Were there really no Vandellas allowed at Martha's Walk of Fame ceremony?
Printable View
Were there really no Vandellas allowed at Martha's Walk of Fame ceremony?
Lois was there. Maybe Roz & Annette couldn't afford to go as they live in Detroit. Remember, if it wasn't for Martha there never would have been any Vandellas.
If the Vandella world happened to Ross and the Supremes, it would be endlessly talked about.
But as is acknowledged in Will You Love Me Tomorrow, it doesn’t matter much in the other groups that there were dislikes abd problems because there weren’t enough hits or a big enough star
LOL, okay.....Quote:
Originally Posted by motony
Recently, Martha has said some rather unkind things about the Vandellas particularly Roz and Annette. I think it’s safe to say they weren’t invited nor did they want to attend
The star should have read “Martha & the Vandellas” so I can understand their desire not to be there if they weren’t included in the honor.
I'm personally shocked that this honor doesn't include The Vandellas. When I think of Martha, the first thing that comes to mind is Martha & The Vandellas -- specifically, Martha, Betty & Rosalind -- the nucleus version of The Vandellas during Motown's 1965-1966 hits heyday.
Be careful or you'll get your own ghetto.:rolleyes: :p
The call and response was pretty strong on songs like Heat Wave. However, there definitely were some at Motown that downplayed the background members of the groupQuote:
Originally Posted by Philles/Motown Gary
But that was what we remember of them - the 3 or 4 or 5 of them together
There's the age old argument; there would be no Vandellas without Martha. Blah blah blah. The opposite is more likely the case.
Love Martha, but man, she got this so wrong.
I wondered if Martha's son and family were there for the ceremony?
YES, they sure were. Many photos of Martha with Eric.Quote:
Originally Posted by SatansBlues
Mickey Stevenson only invited Martha to Motown, she was singing by herself at the Twenty Grand. In '62 when Mickey needed backgrounds for Marvin Gaye, Martha went & got the other girls. It was her doing that they became the Vandellas on Marvins first 3 hits.Quote:
Originally Posted by marybrewster
Anybody spotted hiding behind Martha's OTT hat ??
Thank you!
The lead and call is what made Martha Reeves a success. Thankfully she had Nettie and Roz and later Betty to uplift her vocals. Otherwise she would have been signed as a solo, which Berry Gordy had no interest. When Martha "disbanded" the group and made plans for a solo career, she was sadly dropped from the label. Oh well.Quote:
Originally Posted by motony
All of these lead singers and background singers are beloved by the fans and remembered and fans emotions run amokQuote:
Originally Posted by marybrewster
Objectively, I would say that many casual music fans have no clue who the background singers were. But objectively I would also say several singers, Martha included, were hitless without their Vandellas etc
I venture to say the same about Ms Ross!
Unfortunately, Lois was not there either.
Indeed, my sentiments exactly!Quote:
Originally Posted by Philles/Motown Gary
The proof is in the pudding. Martha didn't have one single hit without the benefit of the Vandellas. Had she gone on to superstardom like Diana, or Gladys, or Smokey, or Michael, I could see how she could have a solo star.Quote:
Originally Posted by jobeterob
Make no mistake, I adore Martha. I've met her several times, and she's always been lovely. But girl, please.
This makes logical sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by marybrewster
And I believe a star was given to the Miracles - so it could have been given to the group.
All in all, these stars are becoming of questionable value - from paying for them to raising money for a celebration
Yet it attracted Berry and Smokey and Mickey who seemed to widely celebrate it
I would not say Martha was hitless as a solo star. She did chart with "Power of Love" on the BB Hot 100 and soul charts and with "Love Blind" and "Higher and Higher" on the soul charts. And she did get air play in later years for "Wild Night".
Don’t mean to be harsh - but she was basically hitless and the songs you mentioned were not hits by hardly anyone’s definition.Quote:
Originally Posted by Motown1050
If that’s the basis for giving the star, then there are thousands and thousands of people qualified to get one or buy one.
Now it’s a different story when we are talking Martha and the Vandellas where Martha was the major part - that work warrants a star.
Well, truth be told, the star should have gone to Martha and the Vandellas as that was the act that had the hits. But here's a list of all the stars. Some of these names are pretty obscure and there are a lot of near forgotten stars [[unless one is a major show biz history buff) and some odd ones as well.
https://walkoffame.com/browse-stars/
Ok given that list Martha can have her star and the Motown alumni were happy.
It doesn’t change her treatment of her band mates
But as I’ve said several times, go read Will You Love Me Tomorrow and you’ll see while Martha and the Vandellas don’t like each other, every other group had intense dislikes, fights, alcoholics, addicts, abusive husbands and managers and got ripped off by the record companies.
As someone in the book suggests, too much attention is paid to the Supremes because they had the hits and they had a star. Beyond Florence passing at a young age, most of the other groups did much worse and got along at least as badly.
As I said in a previous posting, the star should have been Martha and the Vandellas. This completely ignores the Vandellas part in the hit records. They were not the run-of-the-mill girl group. I wouldn't call them a girl group at all, they were too agressive, their call-and-response singing too gospel/r&b to be a girl group. I don't consider the Supremes to be a girl group either.
I've seen both grouping of Vandellas several times, and I've enjoyed Roz and Annette better than Lois and Delphine. It seems to me that Roz and Annette come out as Vandellas - the ones that backed Marvin so aggressively. And I don't think Martha cares for that. I've seen the Vandellas practically tip-toe around Martha in concerts, as Martha can be very mercurial.
I don't think anyone has pointed out yet that when they were inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame a couple of decades ago, the honor went to the group and not to Martha herself.
As it should have been. Martha gets kudos for "insisting" that all of the Vandellas got inducted, yet the process is that Martha doesn't get final say, the Rock Hall does. I say she pushed for all the Vandellas, simply to include her sister Lois, whom I adore. The problem with that theory though is that Sandy was not included.Quote:
Originally Posted by daviddesper
There were no Vandellas there, and i'm sure Martha wanted it that way, I went, I was happy for Martha, and disappointed at the same time, because when people pass her Star, a lot of them will say, who's Martha Reeves ? someone will have say, she was the lead singer of Martha and The Vandellas. No one knows who Martha Reeves is, but the world knows who Martha and The Vandellas is, and that's a fact.
That’s a fair commentQuote:
Originally Posted by REDHOT