Martha Reeves - Wild Night & Power of Love - Live!

[copley]

Martha Reeves - Wild Night & Power of Love - Live! [[well live-ish)

[motony]

never understood why MCA did not give this LP major promotion.Martha was GREAT!! "Wild Night" should have been the first 45 from the LP, because it had HIT potential. "Power of Love" was a strange choice for the first 45 because it had already been a hit for Joe Simon. The above was from that local Michigan show, correct?

[copley]

Yes motony, the details are in the description.

[Roberta75]

Wild Night shouldve been a #1 hit for Dr Martha Reeves. Such an amazing song with great lyrics and sang superbly by the First Lady of Motown Records.

[mowest]

Martha did a great job on “Wild Night.” Van Morrison, who wrote the song, had a Top 30 hit with it in 1971. Both versions are top notch. Martha’s entire album is terrific. It should have been a big hit.

[BritishTony]

Wild Night is a standout track on an amazing album. Not a single dud track in an impressive range of styles. I’ll never understand why this album did not do so much better. Martha has never been in better voice. In her autobiography Martha says the recording went so far over budget it drained the promotional funds. One of the great tragedies of recorded music. For me this entire album never dates and today still moves and inspires me. For all the magic of her huge Motown hits this album cements the massive talent of Miss Martha Reeves in musical history.

[BayouMotownMan]

Indeed Wild Night should have been the debut single. Power of Love is an ok album cut but that's it.

The problem with MCA was Martha, apparently. When they signed her back in 1973, her contract with Motown was still running. They had advanced almost a quarter of a million dollars to buy Martha out of her contract plus money for living expenses. By the time the lp was finally issued the debut single had done little to activate interest in her and despite her making national tv appearances to promote it, MCA had only a small budget left for promotion. The company lost quite a bit of money on her. Also, Martha found that MCA was quite different from Motown when it came to advances and the like. She was soon cut from the company after the lp failed. There was certainly enough interest to have a followup with Richard Perry which should have done better. Had the relationship endured Martha would have eventually gotten the hits given to the Pointer Sisters later on.