Vintage Vandellas [[Martha/Betty/Rosalind) Interview!

[mojoman]

at 7:33
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZFhwPNd5Q

[blackguy69]

very cool i believe this was done just before Betty was fired.

[theboyfromxtown]

I love the question to Betty.........8.50 GULP!!

[soulballad]

I feel bad for Betty here, she seemed so ill at ease and nervous. I guess tensions were high. I know she and Martha were having issues but I wonder what things were like between Her and Roz?

The one thing about the Supremes [[good and bad ) is that we get a glimpse of their personalities we don't get that with any of the other Motown female groups. What were they really like together other than singing together? Some might consider it gossip I don't. Coming from a family with lots of aunts and female cousins I know how it can get. Ms.Birdsong has even said that in her experience female groups don't last very long. As evidenced with the Three Degrees and En Vogue [[the list goes on and on)we know things can get real ugly. The male groups are NOT exempt either btw!

[marybrewster]

Ms.Birdsong has even said that in her experience female groups don't last very long. As evidenced with the Three Degrees and En Vogue )the list goes on and on)we know things can get real ugly.

The Three Degrees? To this day they are still touring Japan; getting more gigs than any other girl group I know of. And members Helen and Cynthia have been working together since 1976; almost 40 years? Seems to me they've outlashed and outlasted everyone.

[marybrewster]

It was pretty uncomfortable watching the interview. The body language alone suggests that Betty and Roz are shy. Martha on the other hand exudes nothing but confidence.

The questions were pretty lame too. "What's your favorite Supremes song?" LOL.

[theboyfromxtown]

Reach Out I'll Be There says Martha

LOL

[carole cucumber]

....The questions were pretty lame too. "What's your favorite Supremes song?" LOL.

Interviewer:
"If you had to pick one particular song from the whole of the Motown range, you know, be it by the Four Tops or the Supremes, which one do you think you'd take?"

Martha:
"Reach Out by the Four Tops."

[RossHolloway]

Does anyone know the exact details of Betty's firing? We all know why David Ruffin and Florence Ballard were dismissed from their groups, but I've heard very few details about why Betty and Roz were fired from the Vandellas.

[marv2]

The Three Degrees? To this day they are still touring Japan; getting more gigs than any other girl group I know of. And members Helen and Cynthia have been working together since 1976; almost 40 years? Seems to me they've outlashed and outlasted everyone.

Those are not the same 3 women that started out together. Also, Fayette Pinkey is said to have been treated even worse than Florence Ballard.

[soulballad]

The Three Degrees? To this day they are still touring Japan; getting more gigs than any other girl group I know of. And members Helen and Cynthia have been working together since 1976; almost 40 years? Seems to me they've outlashed and outlasted everyone.,

You are kidding right? Shelia Ferguson has nothing to do with them and the late Fayette left the group a looong time ago because of issues. The Three Degrees today are much like the FLO's. Both Helen Scott and Valerie were replacements. Valerie Holliday was the only one apart of the classic line up. What Ms. B said appears to be spot on!

[BigAl]

The Three Degrees is more an institution than a group of specific individuals and no original 1963 members are presently performing with them. The one with the most seniority is Helen, who did a couple of years in the middle '60s and then re-joined in 1976. Valerie joined sometime in the late '60s and has remained since then so by all rights she could possibly be accorded that distinction rather than Helen. Cynthia joined in 1989 and left in 2011, replaced by Freddie Pool, formerly of the FLOS, so today's lineup is Valerie, Helen and Freddie. The group has had many, many more members than even The Supremes, which is likely why the group has endured for over 50 years. To my view, the best groupings were Valerie, Fayette Pinckney [[an original 1963 member) and Sheila Ferguson under the aegis of Gamble & Huff, and Valerie/Sheila/Helen under Giorgio Moroder, but all the groupings have been great. Here's a list of who's come and gone:

Helen Scott
Valerie Holiday
Freddie Pool
Fayette Pinkney
Linda Turner
Shirley Porter
Janet Harmon
Sheila Ferguson
Sundray Tucker
Sonia Goring
Miquel Brown
Vera Brown
Rhea Harris
Victoria Wallace
Cynthia Garrison

[carole cucumber]

Does anyone know the exact details of Betty's firing? We all know why David Ruffin and Florence Ballard were dismissed from their groups, but I've heard very few details about why Betty and Roz were fired from the Vandellas.

