Big Martha and the Foxy Vandellas

Once a body has gone beyond the half century point it becomes less necessary to contemplate the proverbial navel. This BLOG has gone to great pains to – with few exceptions – avoid even the use of the first person pronoun. What makes that easier, i.e. avoiding navel contemplation and first person pronoun usage, is that after decades of living that which was contemplated, admired or pursued will comeback in one form or another as a reflection of one’s life.

One such recent example was the report of Martha Reeves in the New York Times on her ascension as a member of Detroit’s City Council.

Elected on a platform of improving public safety and making Detroit a more attractive tourist destination, Ms. Reeves said her top priority was protecting the city’s police and fire departments from further budget cuts.

The sound of Martha & the Vandellas enhanced the experience of raging adolescent hormones. The music, e.g. in “Heat Wave” erupted in a glorious way and helped put Motown on the musical map as early as 1963.

Now as a member of Detroit’s City Council:

Ms. Reeves becomes particularly passionate when she talks about using Detroit’s musical heritage to draw in tourists. She would like West Grand Boulevard, one of the city’s main thoroughfares and home to the original Motown Records studio, to be renamed for Berry Gordy, the Motown label founder.

This is a quite interesting point given her final experience at the label as Nelson George records:

… For a moment she’d been at the top of the world; now, she was just one of many second bananas. Martha’s demands for better treatment did nothing but cause hostility …As she said in 1974, “Berry took his personal time to tell me, ‘You can’t run my record company’ and I said, ‘No. And you can’t either." And then he really got mad at me … I retaliated where other people would be quiet. I speak.” She told writer Gerri Hirshey that, during the late sixties, “I think I was the first person at Motown to ask where the money was going.”

…By 1968 Martha’s isolation from Motown’s hierarchy was profound. As her recording sessions dwindled and she found herself being put on hold by employees to whom she merely a name on a greatest hits collection, the vulnerability that lay beneath her worldly exterior sent her into depression …

Martha’s sound was “urgent” and pulsing in those early years when she made her impact on the burgeoning adolescent world of the Sixties. The impact was felt across the sea by the likes of the slightly older Dusty Springfield who developed a long lasting friendship with Reeves which helped introduce the sound to another culture.

Martha had more than one musical achievement after leaving Motown, most notably the Richard Perry produced album, yet she never enjoyed the spotlight as she did then.

Detroit’s new Council member was once the toast of at least two continents. Reeves is now a mature 64 years old and by virtue of survival in an often perilous business has achieved legendary status. She would like to think that her new position was achieved because her message to the voters was heard. Perhaps it was.

Perhaps she got there because she was once the leader of those “foxy Vandellas” with the earthy voice. If that had been her only success, it would have been noteworthy. Navel contemplation notwithstanding.

Happy Black History Month.