Marvelettes: Motown Unreleased

[sup_fan]

yeah it seams that motown really stopped investing in them pretty early on. I wonder if there were any other behind-the-scenes issues. Gladys is an amazing singer - loved her on the early work and would have loved to hear how she developed as a soul singer as the years progressed. I like Wanda but sometimes her falsettos is grating to me, just my opinion. So long as they limited her headvoice, i do love her smokey vocals.

I understand that once the Sups and the other big groups hit hard by late 64, those groups that were at B level, struggled to move up. But it seems motown lost interest in the group well before this. once Martha hit in 63 it seems no one at motown cared about the Marvelettes and they immediately went onto back burner. seems premature IMO

[RanRan79]

yeah it seams that motown really stopped investing in them pretty early on. I wonder if there were any other behind-the-scenes issues. Gladys is an amazing singer - loved her on the early work and would have loved to hear how she developed as a soul singer as the years progressed. I like Wanda but sometimes her falsettos is grating to me, just my opinion. So long as they limited her headvoice, i do love her smokey vocals.

I understand that once the Sups and the other big groups hit hard by late 64, those groups that were at B level, struggled to move up. But it seems motown lost interest in the group well before this. once Martha hit in 63 it seems no one at motown cared about the Marvelettes and they immediately went onto back burner. seems premature IMO

Sups I'm not a fan of 99 percent of the Ian Levine stuff and refuse to collect much of it or research any of it. But I once bought a compilation set of cds during a sale my job was having. The set included Barry White's No Limit On Love [[my main reason for purchasing), and a live Sound of Philadelphia cd, which was a more recent recording rather than a 70s recording as I had hoped. The set also included a compilation cd of- if memory serves me- classic girl groups. I believe the cd ended up being Ian Levine recordings. Anyway, one of the songs was the Marvelettes "Secret Love Affair", which sounds like Gladys on lead. If so, she was great. Her voice had aged very well and based on her sound I don't think there is any good reason why Gladys couldn't have forged a respectable career in r&b post Marvelettes. I actually think with some remixing for radio, "Secret Love Affair" could have made some noise. As it is, it's one of a handful- and I do mean handful- of songs from the Motorcity camp that I actually like.

As for Wanda, I agree with you 100 percent. Wanda doing those high notes is annoying as hell. I'm so glad that Smokey helped her find her groove because she developed into a wonderful vocalist under his direction.