MARTHA REEVES

NEW

DOCUMENTARY

“MY LIFE - I LOVE IT”

MOTOWN - We made HITS- ….we are all DANCING IN THE STREET,,. MARTHA, STEVIE, SMOKEY, BERRY … GREAT FRIENDS

My Life - Martha Reeves Documentary

Date: 2022

Documentary Summary - excerpts:

Martha Reeves .........says:  the first official Martha and the Vandellas recordings....

"I'll Have to Let Him Go."..

“ I'm in the A&R department minding my own business, answering the phone and this was like three months into my employment. I worked nine months as a secretary. 

One day, panic was stricken at the front door. "The union man's coming! The union man's coming! Martha, go in the studio and sing this song." 

"What song?" 

"Sing this song." 

"What's the name of it?" 

“I'll Have to Let Him Go”, and Mickey sings a little bit of it for me. Berry had been given rules that he could not record any music unless there was an artist on the microphone. 

The union man made a surprise visit trying to catch Berry off guard.  

I did a good job to the point where, when Berry heard it, he said, “Put this out on her. She sounds good on it”.

Martha and Marvin Gaye…….with Martha and the Vandellas, ....

As Del-Phi's we sang behind Marvin Gaye on "A Stubborn Kinda Fellow," in the days of four tracks. That was how all the singers were recorded - at the same time on one mike. 

When this man pulled that hat off of his head, those glasses off his eyes, and that pipe out of his mouth, we looked at somebody who was as fine to me as any movie star could ever be. 

He reminded me a little bit of Sam Cooke, who I met briefly before he was killed. A very good-looking young man - and he could really sing. We didn't know he was a singer, I didn't know he was a singer. I just thought he was a drummer, a session drummer. 

It was then, that Marvin Gaye was discovered. 

A couple of months later he married Berry's sister, Anna.

Martha heard Marvin Gaye the drummer first? he was a drummer at Motown because he could do that, he could play drums. Marvin came there with Harvey Fuqua to be a singer. He just had to wait his turn to sing.

Martha called her friends do the session with Marvin Gaye. 

Martha says.... “it was my job to call the different artists and the singers, Mickey Stevenson liked our harmony right away and considered us as artists for the company right away.