In 'Dancing In the Street: Confesssions of a Motown Diva', Martha sets the scene. A hasty ill-fated marriage to a hunky gentleman [[and soon to be shown to be a freeloader) named Wiley is swiftly annulled. Shortly thereafter, someone slips some LSD into Martha's champagne at a private discotheque.
"After that episode, my relationship with Betty began to deteriorate very rapidly. For whatever reason, Betty clearly began to resent me. She would be sarcastic and sharp between shows. Onstage gestures that were once choreographed routines with swing arm motions had now turned into what looked like karate moves. Instead of concentrating on my performance , I was distracted by her insolence.
Our friendship was becoming strained, and the anger that I began to feel toward her nearly spoiled one of my show business high points. We were on a local Philadelphia television show along with the gracious Sammy Davis, Jr. I wanted so badly to be at my best when I met Sammy, but Betty chose that show to do everything that she could to antagonize me.
The whole mess was further complicated when Betty started an affair with Tracey Wright and I began one with David Walker . Two girl group members dating two members of the band! I was also aware of the fact that David already had a girlfriend named Cynthia, who lived in Los Angeles. When we would play there, she would show up at the gigs and I would eat my heart out with jealousy. Betty would hang this over my head for effect.
My problems with Betty continued to grow. It had gotten to the point where we barely spoke to each other. There was an icy limousine ride between the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey into Philadelphia to appear on the Mike Douglas Show. Wenny Brown, who was Florence Ballard's cousin, started an affair with David. I was so stunned by this news that I forgot the words to 'Les Bicyclettes [[de Versailles) on national television. Wenny had been our hairdresser for a couple of years by now, and she and Betty had banded together to mutually antagonize me. I'd had it with her, too. The two of them would share private jokes at my expense. It was during that limo ride that I decided to get rid of both Betty and Wenny. This was the last time I wanted her touching my hair!
Since I felt that the next development in our relationship was going to be violence, in June of 1967 I directly confronted Betty. I told her that I couldn't put up with her onstage sabotage and her offstage sarcasm. This had to end, and I informed her that it was time she did something else with her life. It was getting impossible to keep up the artificially happy outer appearances. She was already pregnant with Tracey Wright's baby, so everything was really getting complicated. She was very mad at me at the time, but years later we were to bury the hatchet. She actually thanked me for having fired her when I did. It seems that she had lost partial hearing in her left ear from standing so near the bass amplifier. 'I might not have been able to hear my baby cry had I continued' she told me."

[soulballad]

"My problems with Betty continued to grow. It had gotten to the point where we barely spoke to each other. There was an icy limousine ride between the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey into Philadelphia to appear on the Mike Douglas Show. Wenny Brown, who was Florence Ballard's cousin, started an affair with David. I was so stunned by this news that I forgot the words to 'Les Bicyclettes [[de Versailles) on national television. "


Did the Vandellas perform this more than once on MD? The episode that I have seen where she forgot the words was with Lois and Sandra. I felt bad for her too as it seemed she was going through something. Performing always with a smile can be extremely stressful.


A little off topic I think someone slipped Wanda Young a "mickey" as well! Oh boy I am showing my age here. Haha. Some say that Florence Ballard was also a victim of this. When I saw Whitney acting up before she died I thought the same thing happened to her. For those who don't know a "mickey" or "Mickey Finn"was slang for a drug [[Chloral hydrate )that people would commonly slip into a persons drink in the 60's and 70's to make them flip out.

