Marvelettes: Motown Unreleased

[kenneth]

@RanRan79, yes "Secret Love Affair" is one of the songs Gladys sang for Levine. I believe there were just 2 albums, "Marvelettes Now!" and a "Greatest Hits" which as I recall had some tracks from "Now!" and some newly recorded tracks.

Gladys' vocals were flawless. If anything, her voice improved a lot over the years. Wanda had vocals on "Now" but none on the "Greatest Hits" package that were new. Her voice was still good and certainly recognizable as being her, but I think the ravages of her personal life and struggles with drugs did affect her voice a good deal.

Some of Levine's stuff is okay. I remember one track I liked sung by Wanda was "Holding On With Both Hands" which had echoes of "Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead" and "I'll Keep Holding On" in the lyrics. The biggest problem with Levine's productions were the very pedestrian arrangements, the lack of imagination and the overuse of the same old drum machine backing tracks. To me, that makes the albums almost unlistenable, as much as I love both Wanda and Gladys.

Just my opinion, but I think much had to do with the Marvelettes lack of standing at Motown over the years. I even think some of it had to do with their name, which evoked more of a 50s girl group than a more contemporary name might have. It also seems, at least amongst the girl groups at Motown, that they had more internal problems [[at least unrelated to personalities as in the Supremes) because of Wanda's personal demons. They seemed to lack ego-driven problems, and certainly there never seemed to be any feud between Gladys and Wanda to share leads. It's a shame they couldn't have survived longer but they did have a good [[nearly) 10 year run and a number of great albums as their legacy.