” which would reach number one on the R&B charts and would be nominated for a Grammy Award in 1964. Notably, this was Motown’s first Grammy nomination. Both “Come and Get These Memories” and “(Love is Like a) Heat Wave” were written by the renowned songwriting trio Lamont Dozier and the brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and are among the team’s earliest compositions.
In 1964, Martha and the Vandellas released what is arguably their most famous song, “Dancing in the Street,” which reached number two on the Billboard charts. Written by Marvin Gaye, William “Mickey” Stevenson, and Ivy Jo Hunter, the song would become one of Motown’s anthems. It has since been covered by dozens of artists, including The Mamas and the Papas, The Kinks, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, Phil Collins, Van Halen, and the Grateful Dead. Released at the height of the civil rights movement, the song became an anthem for the civil rights and Black Power movements. In 2005, the National Recording Preservation Board at the Library of Congress added “Dancing in the Street” to the National Recording Registry for its cultural significance.
In the ensuing years, Martha and the Vandellas produced a series of hit records, including “Wild One” in 1964, “Nowhere to Run” in 1965, “My Baby Loves Me” and “I’m Ready for Love” in 1966, and “Jimmy Mack” in 1967. “Nowhere to Run,” “I’m Ready for Love,” and “Jimmy Mack” were all written by Motown’s iconic Holland-Dozier-Holland team.
Martha and the Vandellas have often been contrasted with Motown’s other hit girl group, The Supremes, who rose to fame at around the same time. Led by Diana Ross, the Supremes had 12 number one hits and dozens more songs that made the charts. The Supremes were the most successful girl group of their time. In contrast to the Supremes’s distinctive pop sound, critics have noted that Martha and the Vandellas offered an edgier soul sound.
When the Vandellas disbanded in 1972, Reeves continued to record as a solo artist. Her most notable solo recording was a 1974 cover of Van Morrison’s song “Wild Night.” Her version features prominently in the 1991 film Thelma & Louise. Throughout the years, Reeves has frequently toured to perform her hits from the 1960s.
In 1994, Reeves released the memoir Dancing in the Street: Confessions of a Motown Diva. In 1995, she was inducted into both the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and, with the Vandellas, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A lifelong resident of Detroit, Reeves served one term on Detroit’s city council between 2005 and 2009. In 2019, Reeves was awarded with the Alabama State Council on the Arts Distinguished Artist Award. That December, Reeves (with the Vandellas) was one of several renowned Alabama artists who performed at a concert in Montgomery commemorating Alabama’s Bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of Alabama statehood, and sang “Dancing in the Streets.”