[reese]

"My problems with Betty continued to grow. It had gotten to the point where we barely spoke to each other. There was an icy limousine ride between the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey into Philadelphia to appear on the Mike Douglas Show. Wenny Brown, who was Florence Ballard's cousin, started an affair with David. I was so stunned by this news that I forgot the words to 'Les Bicyclettes [[de Versailles) on national television. "


Did the Vandellas perform this more than once on MD? The episode that I have seen where she forgot the words was with Lois and Sandra. I felt bad for her too as it seemed she was going through something. Performing always with a smile can be extremely stressful.




A little off topic I think someone slipped Wanda Young a "mickey" as well! Oh boy I am showing my age here. Haha. Some say that Florence Ballard was also a victim of this. When I saw Whitney acting up before she died I thought the same thing happened to her. For those who don't know a "mickey" or "Mickey Finn"was slang for a drug [[Chloral hydrate )that people would commonly slip into a persons drink in the 60's and 70's to make them flip out.

I think Martha was confused re LE BICYCLETTES. I've only seen the episode where she sang it with Lois and Sandra.

Most likely a similar thing happened during a performance with Betty. But considering she said it happened on a local Philadelphia show, I don't think it was the Mike Douglas show. Even though his show was filmed in Philly, it was nationally syndicated. And Sammy Davis, Jr. wasn't on the episode where it was sung with Lois and Sandra.

So reading her book, I think it was actually two separate incidents: a bad local show with Sammy, and later, an icy limo ride to do the Mike Douglas show.

Re Wanda, It has been suspected that a mickey was slipped to her. It was written about in the book on the Marvelettes. I thought that it might be addressed in their UNSUNG episode but it wasn't.

[carole cucumber]

Did the Vandellas perform this more than once on MD? The episode that I have seen where she forgot the words was with Lois and Sandra. I felt bad for her too as it seemed she was going through something. Performing always with a smile can be extremely stressful.<strong>

It's at 10:09 here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBovc8MFYjE

My guess is that Martha has remembered the "forgetting' episode, but has placed it in the wrong time frame and has even forgotten the exact title of the song. The song is actually Les Bicyclettes [[de Belsize) and that is what Martha sings.
As the song was popular in 1968, it's likely that this was the only time Martha performed it on Mike Douglas- although i would love to be proven wrong.

[carole cucumber]

.........
Re Wanda, It has been suspected that a mickey was slipped to her. It was written about in the book on the Marvelettes. I thought that it might be addressed in their UNSUNG episode but it wasn't.

Wanda also mentions it in J. Randy Taraborrelli's 'Motown Hot Wax, City Cool & Solid Gold'.
"You're out there and people are cruel to you", Wanda Rogers said emphatically. "That's what I learned from being a Marvelette. I've seen it all- people dropping poison in your drink so that you don't realize it when your mind starts cracking up and leaving you. That's the kind of stuff that happened to blacks on the road when we were coming up."

[marv2]

I think Martha was confused re LE BICYCLETTES. I've only seen the episode where she sang it with Lois and Sandra.

Most likely a similar thing happened during a performance with Betty. But considering she said it happened on a local Philadelphia show, I don't think it was the Mike Douglas show. Even though his show was filmed in Philly, it was nationally syndicated. And Sammy Davis, Jr. wasn't on the episode where it was sung with Lois and Sandra.

So reading her book, I think it was actually two separate incidents: a bad local show with Sammy, and later, an icy limo ride to do the Mike Douglas show.

Re Wanda, It has been suspected that a mickey was slipped to her. It was written about in the book on the Marvelettes. I thought that it might be addressed in their UNSUNG episode but it wasn't.

That local Philly show would have been the Jerry Blavats Show. I've seen film of Martha, Betty and Roz performing on Jerry's show.

[marv2]

Here's the show from Philly that Martha & the Vandellas appeared on in 1967 while Betty Kelly was still in the group. Check them out starting at approx. 3:50 into this clip:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNNk1Zx9VFY

[theboyfromxtown]

My French better half has never heard of a place called Belsize in France - he does know Versailles. Does anyone else know.

I only know of Belsize Park in North London

[marybrewster]

The Three Degrees is more an institution than a group of specific individuals and no original 1963 members are presently performing with them. The one with the most seniority is Helen, who did a couple of years in the middle '60s and then re-joined in 1976. Valerie joined sometime in the late '60s and has remained since then so by all rights she could possibly be accorded that distinction rather than Helen. Cynthia joined in 1989 and left in 2011, replaced by Freddie Pool, formerly of the FLOS, so today's lineup is Valerie, Helen and Freddie. The group has had many, many more members than even The Supremes, which is likely why the group has endured for over 50 years. To my view, the best groupings were Valerie, Fayette Pinckney [[an original 1963 member) and Sheila Ferguson under the aegis of Gamble & Huff, and Valerie/Sheila/Helen under Giorgio Moroder, but all the groupings have been great. Here's a list of who's come and gone:

Helen Scott
Valerie Holiday
Freddie Pool
Fayette Pinkney
Linda Turner
Shirley Porter
Janet Harmon
Sheila Ferguson
Sundray Tucker
Sonia Goring
Miquel Brown
Vera Brown
Rhea Harris
Victoria Wallace
Cynthia Garrison

Clearly my point was missed. Thank you BigAl for articulating what I was trying to.

[marv2]

Clearly my point was missed. Thank you BigAl for articulating what I was trying to.

What was your point? The Three Degrees have been no more stable as a group than the Supremes were. In fact, the Three Degrees had more replacements and groupings than the Supremes. Like someone else said, they are now more like what the FLO's are........

[marv2]

The Three Degrees? To this day they are still touring Japan; getting more gigs than any other girl group I know of. And members Helen and Cynthia have been working together since 1976; almost 40 years? Seems to me they've outlashed and outlasted everyone.


That is not true! Helen Scott returned to the group, the Three Degrees in late 1976 replacing Fayette Pinkney.

Cynthia Garrison did not join the group until very late 1989 -90. So no she and Helen Scott have not been working together since 1976 or nearly 40 years however way you'd like to look at it!

Cynthia Garrison is no longer with the group by the way.......

[marv2]

The Three Degrees? To this day they are still touring Japan; getting more gigs than any other girl group I know of. And members Helen and Cynthia have been working together since 1976; almost 40 years? Seems to me they've outlashed and outlasted everyone.

The Shirelles with Beverly Lee and the Crystals with Dee Dee Kinnebrew are still performing and both groups have been around longer than the 3 Degrees if you are strictly talking about female singing groups.

[theboyfromxtown]

The Three Degrees? To this day they are still touring Japan; getting more gigs than any other girl group I know of. And members Helen and Cynthia have been working together since 1976; almost 40 years? Seems to me they've outlashed and outlasted everyone.


May I mention the Velvelettes please - the only Motown group that still performs with original members.

[stingbeelee]

Yes Sir! You may mention the wonderful, marvelous and vivacious Velvelettes!!

[Motown Queen]

Wanda also mentions it in J. Randy Taraborrelli's 'Motown Hot Wax, City Cool & Solid Gold'.
"You're out there and people are cruel to you", Wanda Rogers said emphatically. "That's what I learned from being a Marvelette. I've seen it all- people dropping poison in your drink so that you don't realize it when your mind starts cracking up and leaving you. That's the kind of stuff that happened to blacks on the road when we were coming up."
I read about this. I wonder if Wanda saw something at Motown she wasn't supposed to see and... hmm, that accident was just totally suspicious to me.

[marybrewster]

Thank you SDF for the "block" button. It helps weed out the idiots on this board who want to bitch and bully, just for the sake of listening to themselves, or rather, to stir up shit. You are pathetic, and you add nothing to the conversation.

And that's all I have to say about that.

[marv2]

May I mention the Velvelettes please - the only Motown group that still performs with original members.

Of course the Velvelettes! Who are much more enjoyable to watch and listen to than the Three Degrees today in my opinion!

[RossHolloway]

Did anyone else catch Martha saying that she and the Vandellas were living in New York? And that they were sharing an apartment [[with a fourth lady). Why would Martha & The Vandellas have been living in NYC?

[blackguy69]

i think she said while they were doing the copa engagement, they were staying in an apt.